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USB-C Was Supposed To Simplify Our Lives. Instead, It's a Total Mess. (medium.com) 155

USB-C is near-ubiquitous: Almost every modern laptop and smartphone has at least one USB-C port, with the exception of the iPhone, which still uses Apple's proprietary Lightning port. For all its improvements, USB-C has become a mess of tangled standards -- a nightmare for consumers to navigate despite the initial promise of simplicity. From a report: Anyone going all-in on USB-C will run into problems with an optional standard called Power Delivery. The standard allows devices to charge at a much higher wattage relative to older connectors, therefore allowing them to charge faster. But it requires the right combination of charger, cables, and device to actually achieve this. If you buy a USB-C charger that doesn't support Power Delivery and try to use it with a Microsoft Surface, for example, the laptop will complain that it's "not charging" despite receiving some power. Fixing this requires figuring out whether or not it's the cable or wall charger that doesn't support Power Delivery, and replacing it with something that does support it. There would be no way for a layperson to hold two USB-C chargers and know the difference between one that supports Power Delivery and one that doesn't.

Furthering the confusion, some devices actually can't be charged with chargers supporting Power Delivery, despite sporting a USB-C port -- because they weren't designed to negotiate the higher wattage being delivered by the Power Delivery standard. A pair of cheap Anker headphones I own, for example, refuse to charge when plugged into a MacBook charger. Other devices, like the Nintendo Switch, only partially support the standard, and some unsupported chargers have bricked devices, reportedly due to the Switch's maximum voltage being exceeded. Then there's DisplayPort and Thunderbolt, another set of standards supported by some USB-C devices. DisplayPort allows the use of an external display, such as a 4K monitor, but only supports one at a time at full resolution. Thunderbolt, yet another optional standard, is a much faster layer on top of USB-C that allows additional possibilities, like the use of multiple displays daisy-chained from a single port, or the use of an external graphics card. It uses the exact same connector, but can be identified with an additional "lightning" symbol when supported.

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USB-C Was Supposed To Simplify Our Lives. Instead, It's a Total Mess.

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  • is it a mess? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @02:29PM (#60512146) Journal
    It works ok for me. On the times I've come across a problem device, I find a cable that works and then I'm done with the problem.

    I guess if I'm not soldering I don't consider it a problem.
    • Re:is it a mess? (Score:5, Informative)

      by lessSockMorePuppet ( 6778792 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @02:34PM (#60512174) Homepage

      It's trickier than micro USB but it's not an outright mess, and USB-C's plug is better, and wattage for PD is incredibly handy.

      I'm fine with continuing the move to USB-C. I've got an Anker power bank that can charge my devices for a week. I just keep 3 cables: 1 USB-A to micro USB, 1 USB-C, and 1 (for friends, not for me) USB-A to lightning. I have the anker 30W charger and an 18W charger I got got $5 bucks at wally world.

      Besides the laptop (if you have a MBP, USB PD will power it), my needs (and some for friends) are entirely handled by those 6 items, for all my devices.

      • Re:is it a mess? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @02:55PM (#60512256) Homepage
        Funny, all that is missing is USB-A to USB-C. In case (all of) your new charger(s) breaks and you need to fall back to that old one sitting in a drawer, our the USB-A port on you desktop, or on your UPS (yep some come with USB charging ports now), or the one on the back of your smart TV.
        • Amazon B07LBPMZV5 on my keychain, Micro, C, and lightning from USB A
          I have two- really useful in multiple situations...

        • I dont understand why there's such a mess here either. USB-C seems fantastic because it works with everything. Every charger I have plugged into my MBP charges it, though some slowly (and sometimes at a rate that doesn't sustain the current %), none have strait up not worked.
      • by edwdig ( 47888 )

        A lot of the problem is the first mainstream USB C device for a lot of people was the Nintendo Switch. The Switch's implementation doesn't quite meet the USB standard. Some early Switch accessories weren't aware of where it didn't meet the spec, and could occasionally damage the Switch. Using chargers that came with other devices could sometimes damage the Switch as well.

        Other early USB C devices had similar issues, but generally weren't mainstream devices. So people's experiences were mixed.

        I looked into p

    • Great. Guess we can stop worrying about this then.

    • Re:is it a mess? (Score:5, Informative)

      by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @03:27PM (#60512356)

      Come on. It's better than any alternative but it's still a mess. The problem is that when you have a cable and two devices, you don't know what's going to happen when you connect them without reading the specs first.

      My tablet will charge with USB-PD, but my mom's won't. Mine does DP alternative mode but not hers. My tablet would charge from thisUSB-PD charger, but not that one. What would happen if I connected my Windows tablet to a phone? Or the tablet to the other?

      If you're luckly, it'll mostly do what you expect, but since there are so many things it can but doesn't have to support, you never know for sure. Unfortunately, I think that's inevitable. Otherwise if you require that everything supports every feature, it'll make things way more complicated/expensive.

      • by sjames ( 1099 )

        That might be forgivable if letting the magic smoke out wasn't one of the possibilities.

        • That's not one of the possibilities though. I mean maybe some dodgy Chinese devices that don't follow the specs could explode, but the same could be said about USB-A or anythign else. If you try to use a USB-PD charger with a device that doesn't support it, it will just fail to negotiate a higher voltage and nothing will happen.

          • by sjames ( 1099 )

            I recall an earlier story that most such devices were vulnerable to having malicious firmware uploaded just by plugging them in (no need to crack the case, short any jumpers, or other things that might look suspicious) and so cause them to go to the highest output voltage no matter what the device asks for.

            The Nintendo Switch is called out in TFA and TFS as possibly smoking.

          • it will just fail to negotiate a higher voltage and nothing will happen

            I understand that no one reads TFA around here, but not even the summary? FFS:

            some unsupported chargers have bricked devices, reportedly due to the Switch's maximum voltage being exceeded

            I don't think that Nintendo would much like being called "Chinese", much less having their product described as 'dodgy'.

    • For the lazy user (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @05:08PM (#60512690) Homepage

      Title: Is it a mess ?

      For the lazy user who can't be bothered to *read* the description on the mandatory label, but just plugs stuff that roughly look alike ("it has USB on both sides"), yes it is a Mess. Due mostly to their own doing (and also a bit due to lack of clear marking set by USB standard).

      Simple gadget charger will have "5V 3A" only. USB power delivery (PD) and/or USB2 QuickCharge will give a list or range of voltages: "5V 3A, 9V 3A, 12V 2.5" or "2.4-19V 3A". Devices are also labelled in a similar fashion. Such power labelling are mandatory in lots of jurisdictions and thus most electronic devices carry them. Even if the device has a good voltage regulator and doesn't actually care much what the input voltage is as long as it is low -- some of the old devices labelled 9V will happily take anywhere between 6V and 12V pm their barrel connectors and their voltage regulator will happily drop that to the 5V used by their circuits (Warning: that's not all of them).

      The only differences between now and back in barel connectors era is:
        - Back then if you didn't pay attention at matching the charger and the device you could burn the device (too high voltage from the power brick) or melt the charger (the device pulls more amps that the max rating of the power brick). (my Minidisk was the only device able to detect overvoltage, disconnect the charging circuitry and display an error message on the screen).
        - Nowadays, if you don't pay attention at matching the charger and the device, both can actually perform negociation and if they can't agree on power, they'll gracefully handle the discrepancies and display an error message (Ideally it should be a bit more clear to the end user. Instead of "no charging" it should be more explicit "this device require USB Power Delivery, but the plugged in adapter only provides 5V")
      (Nintendo Switch is the exception but that's Nintendo's fault for producing a crappy device that doesn't follow standards, not USB PD's fault).
        - Back then, 6V, 9V and 12V where all extremely popular in addition to all the rarer voltage, meaning that it would be very easy to match the wrong pair of device/charger.
        - Nowadays, with the exception of laptops, everything can do 5V. So unless you're trying to charge a pro gaming laptop out of a phone charger, everything WILL charge, even if at a slower speed.

      Same goes with the other extra functionnality:
        - every base function can at least speak USB2 and USB3.
      So even if you need to match the display functionnality (Display port, HDMI, Thunderbird, etc.), the base USB functionnality will always work the same.

      • by Calydor ( 739835 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @05:13PM (#60512708)

        You wrote an entire screen-length about HOW TO CHARGE A BATTERY.

        The system is a mess.

      • To me, USB C looks like SCART. A good idea in theory, but not that good in practice because of the various possible incompatibilities. Pretty much the only thing you can reasonably be sure about is CVBS and audio. Anything else depends on the cable and the devices that may or may not be compatible with each other. I do not particularly like the connector either (both SCART and USB C)

        As for the voltages - USB made people think that "oh, it's USB, so ti has to work". And it did with the previous generations.

        • At least the USB-C can be inserted in both ways, no need to rotate the connector like it was in old connectors.

          • by kwalker ( 1383 )

            Was that really a problem though? Every member of my family and friend group, technical and otherwise, had no problem plugging in a micro-USB cable. None even complained about it. It was good for exactly one meme about a "superposition" in the USB connector. Now I get complaints about having to replace all their USB cables and/or carry extra cables because half of their devices use USB-C and half use micro-USB.

      • by sjames ( 1099 )

        There is an added confusion though. With USB-C, it is usually OK to connect the device that says 9V to the charger that says 5-20V, but sometimes it isn't. From the user's POV, the charger said 5-20V, the device said 9V which is neatly between 5 and 20. So why the smoke? In other cases, device says 5, charger says 5-20, yet plug charger into device and nothing happens. User is understandably confused since charger works with other devices and device works with other chargers.

        Life might be like a box of choc

    • One of the biggest headaches with USB-C is when it comes to higher powered laptops and docking stations. Case in point -- some higher end graphics workstation and gaming laptops require a 130W or 180W or even 240W power brick, so they still need a conventional power adapter, rather than a USB-C powered charger. Most USB-C docks I have found ONLY work properly when they have an external power adapter plugged into them, rather than strictly pulling power from the port. When plugged in this way, they also tr
    • by dszd0g ( 127522 )

      The original post and article don't even go into the different power capabilities of cables other than mentioning power delivery.

      Standard USB-C Type-C supports 5V@3A or 15W.

      With USB power delivery (PD) 12V and 20V are also supported at up to 5A. (12V@3A = 36W, 20V@3A = 60W, and 20V@5A = 100W). As the article mentions, there does not seem to be any logo or marking to be able to tell if a cable supports PD.

      Some Thunderbolt 3 cables support 60W and some support 100W. They both have lightning bolts with the num

    • Let's generalize the observation in the summary: Industry Consortium Based "Standards" Supposed to Simplify Our Lives, Instead They're a Total Mess.
      The goal here is never about making things easy for the actual users, it's about making sure consortium members make more money and non-members are left out in the cold. USB was a hack way back in 1.0. It was useful to be sure, but it's definitely got much more of a "Get 'Er Done" feel to it than a "Do It Right The First Time" feel. And whoever designed the

      • The software industry (and apparently the hardware industry is moving that way) has given up on elegance en masse. A lot of them don't even know what that means.
  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @02:30PM (#60512154)
    right there
    "with a Microsoft Surface"
  • All this article does is complain that the author doesn't look at what they buy before, you know, buying it.

    You can plug anything into a wall outlet, but if you bought a cardboard box expecting it to contain a blender but did not bother to read what was printed upon that box, don't be surprised when you find a vacuum.
    • by vakuona ( 788200 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @02:54PM (#60512254)

      This is what I like to call the "fix the user" argument. That users need to become better at navigating the world of inconsistent electronic and computing standards.

      Can you imagine if the same was true of your regular wall power outlet i.e. if you had to research the voltage and current draw of every outlet before plugging in.

      This is not a user problem, but a design problem. USB-C should have a minimum standards that at least does what 99% of users expect it to do. Any implementation not meeting that should not be allowed to use the ports or to identify as USB-C.

      • by binarybum ( 468664 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @03:03PM (#60512284) Homepage

        Agree. And if there are different modes that a single tech can run in, make it as compatible as possible but make those modes transparent as the thunderbolt designation did successfully.

      • by amorsen ( 7485 ) <benny+slashdot@amorsen.dk> on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @03:30PM (#60512372)

        It does have minimum standards, in practice. Practically every charger and cable will do 5V 2A.

        The problem is that 5V 2A covered 99% of uses 2-3 years ago. Today, not so much.

      • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

        by bws111 ( 1216812 )

        Yeah, can you imagine if there were 'lamp' extension cords and 'appliance' extension cords that had the same plugs and sockets but wildly different current capacity? Oh, wait.

        • The only place where this is a serious issue is with really long extension cords which are only maybe good to 10 amps because they use 16 or 14 ga wire.

          Mostly it's a non issue because a true lamp extension cord doesn't have a ground pin socket, and I'd bet most don't even have a wide socket for the "hot" pin. Even the cheap ones with 3 prong sockets will be unlikely to start a fire with a 1500-watt type appliance.

          Plus with mains power you also have circuit breakers.

          • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            The only place where this is a serious issue is with really long extension cords which are only maybe good to 10 amps because they use 16 or 14 ga wire.

            Mostly it's a non issue because a true lamp extension cord doesn't have a ground pin socket, and I'd bet most don't even have a wide socket for the "hot" pin. Even the cheap ones with 3 prong sockets will be unlikely to start a fire with a 1500-watt type appliance.

            Plus with mains power you also have circuit breakers.

            Not really. Lamp extension cords have been

        • by torkus ( 1133985 )

          Uhm...

          - They're labeled by current rating, in amps, without
          - Anything over 15A has a different physical plug
          - 20A sockets allow 20A or 15A plugs but 20A plugs don't fit 15A sockets
          - A 3-prong (grounded) plug will not go into an ungrounded receptacle
          - Anything *not* 110-120V has a different physical plug
          - Anything above 20A has a physically different plug

          There's no mystery communication between the outlet, extension cord, and your toaster based on 17 different standards implemented in different ways at diffe

    • by bhcompy ( 1877290 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @03:39PM (#60512408)
      The problem is that there's lots of junk out there that is mislabeled. This happens with HDMI cables all the time. We need better enforcement of standards.

      Secondarily, we need color coded connectors to help with what to do after you bring it home. You've got a hodgepodge of cables from different manufacturers that all support different things and they aren't reliably stamped with what they're actually capable of. Unfortunately, the USB-IF decided that going away from color coding was the right idea because they're a bunch of fucking idiots. Why not color code them? PD connector? Blue. DisplayPort(which implies PD)? Red. etc etc
  • by ageoffri ( 723674 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @02:31PM (#60512162)
    I've lost track of how many USB-C devices I have between my family. Never once have I had a problem charging a device or data transfers. None of my friends have ever complained either. While it is anecdotal evidence everyone I know loves the simplicity of USB-C from the reversible plug to higher power to faster data transfer.
    • by pele ( 151312 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @02:35PM (#60512182) Homepage

      Reversible you say? So how come my samsung s9 charges slow when plugged in one way and fast the other? Original charger and cable. Pray tell.

      • Your phone could be damaged. It's only reversible if the phone isn't broken. It's not magic but USB-C PD is designed right and works both ways. Either your charger or your phone are broken, the cord itself wouldn't work at all in both directions it was the issue. To some extent your phone may not even be USB PD because Samsung may have said screw it we want to make pele's life difficult and use USB-C with QC which is a proprietary format. This isn't USB-C PD's fault as again the spec is working perfectly.
      • Reversible you say? So how come my samsung s9 charges slow when plugged in one way and fast the other? Original charger and cable. Pray tell.

        A long time ago my aunt had an electric analog/dial clock. Every time the power would go out/on, the clock would start running backwards (you could see the sweep second hand moving counter-clockwise). Simply un/re-plugging it wouldn't fix it, you had to turn the plug over and plug it back in reversed. Electrical devices can be weird.

        • I expect it is an old AC powered clock. I am willing to guess it would go backwards 50% of the time you plug it in and out. depending how where you were on the AC curve.

          • I expect it is an old AC powered clock. I am willing to guess it would go backwards 50% of the time you plug it in and out. depending how where you were on the AC curve.

            Ya, someone explained it once like that, but in more detail, but thought I'd mention it anyway as a case of weird, unexpected behavior, like the post a few up describing his USB-C charger/cable fast charging plugged in one way and slow charging the other way.

          • "I expect it is an old AC powered clock. I am willing to guess it would go backwards 50% of the time you plug it in and out. depending how where you were on the AC curve"

            It must be a very old clock, with a motor directly driven from the AC line.

            I'd expect newer analog clocks to convert and step down the voltage to pulsed DC. In the US, this would give you a nice steady 60hz signal that can be easily/cleanly divided into seconds/minutes/hour pulses (60 each) though surely only seconds pulses would be used in

          • My microwave's turntable still does that. But back when I had an old analog AC-powered clock, it always ran in the correct direction. I presume there are some simple techniques you can employ to ensure motion in a consistent direction if you need to.

      • Reversible you say? So how come my samsung s9 charges slow when plugged in one way and fast the other? Original charger and cable. Pray tell.

        You have a defective part. Either from manufacturing or design. Most likely mfg.

      • Reversible you say? So how come my samsung s9 charges slow when plugged in one way and fast the other? Original charger and cable. Pray tell.

        Bad: phone, cable, charger (pick one)

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Something is broken. Most likely the cable has something wrong with it and isn't passing the data lines through to the pins on one side. It could be the phone or the charger too. Swap out parts until it works.

    • by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @02:57PM (#60512264) Homepage Journal

      This. I mean, there are occasional issues, like the first Raspberry Pi 4 units being defective by design (incorrect pulldown resistors) causing them to fail when connected to actual USB-C power supplies (e.g. Apple's) rather than dumb 5V chargers, but that falls under the category of "product defect", not a problem with the standard.

      And yes, occasionally people get confused wondering why some 12W charger won't charge their MacBook Pro, but that's not the fault of USB-C; it's the fault of the person who decided to buy a 12W charger and use it in a location where laptops could reasonably be connected.

      For the most part, long as you buy USB-C chargers from a well-known company (e.g. Anker), you'll probably never run into any problems.

      Unfortunately, there is one very large and particularly egregious exception. AFAIK every Apple USB-C power supply ever built lacks support the 15V profile, even though they support the 20V profile. That is technically not compliant with the USB-C spec, as I understand it, and it means that any device that can't handle 20V and requires more than 9V will refuse to charge.

      If you're choosing a power supply to buy in a non-Apple household, steer clear of Apple (though their charging cables are, IIRC, some of the most compliant out there).

      • And yes, occasionally people get confused wondering why some 12W charger won't charge their MacBook Pro, but that's not the fault of USB-C; it's the fault of the person who decided to buy a 12W charger and use it in a location where laptops could reasonably be connected.

        Considering that the available charging wattage is passed over the data lines, it's about time devices started telling you whether a charger is underpowered and by how much.

        • by sconeu ( 64226 )

          I have a device with a completely dead battery. How, pray tell, is it supposed to inform me that "CHARGER IS UNDERPOWERED BY 15 AMPS"?

    • Try to use one of those cables with a Dell that does DisplayPort over USB-C and see what happens. That's the problem
    • I've lost track of how many USB-C devices I have between my family. Never once have I had a problem charging a device or data transfers. None of my friends have ever complained either. While it is anecdotal evidence everyone I know loves the simplicity of USB-C from the reversible plug to higher power to faster data transfer.

      Same here.

      On the charging side I tend to simplify it by using my laptop's charger for basically everything. The charger provides 90W, the cable handles it, and the device takes whatever it can. Everything charges pretty fast, so I rarely have a need to connect more than one device at a time, but if I do I have a couple of high-quality USB-C to USB-C cables that I connect to my laptop. Everything just works, reversibly, seamlessly. I have 3A chargers in the cars. They charge stuff much more slowly, but eve

  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @02:33PM (#60512172)

    What I would love to see, is a diagnostic box I could plug any USB-C cable or device into, and get a sense of what it supported, or did not support.

    Take for example power supplies bricking things by exceeding voltages. You could plug a charger into it, the device would say how much power was being delivered, and if the charger obeyed aspects of the standard that delivered lower power.

    For cables, you could plug both ends of the cables into the device, and it would tell you what you could realistically plug that cable into. Does it support power only? Data transfer? If so, what kind of rates without falling down?

    If such a thing exists would love to hear about it. Doesn't seem like it would be expensive to make, just take a lot of effort to carefully pour over the USB-C spec to properly determine how the device should act and what it should try and report on.

    • These boxes exist, but they are not yet economical. I'd bet that we wind up with cheaper versions of this device in the next year or so. https://www.thedebugstore.com/... [thedebugstore.com]

      We will also probably wind up with a software solution. As of today, most OSes let you read the transfer speeds and PD wattage information on your machine, but it does not diagnose "which part is the bottleneck" questions.

    • by Misagon ( 1135 )

      USB power meters already exist, but which you would plug in-between the charger and the device being charged.
      They tend to have Ampere- and Voltage-meters (to calculate Watt) and can sometimes make a qualified guess of which charging protocol is being used. Some even have a tiny screen that can show power usage over time.

      But I don't think any of them actually tests any end to see what it supports. Nor do they check the data lines, and they may not even forward any but the USB 2.0 data l ines.
      Most of them are

      • This post does point to one aspect of the problem with USB - the loose terminology employed, even by the clueful.

        The version of the spec supported by the device doe not imply a particular speed.
        A USB 1.x device MUST support low speed, and MAY support full speed.
        A USB 2.x compliant device MUST support low speed, and MAY support full speed or high speed.
        I haven't checked the 3.x specs, but if the pattern holds, it MUST support low speed, but MAY support full, high, or super speed.

        You can have a completely USB

  • I just helped my wife move her macbook pro from one room in our house to another. She had an external monitor that she's been using for some time that we moved as well. We moved it, plugged everything back in, and all of a sudden her mbp doesn't know how to talk to the monitor. The widescreen 24" samsung now only accepts 4:3 resolutions. We rebooted the laptop with the adapter plugged in, and that made no difference. We power cycled the laptop and the monitor separately, and that made no difference eit
    • by martinX ( 672498 )

      Next steps: try another computer with the Samsung. Try another monitor (or TV) with the MBP. Try another TB cable.

      Does the Samsung only accept 4:3 from the MBP or everything?

      • Does the Samsung only accept 4:3 from the MBP or everything?

        Last week the Samsung happily took 16:9 ratios from the MBP, as it was supposed to. Then this week we moved them and now the MBP swears the Samsung is a 4:3 monitor. Nothing changed at all; the cables are all the same between the monitor and laptop that used to work together correctly. When the Samsung is given a 4:3 ratio from the MBP it either stretches it to a stupid ratio or puts black bars on the side.

        The point is this should not happen. Nothing changed and all of a sudden the MBP no longer re

  • It is but isn't a total mess... Basically there is the base spec, and optional add-ons. There just happens to be several optional add-ons now. PD, DP-Alt-Mode, VirtualLink, TB3... and honestly, that's all I can think of off the top of my head? There are a few variants of each, mostly in terms of bandwidth. For PD there are different power deliveries, but anyone who has ever owned a laptop most likely knows that there are small 40w netbook power adapters and there are large 240w power adapters that have the

    • by skids ( 119237 )

      Well it's good that USB-C has worked out for most people. As to the mess... entirely predictable. We make this mistake repeatably:

      Step 1) Shave pennies off the per-unit cost by substituting a "consumer grade" standard for an existing one (IDE for SCSI, USB for Firewire, etc.)
      Step 2) Ship poor-performing products that cannot function properly given the limitations of the cheap-shit bus protocol.
      Step 3) Add a few features to make the bus faster, less contended, less latent, or more isochronous.
      Step 4) Add a

    • by bhcompy ( 1877290 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @03:45PM (#60512442)

      The USB-C cable just replaces the plug, not the overall adapter of design thereof. Same goes for DP-Alt-Mode and VirtualLink, there are different specs for bandwidth, just like HDMI and DisplayPort have different specs for bandwidth to handle higher resolutions and refresh rates.

      Those power bricks are labeled because of some very specific labeling requirements for certification across different countries [hackaday.com]. USB-C cables are not labeled with shit. They're not even color coded.

  • by mdpowell ( 256664 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @02:44PM (#60512212)

    The Anthony dollar would be a perfectly good dollar coin if it weren't so similar in look/feel/weight to a quarter. A reversible higher-power USB cable is a great improvement on micro-usb, but why did it have to wait until after mico-usb was ubiquitous? They are too close in size and easily confused.

    Micro-usb finally ended the era of needing to carry around a separate charger for every little device. Now with USB-C I have to carry (and risk losing or not having) micro-to-c adapters everywhere.

    The charging and data transfer issues are the spoiled icing on the already burnt cake.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I wish someone made a USB C socket that fit the same PCB pads as common micro USB sockets. Then you could upgrade your old devices.

  • by Guybrush_T ( 980074 ) on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @02:45PM (#60512214)

    Did USB-C succeed as a high speed connector with a relatively small form factor compared to USB 3 ? Yes.

    Did USB-C succeed as a mechanically robust connector ? Yes.

    Did USB-C succeed as a universal connector for data, supporting both host and client ? Absolutely.

    Did USB-C succeed as a universal power connector for phones, tablets, and all sorts of gizmos ? So far I'd say yes although being slightly larger than micro-usb it's not clear whether it will eventually 100% replace it.

    Did USB-C succeed as a universal power connector even for high-power devices like laptops ? Impressively so, but this is actually pretty new territory, and this is where the issues can come from, given there are pretty huge constraints on the cables and chargers which mean that old or cheap cables might not work well there. There will probably be a second round of terminology standardization (with wattage levels, or something similar to Cat 5, Cat 6 ... for Eth cables or SD Card speed classes) to better define different levels of power, so that devices would only need to mention "Needs Cat X USB cable", or "needs 20 W USB or higher".

    • Disagree with USB-C being mechanically robust. Iâ(TM)ve wrecked cables and also fried a macbook usb-c port with a splash of water on the laptop.
      • Well, nothing is unbreakable. But compared to micro-USB, it is, in my opinion, a significant improvement.

        • by caseih ( 160668 )

          Sure but Apple's lightning, albeit proprietary, was better in this regard.

          The problem with all the usb standards is that little breakable piece in the middle of the jack. If a little lint or dirt gets in it and you're not careful to clean it before putting in the cable, it can break.

  • Just produce reliable and cheap USB C hubs which multiply USB C devices. This is totally unacceptable that one has to pay huge prizes to get something like that. Most hubs just translate into standard USB. Apart from that it is a good interface. Having not to worry about the orientation of the plug is a huge deal.
  • For all the new features of USB-C, there should have been a new appellation. Using USB just confused the whole mess.
  • With several USB C devices, they loose the connection click.

    Both the plug side and cable side get "worn out" sometimes.

    Sometimes it's lint, sometimes it's a mystery.

    This never occurred with micro

  • A 'good enough' USB-c power supply for a phone can't drive a higher powered device.

    A higher powered USB-c power supply works for the higher powered device and the phone.

    The high powered device won't drive a weak USB-C power source to bad state, just won't do anything. If it could then you'd have an argument for things to be like IEC standard, where the source plug style implies what would be considered an overload condition.

    • Yeah, but how much of this is about some extra knowledge and logic you have acquired about these devices. To average Joe Public it is a dizzy mess. People stop trusting themselves to look at a cable and know what it can do or what it's for.. If it's USB-C it should do X... But it actually does X, sometimes Y or sometimes Z, sometimes X+Y or X+Z, But never Y+Z. It's actually worse than that though... So people stop believing their cable can do anything other than what the plug, the cable and the device can
    • I have two high powered chargers. One works fine with thr phone, the other with the tablet. Both work with either when I put an USB-C to HDMI/USB adapter with USB-C passthrough between the device and the cable.

  • A couple years ago I got a new Laptop it had a USB-C Port which I never used until a few months ago, when I upgraded my phone and it used USB-C.
    Everything else I have is mostly still USB-A

    • by cowdung ( 702933 )

      Yeah and it's super annoying that several laptops come with nothing but USB-C. Especially the Macbooks. Adapters are no fun.

  • These "USB-C is a disaster!" articles only get written because people read them. I went fully USB-C in 2017 with my purchase of a pair of sony wirless headphones; my nintendo switch, phone, tablet, personal and work laptops already all charged off of USB-C using PD (power delivery, it's an optional part of the spec).

    So long as your USB-C device explicitly calls out PD support it ought to work just fine. I've never had an issue charging my nintendo switch or any other device using an Anker usb-c PD charger,

    • by amorsen ( 7485 )

      The Nintendo Switch is (mostly) fine with any random charger, but the docking station is extremely picky.

  • The high-power "fast charge" version that still looks like the rectangular connector is also a problem. (I get contradictory info on the formal name of it.) A friend of mine accidentally tried to plug the wrong end of their Galaxy phone adapter into it, a big spark burst forth, and it crashed the PC. Fortunately the PC rebooted, but that USB port is toast. It's an easy mistake to make. It's a potential fire hazard and risks damaging computers and phones.

    Couldn't they have the circuitry verify a proper conn

  • If you buy a USB-C charger that doesn’t support Power Delivery and try to use it with a Microsoft Surface, for example, the laptop will complain that it’s “not charging” despite receiving some power.

    The only valid complaint here is that the error message should more accurately say it is "charging slowly." But bad error messages isn't a new problem. It is not valid to complain "I bought a 1 amp charger and it did not charge my 4 amp device very quickly." Sorry, but the idea that the charger has to match the device is not new. The fact that it works at all is a decent fallback. These are the same issues we had with USB 2.0 and micro-USB connectors.

    TLDR below -- Huaweu and OnePlus chargers do proprie

    • by martinX ( 672498 )

      Second time in consecutive /. posts I have seen this link. First one was the "Microsoft wants to create a single mobile platform that provides a consistent set of work and play services" post and now this. XKCD called it then, now and into the future.

  • I have a DAC that has a USB-C port. But plug it in to a USB-C port with a USB-C cable and it doesn't work. Plug it in with a C to B cable in to a hub hooked up over USB-C and it works.
  • New ThinkPad laptops have two C ports. One has Thunderbolt and one does not. Sure there is a tiny Thunderbolt logo next to the one with it, except they combined it with a proprietary Ethernet adapter connector so it looks like one long connector instead of two. Combine that with the fact virtually no end user has even heard of Thunderbolt and when you mention it they usually confuse it with the lightning connector. When someone complains about flickering monitors it's usually because they plugged the Thunde
  • When you buy a decent type-C dock, almost all hardware works out of the box. Even better than what I had before.

    With a single cable, it is possible to have high powered charging, dual display port connection, USB downstream connections, Ethernet, audio, and whatnot.
    This previously required specialized docking stations for enterprise laptop models.
    Now you can just buy a Dell dock, and attach a Lenovo device, and things work fine.

    However if you cheap out and buy a broken device, things of course get messier.

If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts. -- Albert Einstein

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