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Comment by DanielHB | Hacker News Reader

My inlaws were trying to transfer files to a PC from their phones with one of these non-data cables. Even my somewhat tech-savy partner didn't know non-data cables.

I taught them the trick about feeling the cable stiffness, I showed them a type-c cable without data vs one with data vs thunderbolt3 type-c. They just couldn't understand why it wasn't working until I showed them there was a physical and tactile difference in the cables.

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Wild that the best way to tell what kind of USB cable you've got is the equivalent of knocking on a melon to see if it's ripe.

Why? When electronics don't work the first thing I do is hit it kinda hard, same as the old days.

Relevant SMBC: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/halting

In usb-a cables you can actually see the pins themselves missing looking into the connector from the outside; in usb-c not so much (or at least i could not really see anything there). I could never figure out how to determine a no-data usb-c cable, though I have only even seen one anyway.

The problem with stiffness etc is that there is already a lot of variability on usb-c cables, though there could definitely be something there that I just did not notice.

I just bought a tester from Treedix. It's a small board with a bunch of USB connectors (host side has 3.0 A, 2.0A, C, device side has micro-B, lightning, mini-B, 3.0 micro-B, C, and 3.0 B), a CR2032 coin cell, and a bunch of LEDs that light up when there's continuity for that link. So you can see when a cable has a USB-C connector but only USB-2.0 D+ and D- lines and CC vs one with the extra differential pairs. Faster than trying to mess with a breakout board & a multimeter.

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