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Comment by forsatellite | Hacker News Reader

No need to overthink it. USB cables should just label themselves with their bandwidth - it's not rocket science. Lots of other kinds of cables have a similar requirement. And I guess their maximum watts too. Admittedly I'm not sure why so few USB cables do this.

I'd very much rather not have a new connector shape every time the technology improves and devices and cables gain new capabilities. The benefit of where USB-C is at, is the new stuff is backwards compatible with previous generations. The complaints in the early years - about one connector, unpredictable capabilities - were wrong. It took time for this benefit to accrue.

Also all the version numbers and brand names have been confusing, but the bandwidth is just a single number that goes up each generation and covers most of the issues now. There are just a few edge cases this doesn't cover these days.

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Most USB C cables do have a label, but it's an electronic one. Desktop and mobile OSes could do a better job of surfacing this information for the user.

Or they could simply be labelled.

In this way, I would be able to see (using the advanced, integrated bionic vision system that I've carried with me and used every day I've been alive) what it is that I have before me instead of plugging them in one at a time to some electronic oracle to try to discern the details of the invisible magic inside.

Do they really? Even on linux, I can look at what bandwidth a device is connected with using lsusb, but there is no way to tell if a low speed is a limitation of the device or the cable. It just displays the speed that was negotiated considering all factors. I've never found a way to get information about a cable digitally.

There are a handful of dedicated devices that will read the eMarker, eg https://www.amazon.com/s?k=USB+emarker

A recent HN thread announcing a Mac app that can read them along with discussion on alternatives: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47972511

Very cool, thanks!

> USB cables should just label themselves with their bandwidth

Article: "MacBook Neo’s two USB-C ports look identical. One is 20× faster."

The anti-UX designers have escaped from the web design containment dimension and started to ruin the physical world. I didn't mind at all the different colors on ports for USB 2.0, 3.0 and the unofficial teal 10 Gbps USB 3.x (whatever revision) etc.

The most infuriating part is that the USB-IF actually designed those labels already!

The graphics already exist[0], and they are quite clear about what the cable is able to do. Manufacturers just... can't be bothered?

[0]: https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb_type-c_cable_log...

Oof now I've actually looked at this link and... they did manage to make it confusing: There's an official label for 5, 20, 40, and 80Gbps... but the official label for 480Mbps is, "just don't show any value." And that's the most common USB-C cable you'll find new, even today.

>No need to overthink it. USB cables should just label themselves with their bandwidth - it's not rocket science.

And yet, this requirement already misses the other thing it should state: it's power rating. Because even two cables with the same bandwidth can have widely different power rating, and thus powering capacity or charging speed for different devices.

I have no respect for a man who can't label a cable with more than one figure.

Don't take this comment too seriously, just a curiosity.

Powering capacity sometimes matters, but are there any devices out there where the charging speed would be meaningfully different? As in, they use significantly more than 60 watts to charge? (I looked up some of those super fast charging phones and they don't seem to be following the USB standards in the first place.)

> but are there any devices out there where the charging speed would be meaningfully different? As in, they use significantly more than 60 watts to charge?

Any device which can charge at 100W or more? Like lots of laptops, as well as my ebile batteries?

> Like lots of laptops, as well as my ebile batteries?

Soldering irons can benefit from being able to peak above 60W when heating.

They certainly can.

A dainty little USB-powered Pinecil v2 can peak at ~126W with appropriate firmware and an EPR 28v PD 3.1 power supply. It's an impressive feat. :) (And, yes, it requires a USB cable that is e-marked for 240W before this is allowed to happen.)

That said: 28v EPR is a bit usual. A more typical configuration runs on 20v USB PD at no more than ~64W, like a cheap, genuine [safe], used 65w Lenovo laptop charger cheerfully provides.

The question was about charging.

"Lots of" laptops? Upon searching a bit harder I think the 16 inch macbook pro can probably do it. Most laptops that can hit 50% in half an hour don't have a big enough battery to charge at much over 60 watts.

Ebike is interesting.

> Upon searching a bit harder I think the 16 inch macbook pro can probably do it.

The 16" MBP can charge at 140W over USB-C since the M3 (before that it's limited to 100W over USB-C, Magsafe was required to hit 140), the 14" can charge at 100W (specifically 96W) over USB-C: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102378

Framework's 16" can charge at 85W (1C on an 85W battery), and it can also pull 160W from the charger under load (possibly under load + charging).

Getting clear infos from Dell is impossible but it looks like a number of laptops are provided with 130W chargers, and their "ExpressCharge" is apparently a bit under 1C, so their 96Wh battery expresscharge laptops likely charge around 85W (and require 130W chargers to do so).

etc...

I don't see anything about charging at 140W on that apple page. I do see it saying 50 percent in half an hour which is a lot less. For the 16 inch that's near 100W, for the 14 inch with an almost 70Wh battery that's about 70 watts.

I guess 85W is enough to make a difference from 60W, but it's pretty close.

> and require 130W chargers to do so

Only if that's a weird artificial requirement, no way charging is only 60% efficient.

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