[HN Gopher] USB-C is about to go from 100W to 240W, enough to po...
___________________________________________________________________
USB-C is about to go from 100W to 240W, enough to power beefier
laptops
Author : Tomte
Score : 305 points
Date : 2021-05-26 10:09 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| baybal2 wrote:
| Uh....
|
| Melting USB-C connectors at 65W are already bad enough.
|
| The problem is that there is no way to detect a bad contact, and
| they tend to be.
|
| Few specs of dust, and you have 5 amps going to a single pin.
|
| Even if you have split seconds momentary disconnects, you can get
| welds in contact pads, which will over time degrade the contact.
|
| On other note, Intel may be increasing laptop CPU power budgets
| into 60W-70W territory to counter Ryzen people say. I think it
| makes sense now why they do it.
| OnlyOneCannolo wrote:
| Is it really undetectable? A smarter USB PD controller and
| maybe some extra sensors should be able to mostly avoid that
| problem, no?
| baybal2 wrote:
| No, unless you put a sense resistor on every power pin, and
| add circuitry to individually measure current per pin.
| zardo wrote:
| If the alternative is starting house fires that sounds
| pretty reasonable.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The problem isn't whether reputable manufacturers will do
| it, it's whether the bottom of the barrel cheap cables
| from eBay/Amazon will do it.
|
| The advantage of USB2 is that it's very hard to screw up.
| The design is so simple that even the cheapest cable is
| usualy "okay" because making an "okay" USB2 cable is so
| simple.
|
| In contrast, making a USB-C cable is much more difficult,
| which means unscrupulous manufacturers flood the market
| with bad cables that fail with disastrous side-effects.
| lmilcin wrote:
| "smarter" an "should" are key words.
|
| Not everybody buys the best hardware in class. Most hardware
| is cheap Chinese garbage for which the only qualification is
| that it isn't bad enough to be brought down from Amazon.com.
|
| Go explain your grandma or girlfriend why the charger they
| bought damaged their laptop irreparably.
| nrp wrote:
| Most devices of meaningful value build in USB-C port
| protection parts specifically for this reason. Here's a
| popular one from NXP: https://www.nxp.com/products/power-
| management/load-switches/...
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| I used the charger + cable which came with my OnePlus 7 Pro to
| charge my Samsung Galaxy S8. The cable and port on the phone
| must have melted and solidified into one unit, because the next
| morning I couldn't unplug it. With more force the cable came
| out with the plug damaged and the USB-C male part in the phone
| ripped in half.
|
| I don't think OnePlus makes incredibly high quality & safe
| chargers like Apple/Samsung, but they're not the cheapest
| Amazon garbage either.
|
| This might be a rare issue, but it does happen. Combined with
| the mechanical degradation that USB-C ports go through (not as
| bad as micro-USB, but worse than full size USB-A - A does get
| loose but still makes good electrical contact), I specifically
| looked for wireless charging in my next device and try to avoid
| using the USB port as much as possible.
| zaxcellent wrote:
| I think people are missing the point of supporting this much
| wattage as a USB-IF standard. There are already 130W power
| supplies from Dell, so it's going to happen with or without
| standardization, and I'd rather it happen with. It's also not
| just laptops that might be powered by this. The article mentions
| all-in-one computers like Mac might use this, and I could imagine
| it replacing those awful AC adapters used on monitors with no
| internal power supply.
| nikisweeting wrote:
| Masterful trolling on their part to call it USB-C 2.1.
|
| What a clusterfuck of bad naming, why couldn't they just call it
| USB 4 instead of overloading the existing USB 2.1 version?
|
| https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-usb-blog/us...
| minikites wrote:
| I've never heard a convincing (or even plausible) argument for
| why having identical connectors and cables with different
| capabilities is an advantage.
| [deleted]
| throwawaybchr wrote:
| USB has become pretty confusing.
|
| Is it safe to charge a USB-C phone with a MacBook M1 charger?
| Vice versa? What about fast charging? There was a time when a
| Google employee released a spreadsheet of specific USB
| accessories (chargers, cables, adapters) which were safe to use.
| Is that still relevant?
|
| What if I have USB A to USB C cable, can I charge my M1 macbook
| from my desktop?
|
| Is there some kind of YouTube video or online resource that
| explains how it all works?
| devwastaken wrote:
| This will be great for the Small form factor PC space. If we can
| get mass produced after market 240W power supplies that live
| outside of that would be pretty nice.
| swiley wrote:
| USB-C toaster when?
|
| And since USB-C PD actually requires a micro controller we'll
| finally be able to run netBSD on unmodified toasters.
| [deleted]
| boxcardavin wrote:
| This should be the new standard for ebike charging, or all
| personal EVs like scooters and EUCs.
| basicplus2 wrote:
| The main issue i have is manufactures of equipment to be charged,
| relying on the charger to limit the current being delivered.
|
| This is appalling design, and is a receipe for disaster.
| potiuper wrote:
| I plugged in USB C once and destroyed a new Dell laptop by
| burning out the motherboard. The whole let's mix communication
| and power thing seems like a sketchy way to sell more computers
| and ewaste.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| ... and no one will have the slightest clue what their chargers,
| cables and devices support.
| amelius wrote:
| Simple. The really bulky chargers will be suitable for charging
| laptops. Everything else is for phones.
| meowster wrote:
| If that becomes that standard to judge by, then there will be
| really bulky chargers from China containing lead weights with
| inadequate circuitry.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Isn't that already the standard to judge by? You can
| already buy both small and large chargers from China.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| Approximate all chargers are from China.
| darrenf wrote:
| I genuinely don't understand how I've managed to be so lucky.
| That is, I absolutely do not disbelieve the many tales of woe I
| hear on HN (like the many in this thread) - but I've literally
| never put any thought into what cable I plug in to what device,
| and had no trouble that I can recall. It really had lived up to
| its hype for me so far.
|
| My USB-C devices are: a wireless charger, two MacBooks (one
| intel, one m1), a Pixelbook, Nintendo Switch, Oculus Quest and
| Quest 2, iPad Pro, and the charging case of some earphones... I
| think that's everything. Oh, and my partner's phone and
| headphones too.
|
| Anyway - I've cables and chargers dotted around the house, plus
| some A-C ones for use with power bricks - and never had any grief
| powering/charging any device from any of them. What am I doing
| right? I'm definitely not only plugging Apple devices into Apple
| cables and so on.
| Latty wrote:
| Same deal. I've switched everything I can to USB-C, and so far
| had literally zero issues.
|
| Obviously my phone charger will charge a laptop more slowly,
| but I had that issue with micro-USB and Kindle chargers that
| couldn't charge a phone faster than it used the power, so
| hardly anything new or unexpected.
| topspin wrote:
| "What am I doing right?"
|
| Maybe not buying the cheapest cables available on the bottom of
| the Amazon barrel.
|
| But I can't know that. Maybe you are and your place will burn
| down next week. Who knows.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Its really not as big an issue as the comments make it seem. Of
| the devices listed, I can only think of Oculus Link to a Quest
| 2 using USB3 speeds in a noticeable way.
| sedatk wrote:
| I noticed that a couple of days ago when I was able to charge
| my Surface Laptop with my iPad's USB-C charger. While Surface
| Laptop already has a proprietary charging port, it also
| supports charging through USB-C. Seamlessness of the whole
| experience was very impressive.
| frankus wrote:
| This kind of wattage opens up some non-computing applications
| like charging small electric vehicles and power tools.
| anfilt wrote:
| I still don't understand the point of all this... What is wrong
| with simple barrel connector... It's not like a phone is gonna
| need to draw 240 watts...
|
| Just keeps making the spec more and more complicated...
|
| Also are the small contacts in a USB-C connector even reasonable
| to run with this much current? Is there enough cross sectional
| area on these contacts?
| izacus wrote:
| How exactly am I going to charge my phone, headphones, gamepad,
| tablet and bunch of other devices from a barrel connector?
|
| USB-C has pretty much eliminated forlorn MacBook users
| shambling around our office and looking for another soul to
| give them a compatible proprietary charger. Let's keep it this
| way.
| anfilt wrote:
| None of those devices you listed need 240 watts... That's
| quite a bit power to just trust some protocol to negotiate
| correctly.
| izacus wrote:
| And yet they will charge from the 240W charger all the
| same. Which is what makes the standard great.
| pedroma wrote:
| I use my MBP charger for my iPad and Android phone and it
| works well. Am I in the minority for doing this? Maybe, but
| my guess is not.
| jayd16 wrote:
| What if the rest of the devices charge through the macbook
| at once?
| mikewarot wrote:
| That's arc welding power, 50 volts at 5 amps. I fail to see how a
| connector is going to last more than a few cycles under load.
|
| Also, don't use that near anything flammable.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Arc welding is typically 50-500 amps.
|
| Presumably this would be a negotiated system like USB-PD, where
| only a tiny amount of power is available at connection and with
| pins physically configured to ensure breaking connection in
| order you may be able to shut down the higher power before the
| main contacts disengage).
| mikewarot wrote:
| Inevitably power won't always be shut down first, or strands
| of the cords will break. It feels like we're going to have to
| learn the lessons of UL approved power cords on appliances
| all over again.
| mnouquet wrote:
| You can TIG weld down to 5-10A range...
| elif wrote:
| I mean I like simple standards, but at what point do i have to
| start worrying about my mouse electrocuting me because my cat
| chewed the cable?
| drzaiusapelord wrote:
| I mean your cat could have chewed through your laptop cable
| previously.
|
| Your mouse, if using USB-C, is only going to have the current
| it needs to run. So it'll be super low mw at 5v. Its not going
| to be doing 240w on it. USB power delivery isnt like your wall
| outlets, it asks and receives power depending on the need.
| m463 wrote:
| It could power non-computers too. USB is a defacto standard for
| ubiquitous DC power, but only for small devices.
|
| Now we might have a standard for a broad range of DC devices.
|
| Those USB coffee warmers might actually heat your coffee. :)
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Plus, if you thread the cable through your hot dog, it will be
| warm in time for lunch.
|
| Meanwhile, Apple's M1 chip is showing us that 240 watt laptops
| are the problem, not the solution...
| asdff wrote:
| On the other hand, I would love to use an M1 chip that makes
| use of 240 watts. Could you imagine the power? Give me the
| option to trade efficiency for horsepower. When I hear things
| like "My M1 mac never turns on the fans" I wonder why the
| system isn't clocking higher if the cooling system is running
| so comfortably.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| For most users the M1 is fast enough that a nicer user
| experience (no fan noise) is more worthwhile than slightly
| better performance.
|
| My friend recently purchased a MacBook Air with M1. There's
| no fan at all. It's incredible. It's a block of metal that
| just works.
| asdff wrote:
| I think most users would at least appreciate the option.
| For example, windows has power settings where you can
| adjust the clock of the CPU to however you like when
| plugged in or unplugged. Consider also that gaming has
| never been a silent prospect, on a desktop, or a laptop,
| and especially a game console. The switch is silent, but
| gamers know nintendo is compromising on graphics fidelity
| compared to competitors to make a silent handheld device,
| and it does get hot during use. I don't think people would
| mind if their fans spooled up when they are getting good
| frames at high graphics setting from their games, or at the
| very least had the option to select a more performant clock
| speed if fan noise didn't bother them. Fan noise doesn't
| bother me, I game with headphones like most enthusiast
| gamers. Apple gives you nothing right now like that, that I
| know of.
| djrogers wrote:
| > I think most users would at least appreciate the option
|
| The M1 Macs are the first and lowest-end Apple Silicon
| Macs we'll see. There's a reason they only replaced the
| cheapest devices with them so far - wait until we're done
| with the 2 year transition period and I doubt you'll have
| anything to complain about.
| sib wrote:
| For 20 years (ok, more, really), laptops have not been fast
| enough to do reasonable professional-grade photo editing
| using standard Adobe tools. The complexity of the
| algorithms being applied increases at least as fast as the
| processor power. So, put me down on the side of wishing
| they'd build a SKU that could be optimized for performance,
| rather than only power consumption.
|
| (Sometimes a desktop is not practical, like on a remote
| photo assignment, but there is a power outlet.)
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| The Pro will be out within a few months.
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > why the system isn't clocking higher if the cooling system
| is running so comfortably.
|
| Because there's a upper limit on how much power (voltage,
| clock rate, etc) you can shove though a CPU before it starts
| malfunctioning or getting damaged by purely electrical
| effects, no matter how effectively it's cooled?
|
| It's entirely possible Apple has set the nominal limits
| fraudulently low for business reasons, but there are actual
| physical limits here, and depending on how the CPU is
| designed/optimized, it's quite possible that it's easy to
| build a cooling system that significantly exceeds what those
| limits allow to be demanded of it in a significant range of
| cases.
| croon wrote:
| Having one USB-C dock powering your laptop (maybe with a hungry
| GPU), as well as a couple of monitors with everything through
| just usb-c cables is my hope, and this is one step closer.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Meh, I don't know. This seems a pretty niche usage. You'll
| need a specific USB-C dock to power such a laptop anyway, so
| why not go the route of the Apple thunderbolt displays, with
| a dedicated power connector run through the same sleeve as
| the data one.
|
| In practice, I find the loss of convenience compared to USB-C
| negligible. You still only have one cable hanging around.
|
| Plus, as those are PCs, said connector wouldn't even need to
| be something specific, I suppose a random (big enough) DC
| barrel plug would do and be compatible with different
| manufacturers' products.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Already doing this with my 16" MacBook Pro using a 24" LG 4k
| display. Got a second (much cheaper) 24" 4K display, a couple
| of dongles, and an externally powered USB 3 plugged into the
| back of it.
|
| Paying $700 for a monitor was a bit painful but I have no
| regrets.
| MR4D wrote:
| I had to reread your comment a few times, and then I figured
| out why it was so hard to parse:
|
| For me, my monitor powers my laptop.
|
| More specifically, my two 32" 4K monitors are plugged into
| the wall, and then both have USBC cables into each side of my
| 16" MBP (2019). I keep my MBP power cable in my suitcase for
| when I travel.
|
| I love the setup - only two cables on my desk, and there is a
| nice symmetry about it.
| Tsiklon wrote:
| This is my reality today; My personal set up at home is
| completely centred around a Caldigit TS3+, to which I have
| connected ethernet to my local network switch, a keyboard,
| mouse, headphone amplifier + two monitors.
|
| Feeding the Caldigit dock I have a thunderbolt cable going to
| my laptop (a 2019 Macbook Pro) and i have a second
| thunderbolt cable run from my desktop (A HP Z4 with a
| thunderbolt card) which i can swap in at a moment's notice if
| I need more horsepower or want to play games etc.
|
| Thunderbolt for both computers enables a single cable setup.
| It really is super convenient
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| At which point do we change assumptions about safety of USB
| cables though?
|
| Myself and most people I know always considered USB
| connection to be safe-ish - that is, you can keep the cable
| connected on the supply side, and have the receiver end just
| lie on the desk on the floor, and the worst that could
| possibly happen is some tiny sparking if the stray end
| touches something conductive in a very unlucky way. But the
| more power I see pushed through these cables, the more I
| start to look at them as live wires hooked to mains power.
|
| Additionally, such wattage sounds like a serious fire hazard
| if the cable is damaged, which means the cables themselves
| need to be handled with care. Something that wasn't the case
| with typical USB charging until recently.
| dijit wrote:
| I mean, I share that worry, but isn't the "-PD" part of
| "USB-PD" a negotiation step?
|
| I have very little worry that my carpet can accidentally
| negotiate 60w and up.
|
| I _am_ worried about cheap USB-PD devices that forgoe this
| negotiation as it is complex and expensive to implement.
| szhu wrote:
| Your carpet cannot negotiate a high power, but two
| devices might negotiate a high power while not being
| aware that that the cable has a cut in it and is in
| direct contact with the carpet.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Yeah that's the problem. I've had a bent usb c (from a
| pretty good brand) literally melt into my hands. I'm so
| glad I was using the phone at the time, I don't know what
| could've happened if I wasn't there. The dent seemed
| pretty "small" too, and it was way less damaged than a
| lot of lightning/micro USB cables I've seen and used in
| the past.
|
| What I don't understand is how the cable doesn't have a
| way to detect a short circuit. I'd imagine that a 250
| watts capable cable would have more safety features
| hopefully though.
| jsight wrote:
| I don't think the non-USB-c cables have any more safety
| features to prevent that. I'd be surprised if the USB-C
| ones do.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| The original USB standard was 5V 0.5A, which wasn't going
| to start any fires.
| [deleted]
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| There's the cheap devices but even more worrisome are
| cheap, possibly not up-to-spec cables.
|
| If you buy a fake cable that pretends to have display-
| port alternate mode or something but doesn't, meh, you're
| out 10 bucks. But if it pretends to be able to carry 200
| W but isn't and burns your house down instead, you might
| be out a tad bit more...
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Should be detectable though, at least in many
| circumstances.
|
| USB-PD has bidirectional communication, so at least in
| theory both ends could know how the cable is performing
| by comparing voltage and current measurements at either
| end.
|
| If the cable drops too many Watts, the load can be
| disconnected.
| imtringued wrote:
| Now you will run into WiFi type problems where your cable
| gives you different charge speeds depending on the season
| and time of day. Service will degrade and you may not
| notice the problem and may never figure it out in the
| end.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Beats burning down the house though... Also in case of
| laptops, mobiles etc, the device can report the error.
| leoc wrote:
| > I _am_ worried about cheap USB-PD devices that forgoe
| this negotiation as it is complex and expensive to
| implement.
|
| Yes. Moving critical safety limits into _software_?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 Let's hope
| they're all up to the challenge ...
| manmal wrote:
| How would power negotiation be implemented without
| software?
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| >At which point do we change assumptions about safety of
| USB cables though?
|
| It's a good question. Generally speaking, DC is considered
| a shock hazard at or above 60V, but OSHA recognizes 50-60V
| as being potentially hazardous. It's certainly an arc
| hazard when disconnecting as the article notes. And 5A at
| just about any voltage will start a fire in case of a short
| circuit.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| It's already possible. I have a 2019 Intel MacBook with AMD
| graphics. It connects to a CalDigit T3 Plus dock via one USB
| C thunderbolt cable. The dock connects to two 1440p 144hz
| monitors, a keyboard, speakers, webcam, USB microphone, and
| Ethernet. The dock powers the laptop over the thunderbolt
| cable.
|
| I also have an Intel desktop computer with a thunderbolt
| port. I'm able to switch from my desktop to my laptop with
| just one cable.
|
| It still has a few rough edges, but overall it works better
| than anything else I've tried.
| r00fus wrote:
| Clearly there are non-computing use-cases for 240W devices that
| would benefit from being charged. What about power tools, or
| high-end game consoles?
| manmal wrote:
| There's an alternate universe where all wall power outlets
| are USB-C with ethernet already mixed in.
| smoldesu wrote:
| For the record, the M1's GPU performance doesn't even start to
| compete with the 2021 laptop market, much less the 2014 one.
| GPUs have always been the biggest power draw in these laptops,
| and it's honestly no surprise that Apple can cut their power
| consumption down to 10w when their GPU is as pathetic as it is.
| h8hawk wrote:
| Which kind of laptops are you speaking for? M1 GPu
| performance Blow any integrated gpu and all middle class
| separate GPUs (mx250, etc).
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Gaming laptops I assume.
|
| M1 GPU beats most other integrated GPUs, but that doesn't
| magically make the demand for _more_ performance go away,
| and that demand is likely to increase as there become more
| and more non-gaming applications for GPUs (machine
| learning, video editing, etc).
| smoldesu wrote:
| The mx250 is not a "middle class DGPU" because there is no
| class below it. It's Nvidia's weakest dedicated graphics
| card they continue to sell, and it's a pretty terrible
| point of comparison. A better example would be the GTX
| 1060, a middle-class dedicated GPU that made it's way into
| many budget gaming laptops 7 years ago. It is faster than
| the M1's GPU.
|
| The Mac has a very dedicated audience of video and design
| professionals who are going to be left empty-handed here,
| even if they double or triple the amount of GPU cores in
| the SOC.
| OldGoodNewBad wrote:
| Yikes dude you work for Intel?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Do you have an actual disagreement? A 14nm Intel chip might
| waste an extra 20 watts, but when you get into hundred watt
| territory it's fair to call that a GPU thing.
| OldGoodNewBad wrote:
| The Intel astroturf isn't even artful, it seems either
| bot or Amazon Turk driven.
| sanjiwatsuki wrote:
| I don't think this is accurate. [0] and [1] have 3DMark Ice
| Storm Unlimited Graphics benchmark tested on both the M1 and
| the 4800U in the Lenovo Yoga Slim-7-14ARE and the M1's GPU
| stomps the Vega 8 R4000. It outscores even the Ryzen 5000
| series iGPU.
|
| I've seen no evidence that the M1's GPU is anything but best
| in class for integrated graphics.
|
| [0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-M1-GPU-GPU-
| Benchmarks-an... [1] https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-
| Radeon-RX-Vega-8-Ryzen-400...
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| From "doesn't even start to compete" and "GPUs have always
| been the biggest power draw" I don't think they were
| comparing to integrated.
| ksec wrote:
| But then again Apple GPU were limited to 10W Max and it
| was a design decision not technology limitation. There is
| nothing that stops Apple putting in 16 or 32 Core GPU
| which would bring its GPU performance on par if not
| exceed market competitors.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Sure, but multiply that by several times (such as the leaks
| saying that the M1X chip will have 16 or 32 graphics cores
| compared to the M1's 8) and it'll still be well within the
| territory of the current 100W spec while handily
| outperforming pretty much everything else with the same power
| draw.
| westurner wrote:
| What are the costs to add a USB PD module to an electronic
| device? https://hackaday.com/2021/04/21/easy-usb-c-power-for-all-
| you...
|
| - [ ] Create an industry standard interface for charging and
| using [power tool,] battery packs; and adapters
| a9h74j wrote:
| When you look at the pinout, USB-C is comparable to a
| conventional ad-hoc _backplane_ in terms of the number of
| functions it supports.
|
| Except the backplane implementations (i.e. the cables) are not
| uniform, so fun times.
|
| At least with DB25-ended cables you could wire your own, albeit
| without the performance range.
| jdhn wrote:
| I wonder if this will mean that USB-C wall sockets will start to
| support more than 25W at a time so I can just plug a USB-C cable
| directly into the wall without the need for an adaptor.
| notum wrote:
| USB-C will soon be more cable than port, girth-wise. 3.2 cables
| are already very stiff, impractical and quite expensive.
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| Apple will still find a way to require an overpriced, proprietary
| charger.
| dionysus_jon wrote:
| Another variable to add to mix of:
|
| "Well its USB-C cable and a USB-C hole"
|
| "... but no, it does not work"
| standardUser wrote:
| I'm having a hard time understand the negative comments here. Can
| some explain precisely what the commenters here know that the
| USB-IF doesn't?
|
| Because according to the comments here this won't work, will
| cause frequent fires and is an all around insane and unworkable
| idea.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > what the commenters here know that the USB-IF doesn't
|
| The fact that in the real world, in 2021, it's still impossible
| to tell what standard a particular cable or device supports. I
| have several cables in my possession, and only through trial
| and error I can tell you which cable supports what, and I'm
| lucky enough that these cables are high-quality and fail
| "safely" but technically they don't have to.
|
| Yes I know that technically the computer and USB-C controller
| knows which cable supports what, and yet so far no consumer-
| grade device has any kind of UI to tell me which cable supports
| what. I guess I can probably figure it out using the command
| line, but that would solve the problem for _me_ but not the
| average non-technical user who just wants a cable that works.
|
| In the old days, you could buy a USB-A to micro USB cable and
| have it work and charge your phone. You could buy an HDMI cable
| and have it work and send video to a monitor. With USB-C, you
| can't know which cable supports what until you've spent hours
| researching and understanding how USB-C works and the different
| alternate modes, and even then, cables might be mislabeled and
| you still can't be sure until you actually try it.
|
| All the above is at least somewhat "safe" because the worst
| that can happen is that the device gets damaged, but if you
| suddenly start increasing power levels, non-compliant cables
| will start burning down houses.
| jfkvktnrnr wrote:
| You're overthinking it. The average consumer will just read
| the big text on the package, ask a shop assistant or a
| friend.
|
| You'll have different sections in shops, "fast charging
| cable", "fast transfer cable", or "fast charging AND fast
| transfer cable" (with a price to match)
|
| Or stuff like "supports connecting a TV", etc.
|
| People will understand that there are different cables for
| different jobs, because they understand that a universal
| cable will be way more expensive.
|
| > In the old days, you could buy a USB-A to micro USB cable
| and have it work and charge your phone.
|
| Some USB-A to micro cables charge way faster than others
| (thicker wire). So this supposedly new USB-C problem is
| actually not new at all.
| pmlnr wrote:
| > Can some explain precisely what the commenters here know that
| the USB-IF doesn't
|
| Safety margins.
| mvanaltvorst wrote:
| 50 volt @ 5 amps? Better make sure your ports don't have any lint
| inside. And don't forget your special EPR certified 240W USB-C
| cable, of course. The U in USB stands for "universal", but it
| feels like USB is trying to target a very niche market with this.
| [deleted]
| canadianfella wrote:
| 100 niche markets combined is no longer a niche market.
| reiichiroh wrote:
| USB standards group naming and branding continue to be the worst.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| Excited for the first ATX power supply which takes USB-C as input
| rather than the traditional IEC 60320 C13/C14.
|
| I mean, it'll probably cause some fires, but it'll be exciting!
| Ekaros wrote:
| Wouldn't ATX power supply outputting USB-C make more sense?
| They have superior efficiency against your average power
| supplies...
| lmilcin wrote:
| 5A, 50V
|
| Good luck.
|
| USB port just isn't physically ready for this. This is going to
| end with some spectacular fireworks once you factor in cheap
| Chinese engineering for cables, ports and chargers.
| mnouquet wrote:
| I bet people downvoting you don't understand physics... :-/
| lmilcin wrote:
| Shh... it is not in good tone to directly demask shortcomings
| of general HN audience. Everybody here is an expert in every
| topic discussed and if you got downvotes it means you have
| deserved it.
|
| I personally own an electronics lab but whaddaiknow.
|
| On more serious note, the USB-C just barely has dimensions to
| deal with 5A 50V. You need thick enough cables and traces,
| you need clearences and you need margins.
|
| If you look at breakdown voltage for USB C connector, it is
| not a lot above 50V. Usually, you would want many times your
| working voltage. It just begs for a tiny speck of dust or
| condensation, manufacturing fault, bent connector, etc. to
| cause bad day for the owner.
|
| Now, in a _properly_ designed device, it technically should
| immediately detect the situation and cut the power. But there
| are two catches. One, is that at that power the short might
| be just about right resistance for this safety to treat is as
| valid. Second, this assumes _properly_ designed device. If
| you cheap out on silicon you use for your charger it might
| just not have the capability to stop it before it gets to far
| and melts a bunch of stuff.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Reminds me of those lovely "molex" to SATA power
| connectors. And in my marginal lay persons mind they should
| be superior for transferring currents. And still some of
| them don't fare exactly well, with lower current draws...
| tgv wrote:
| BTW, does anybody know if that's safe? The numbers I remember
| are an order lower (24V, and less than 500mA).
| lmilcin wrote:
| They want 240W. 5A times 50V _is_ 250W. It means that you can
| 't have both voltage and current lower, you can only lower
| one by increasing the other. But both higher voltage and
| higher current are a problem.
|
| More voltage will require larger clearances and better
| safeties (like thicker isolation on cables).
|
| "In industry, 30 volts is generally considered to be a
| conservative threshold value for dangerous voltage. The
| cautious person should regard any voltage above 30 volts as
| threatening, not relying on normal body resistance for
| protection against shock." https://iastate.pressbooks.pub/ele
| ctriccircuits/chapter/chap....
|
| Now, if the voltage is dangerous, it stops just being problem
| for the device but becomes safety hazard with all
| implications.
|
| On the other hand increasing current is not without problems.
| It quickly requires thicker cables and traces for which space
| is just not available in tiny USB C connector. If conductor
| is not thick enough the result is heating and possible
| melting, degrading the material over time which could lead to
| shorts.
| jws wrote:
| Of the 415 pages in the spec, 8 of them are devoted to arc
| mitigation in the "USB PD High-Voltage Design Considerations"
| section.
|
| Lots of discussion about detecting unplug and limiting slew
| rates. In practice that will cost pennies to implement and will
| therefore be skipped in many designs. ("I got a great deal on
| this charger on Amazon!")
|
| Time to develop some user superstitions around USB C:
|
| _" The withdrawal velocity is a factor in whether an arc will
| occur or not. If it is fast enough, then there is insufficient
| time to reach the voltage differential needed to form an arc.
| In practice, the withdrawal rate may not always be fast enough
| to keep the differential voltage below the threshold of
| arcing."_
|
| So, tell your informal tech support clients (family and
| friends) that they just didn't unplug their cables fast enough
| when their cables and devices start breaking. I look forward to
| everyone's sleight of hand moves where they unplug cables so
| fast you can't see it.
| lmilcin wrote:
| I have already enough talk with my family to explain which
| charger and cable goes to which phone.
|
| Even more humiliating is them looking at me as if I was
| complete idiot after me suggesting to them that the selection
| of cable itself may be cause of their problems. They had some
| physics at school some 20 years ago and from their point of
| view the cable is just a bunch of copper and it should
| absolutely make no difference for how fast their phone
| charges.
|
| Now I have to ready myself to have those "Universal" chargers
| which can only ever charge a single device but with no
| indication as to which device they can charge or which cable
| you have to use for this to work.
|
| Which is pretty ironic because right now we have a bunch of
| laptops and it is much easier to explain that if the plug
| fits the socket you are ok and if it does not you need to
| look for the one that has matching plug.
| jayd16 wrote:
| You know, as I think about this, maybe it's ok to have the
| standard overreach the physically feasible. There's a spec if
| you want to use a fat cable...most products will never reach
| that spec. Is that so bad?
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Does there exist a device that you can plug in USB and HDMI
| cables and have it tell you what features, modes, etc that cable
| supports? Seems like having something like that wouldn't
| eliminate all the problems but would make them easier to deal
| with by quickly identifying that the cable you tested is or is
| not appropriate for the task at hand.
|
| That aside, I'm looking forward to running my laundry room off of
| a dozen USB-C connectors hooked up in parallel.
| dhdc wrote:
| If you just want to know if a usb cable can safely delivery a
| certain current, then a cheap multimeter might do.
|
| If you want to test whether a cable will work with a certain
| protocol at a certain data rate, just plug it in and see if it
| works. Because the alternative method[1] costs hundreds of
| thousands of dollars.
|
| [1]https://www.keysight.com/ca/en/products/bit-error-ratio-
| test...
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| This is my only qualm with all the different standards. I just
| want _some_ way, any way at all, to tell whether stuff works
| the way it 's supposed to. Either label the cords and outlets
| (via printed acronyms, or color-coding, or cryptic symbols, I
| don't care), or provide the information software-side.
|
| I can't believe Microsoft and Apple haven't built this into
| their operating systems. Sometimes it's near-impossible to
| figure out what Bluetooth standard I'm using, or HDMI, or USB,
| and I feel like it wouldn't be a monstrously hard problem to
| solve, as long as the devices are already successfully talking
| to each other.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| 240W through those little pins in that little plug? I don't know
| if I want to power that large of a laptop with such a little
| plug.
| bravo22 wrote:
| Pin size limits the available current. 48V @ 5A = 240W
| mnouquet wrote:
| Does USBIF spec out conductor gauge ? For 5A, I wouldn't go
| anywhere below 20 or 22 gauge, but I highly doubt it's gonna
| be the case.
| sz4kerto wrote:
| USB-C bashing threads represent the 'HN echo chamber' for me. :)
|
| I understand the problems of different cables, I've run into them
| already. One cable can do Thunderbolt, the other cannot. One
| cable transmits 4K video signal, the others doesn't transmit
| anything. And so on.
|
| However, it is sooooo much better than anything before because at
| least _most of the time_ stuff works. Chargers charge. Sometimes
| slower, sometimes faster, but things mostly work.
| fouric wrote:
| > USB-C bashing threads represent the 'HN echo chamber' for me.
| :)
|
| I don't understand how you can possibly call it an "echo
| chamber" when there are (1) reasoned arguments (2) supported by
| facts with (3) dissenting opinions. That's almost the
| _opposite_ of an echo chamber.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Most users don't notice or care but if you just read HN you'd
| think USB was controversial.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > USB-C bashing threads represent the 'HN echo chamber' for me.
| :)
|
| If only they had proper labeling and specs, all of this could
| be avoided. If you make all cables look the same, why on Earth
| would end users believe they are different?
| exporectomy wrote:
| And if you don't enforce your logo IP use. All sorts of
| random 2-wire under-spec power-only cables and forbidden
| male-female extension cables have the USB logo on them. Look
| at this obviously wrong statement from the article:
|
| "All EPR cables shall be visibly identified with EPR cable
| identification items,"
|
| No they won't! Just like all the other stupid confusing and
| incorrectly implemented "rules" for labelling and orientation
| and everything. Even if they do it consistently, nobody will
| know which of all the many confusing logos means what and for
| some reason OSs don't show the user which component is
| incompatible in which way so you'll be happily enjoying 100W
| from your 240W charger unaware it's not actually 240W.
| ksec wrote:
| >USB-C bashing threads represent the 'HN echo chamber' for me.
| :)
|
| It is still a rather new phenomenon. Most of HN used to be
| USB-C supporters. Especially those on Apple camp. For _years_
| mentioning every single problem listed in this thread would get
| downvoted into oblivion.
|
| Since most of them didn't bother jumping in to defence their
| beloved USB-C, I guess they changed their mind.
| jayd16 wrote:
| > didn't bother jumping in to defence [sic]
|
| Why bother? USB will remain dominant and there's nothing to
| be gained from the millionth iteration of the argument.
| mavhc wrote:
| Powering 90% of the things in your house via DC power should be
| the future, no more switching from DC solar/battery back to AC
| and then back to DC again for no reason.
| tshaddox wrote:
| The reason is that AC can be easily transformed to very high
| voltages which allow power transmission over long distances
| with lower losses. I doubt this is going to change any time
| soon.
|
| Of course, you could still have central DC conversion in your
| house (or maybe even neighborhood) and use USB or similar in
| your home's wall outlets, instead of each device needing its
| own little power brick.
| asdff wrote:
| DC is can be better over a certain distance because AC loses
| a lot of energy to heat. the pacific intertie is DC.
| sbradford26 wrote:
| So back when the electrical grid was being created it was
| basically impossible to step up and down DC. So it had to be
| distributed at the voltage it was used at. AC could be
| stepped up and and down with transformers which reduces
| losses. Now though that we have the circuitry to step up and
| down DC fairly easily you can actually get more efficient
| long distance transmission with DC due to not having to
| factor in things such as skin effect. I don't think things
| will change quickly but I do believe we will be seeing more
| DC systems in the home and workplace in the future since it
| will also mesh with renewables better.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
| voltage_direct_current#Co...
| megous wrote:
| Maybe with high voltage DC, but 5V or even 12V DC distribution
| is a complete no-go/waste of metal.
| unnouinceput wrote:
| At 5V and your household needs: 1- refrigerator (400W when it
| motor is running); 2- vacuum cleaner (1000W when running); 3-
| TV's/PC's/light-bulbs (around 1000W in the evening when all are
| running at the same time) - all these amounts to at least
| ~2.5KW power. Now divide that by 5 and you get the intensity at
| 500A. Do you have any idea how thick the copper would need to
| be to allow 500A? a full 1cm x 1cm. Any idea how heavy that
| going to be? Or how expensive? That's why even for 10m distance
| AC at 220V is better.
| mavhc wrote:
| Who's running their vacuum cleaner all evening?
|
| My fridge/freezer uses 25 watts average, but the 90% of
| things I was thinking about was ignoring the heaters and
| motors, just the lights, computers, speakers etc.
|
| Next question, why 5V, when they're talking about 50V. That
| brings us down to 1/10th the amps.
|
| Also this is only inside your house, not for power
| distribution. Generate your DC power with solar, store it in
| your car/battery, and power your LED lights, Smart speakers,
| computers, all the stuff that converts power to DC before it
| uses it today.
| Ekaros wrote:
| 25 watts might be average, but what is the peak and
| consumption during duty cycle?
| yboris wrote:
| Semi related _question_ : has anyone come across a product that
| would let me replace an outlet or a light fixture with a flush
| (clean design) thing that provides enough power for an LED
| strip?
|
| I don't like having a large DC converter hanging off a switch
| hanging off an outlet. And I can't have a DC converter hang off
| a ceiling (nor do I want to wire it directly and hide inside
| the ceiling either).
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| I suspect you need POE (power over ethernet), or to at least
| start from there.
| liminalsunset wrote:
| Amazon sells Leviton (a good/common brand) electrical outlets
| that support USB C power delivery for ~40USD.
|
| You can install one, and connect a USB C PD to DC cable
| ~20USD to power your LEDs.
|
| Your LEDs have to be 30W or less though.
| yurishimo wrote:
| You need the AC->DC converter somewhere. It either needs to
| be in the light or outside.
|
| There are LED fixtures that include the converter; you decide
| on what that you like the aesthetic of.
| cletus wrote:
| I look forward to USB 4.1a Type C.2 Phase iii.b Gen 3E and the
| 482646282 different cable capability combinations that all plug
| in and have no distinction of those capabilities whatsoever. I
| also look forward to all the necessary and helpful posts telling
| me how the identical ports on my laptop are in fact diffferent
| despite their identical appearance.
|
| But at least everything uses the same plug, so that's nice.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| gspr wrote:
| Ooh! Will some of them unexpectedly fry the host, the client,
| or both, unless you spend hours perusing through spreadsheets
| curated by some random hero on the internet too?
| eldaisfish wrote:
| there's also the very real danger of identical ports bricking
| devices. See the nintendo switch issue where some users have
| bricked their devices due to nintendo's implementation of USB
| C. This limits the chargers you can use and nintendo may well
| deny a warranty claim if a third-party charger was used.
|
| Not the best source -
| https://old.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/87vmud/the_...
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Not true, the bricking was from was blatantly broken chargers
| putting 9 volts onto low-voltage signal pins.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| that's one explanation but there is another that is
| relevant to this thread - Nintendo diverging from the USB C
| standard implementation. End of the day, standards exist
| for a reason and nintendo diverged from the standard
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/08/heres-why-nintendo-
| sw...
|
| _If the port fails open--meaning pins just don 't make
| electrical contact--there's usually no real harm done. But
| if they fail short--meaning pins are bridged electrically
| to pins they have no business connecting to--you may easily
| overvolt a pin. Remember that 6V absolute maximum rating on
| the Configuration Channel of the Switch's USB-C PD chip?
| Well, it's only 0.5mm away from the VBus (main power line),
| which carries 15V._
| flyinghamster wrote:
| USB-C sure turned into a mess, didn't it? So far, I only have
| two such devices (a cell phone and a set of headphones), and
| there's no problem charging either. But even there, we already
| have proprietary extensions (Qualcomm quick charging, for
| instance), and then there's Thunderbolt, and now this.
|
| I'm not enthusiastic about wading into the world of "every port
| looks identical but isn't" that USB-C has given us. I have to
| keep my cell phone charger cable with the charger at all times,
| because it's my only cable compatible with Qualcomm quick
| charging. Naturally, there's no visible indication of this.
| 7ewis wrote:
| It's not _terrible_, but could definitely be improved.
|
| I'm fairly content with my current situation. My phone has
| 'WARP' charge, which fully charges it in less than half an
| hour, however it can also charge (at a slower rate):
|
| * Earphones
|
| * Shaver
|
| * Handheld Fan
|
| * MacBook
|
| I rarely connect my devices to a display, but that is
| supported with my cable too. The only device I use semi-
| regularly that isn't USB C is my Bose QC35s, but they last
| ~20hrs so usually last a few weeks due to my low usage.
|
| On the other hand, my Mac charger can charge my phone (and
| obviously Mac) but none of the other devices...
| danhor wrote:
| Quick Charging 3.0 is more-or-less a hack and shouldn't be
| done on usb-c (unfortunately, cheap manufacturers still do).
| Quick Charging 4.0 is just USB-PD, so a different name but
| compatible.
| sonograph wrote:
| After only reading the headlines promising the bright future
| of USB-C, I am very disappointed now that I carry three USB-C
| in my backpack for different use-cases.
| yurishimo wrote:
| Can you explain the differences between them? I don't have
| many USB-C devices (Switch and MacBook) but wouldn't you be
| able to use the most "fully featured" cable for every
| scenario?
| ev1 wrote:
| The most "fully featured" cable with a USB-C tip is often
| like <0.5m long.
| ak217 wrote:
| I don't know, the flipside is that Thunderbolt delivers
| genuinely cutting-edge interconnect capabilities. I can run
| two 4K60 displays and a dozen peripheral devices, and charge
| my laptop, all via a single cable off of my $100 Thunderbolt
| 3 dock. There is no other technology that comes close to this
| capability at this price point.
| asdff wrote:
| At the same time, I have no idea if the cable I have is a
| thunderbolt or usb-c cable. There is no standard marking.
| polutropos wrote:
| Your Thunderbolt cables don't have the lightening bolt
| logo on them? I didn't think it was a 'requirement' but
| every TB cable I've seen always has the thunderbolt icon.
| asdff wrote:
| Not my apple one.
| djrogers wrote:
| Then it's either not genuine Apple or it's not
| Thunderbolt. This is what an Apple Thunderbolt cable
| looks like:
|
| https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD862LL/A/apple-
| thunderbo...
| pix64 wrote:
| That's not a USB-C cable.
| SamBam wrote:
| The standard MacBook charger that comes with any Apple
| laptop is not thunderbolt.
| lajamerr wrote:
| You might not know in advance which is a problem but it
| seems pretty trivial issue. Just test it and see if it
| works, if it doesn't return it and get a different one.
| Then repeat the process until you get the one you need.
| asdff wrote:
| Or you could look at the cable from the getgo and read a
| simple marking and not have to do this song and dance.
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| Thunderbolt cables generally have a lightning bolt mark,
| and are expensive and short and thick+inflexible. And
| because of that, you likely don't have any except for the
| one coming out of a thunderbolt dock or external GPU
| enclosure etc.
| asdff wrote:
| My apple cable I believe is thunderbolt but I'm not sure.
| It's white with no marking.
| djrogers wrote:
| If there's no lightning bolt marking, it's just a charge
| & USB 2.0 cable, not thunderbolt. Genuine Apple
| Thunderbolt cables are marked, and the one you got with
| your MacBook for charging isn't one.
| Yizahi wrote:
| Does it have frayed rubber isolation around connectors
| and randomly along the cable? If yes, then it is a
| genuine Apple (tm) cable. If it has solid isolation ad
| looks good then it's probably a Chinese knockoff. :)
| mgkimsal wrote:
| do those screens need to be 'thunderbolt' as well? or can
| they just take a usb-c connection (but ... not be
| thunderbolt?)
|
| I have a 2019 MBP 15". Every 'dock' I've looked at seemed
| to indicate that "you will see mirrored screens on multiple
| displays" - which is not what I'd want.
|
| Perhaps all of this is because I'm 'only' using a 2 year
| old MBP, and this is somehow all Apple's fault?
|
| Would love to know what specific $100 thunderbolt 3 dock
| you have. It seems to be a confusing mess of half-
| information whenever I go to shop for stuff.
| ak217 wrote:
| No, the displays don't need a Thunderbolt controller (and
| I do get 3 separate displays - mirroring would be pretty
| useless, I agree).
|
| I use this dock: https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Thinkpad-
| Thunderbolt-Dock-40AC...
|
| After updating the dock to the latest firmware, I can run
| two 4k60 displays, although it requires a specific
| configuration: one display on one of the DisplayPort
| lanes, and one on an active USB-C to DisplayPort cable
| hooked up to the dock's unpowered Thunderbolt port.
|
| I've done this setup multiple times with this dock model,
| and it has worked with every Thunderbolt 3 MBP I've used.
| danhor wrote:
| > and this is somehow all Apple's fault?
|
| Unfortunately yes. Apple (or MacOS specifically) doesn't
| support DisplayPort MST, which allows using multiple
| displays over a single DisplayPort connector. Since non-
| thunderbolt usb-c video is just DisplayPort, that means
| many usb-c docks with multiple display outputs don't
| work. Now why MacOS supports multiple video outputs over
| Thunderbolt and doesn't support MST is beyond me, but
| everything else does.
| grawprog wrote:
| I haven't had to delve into the world of trying to find an
| appropriate USB-C cable until fairly recently. I didn't
| actually understand the situation thinking a replacement USB-C
| cable should just work.
|
| Oh hell no and none of the packaging actually explains what
| features a cable supports, none of them actually explain what
| the cable is actually compatible with. The little android logo
| doesn't mean shit. Sure, you might be able to slowly charge
| your phone with a particular cable, but it doesn't mean it'll
| do anything else it's supposed to do.
| qubitcoder wrote:
| Welcome to the world of USB-C! My general approach, and
| recommendations to others, is to purchase only Thunderbolt 3
| cables.
|
| Yes, they're more expensive. But they'll essentially handle
| everything you throw at them, and behave as expected (due to
| the large protocol support [0,1]).
|
| Of course, this won't always be the case. But it's generally
| a safe assumption for now.
|
| [0] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/io/
| thu...
|
| [1] https://thunderbolttechnology.net/sites/default/files/Thu
| nde...
| selectodude wrote:
| Spending $65 on a 6 foot cable as a "fix" for that doesn't
| seem like much of a fix at all.
|
| https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=24721
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" My general approach, and recommendations to others, is
| to purchase only Thunderbolt 3 cables ... they'll
| essentially handle everything you throw at them"_
|
| Is this really true? My Thunderbolt monitor (LG Ultrafine
| 4K) came with two cables: Thunderbolt 3 (for connecting to
| Thunderbolt laptops) and USB-C (for connecting to iPads etc
| which don't support Thunderbolt). Why would two different
| cables be needed if the Thunderbolt 3 one can do it all?
| vmception wrote:
| Try finding any accessory that has USBC
|
| Its been over 5 years already
|
| If your phone is about to die because yiu checked out of a
| hotel in the morning and your flight is at night and you are
| just cruising around in a car, you will not be able to stop
| anywhere and get a USBC car charger.
|
| So anyway LPT: get USBC accessories on Amazon in advance and
| dont rely on them to have any particular feature of quality
| control.
| vel0city wrote:
| I've seen USB-C cables for sale at most gas station
| convenience stores, both C to C and C to A. I've seen lots
| with car 12V to USB-C as well. They're not rare around me.
| neither_color wrote:
| And every time I buy a new device and _think_ I 'll be able
| to use my existing USB-C cables I'm met with a new standard.
| Bought a new external GPU enclosure? My macbook charging
| cable wont work I need a 40gbps thunderbolt THREE(not 2)
| cable. Bought a new Oculus Quest? Neither my egpu or macbook
| cables work I need an $80 LINK cable.
| grlass wrote:
| I wonder if the the committee have looked at integrating
| colour or some other indicator into the standard so that
| cable/port capabilities are clear visually.
|
| Though ofc the design challenge is for users to feel
| comfortable that putting red into blue won't break
| anything, it just might not give the expected features.
| madsbuch wrote:
| Or! We could go one step further, and change the
| connector to make sure that people use them correctly.
| Wouldn't that be clever!?
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Better: add a color band to the connector. One line for
| low power, two for medium, three for high.
| jquery wrote:
| Didn't Europe ban this?
| mamurphy wrote:
| jquery was downvoted but I recall articles like this
| (https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/17/21070848/eu-apple-
| europea...) with the EU trying to ban any "non-standard"
| connector.
|
| Maybe non-standard connectors are actually a feature, not
| a bug, because everything having the same connector but
| not the same functionality will lead to confusion as
| described above.
| 8note wrote:
| I don't think it was ever true that the connectors on the
| two devices determine whether they're compatible.
|
| You can find all sorts of different connectors on a cable
| to connect two devices together, but you still only knew
| that devices are/are not compatible by trying to plug
| them in
|
| At least with the current setup, you are unlikely to burn
| out the devices by trying a cable.
| Klinky wrote:
| People already incorrectly buy USB A when they should
| have bought USB C or visa versa. Changing the physical
| form-factor doesn't solve this problem.
|
| "I thought I needed a USB cable"?
|
| Also it's a huge waste if say an HDMI 2.1 cable cannot be
| used on an HDMI 2.0/1.4 device. People would complain
| about that too.
| wearywanderer wrote:
| > _People already incorrectly buy USB A when they should
| have bought USB C or visa versa. Changing the physical
| form-factor doesn 't solve this problem._
|
| At least the nature of the problem is immediately
| apparent to such people the moment they attempt to plug
| the cable in. If the cable won't fit, they know there is
| nothing wrong with their computer; they didn't
| misconfigure anything or click the wrong button. The
| problem is unambiguous.
|
| Some USB-C cables not working with some USB-C sockets
| leaves users feeling gaslit.
| 8note wrote:
| If at first the cable doesn't fit, apply more force.
| Klinky wrote:
| Except people have damaged ports forcing incorrect form
| factors. Also we've had tons of other standards where
| cables vary with performance. HDMI, DisplayPort, IDE,
| USB1/2/3.
|
| You'll get people complaining about the cable not working
| with their new device, and then people complaining it
| didn't work with their old device.
|
| Eventually USB-C will be so capable and ubiquitous, this
| will be a non-factor. I don't miss the days of trying to
| track down the right barrel connector, micro-HDMI cable
| or proprietary and fragile network dongle adapter. Those
| weren't _easier_ days.
| wearywanderer wrote:
| I would love to see somebody attempt to damage a micro-
| USB or USB-C port by forcing a USB-A plug into it. Not
| going to happen, sorry. They may as well try to force a
| NEMA-5 plug into a VGA port. It's nonsensical.
|
| At a certain point on the usability continuum, user error
| becomes so severe that only dementia can explain it. But
| USB-C incompatibilities are so far from that point that
| arguing otherwise seems like bad faith. These USB-C
| incompatibilities can bite technically inclined people
| with sound, sober and healthy minds.
| Klinky wrote:
| What is your suggested solution? Every potential
| configuration USB-C can offer needs its own physically
| different cable? We're going to need a dozen different
| form factors now. How do you do that at scale
| economically?
|
| How does it help when someone inevitably buys the USB-C
| cable with shape y when they need USB-C cable with shape
| x? It physically doesn't fit, great, but they still have
| the wrong cable and their device still doesn't work, not
| even in a degraded fashion. They still have to take it
| back to the store.
|
| Typically these issues bite people who bought cheap junky
| cables that weren't USB-IF certified off Amazon by
| sorting for lowest price. If it's not working, check that
| your cable is certified for what your intended use case
| is. This applies to everything, not just USB-C.
| wearywanderer wrote:
| They could, at the very least, enforce color coding.
| Colorblind people would still be left high and dry, but
| with the status quo _everybody_ is up shit creek.
|
| > _How does it help when someone inevitably buys the
| USB-C cable with shape y when they need USB-C cable with
| shape x? [...] They still have to take it back to the
| store._
|
| It helps because they know they have to go back to the
| store, and aren't left wondering if the problem is
| actually with themselves somehow using their computer
| wrong. As I mentioned earlier: _" Some USB-C cables not
| working with some USB-C sockets leaves users feeling
| gaslit."_
| Klinky wrote:
| USB3 did have blue color coding on the plastic interior
| of the connector. That doesn't exist on USB-C. You'd have
| to color-code the metallic connector or the connector
| housing. Forcing a color-coding scheme on the connector
| housing would clash with branding, so you'd likely end up
| with companies ignoring the color coding.
|
| People will also ignore the color coding even if it
| existed. Counterfeiters would add the color to add
| legitimacy to their incompatible products. Color coding
| would not physically prevent you from plugging the cable
| in.
|
| The people who feel gaslit over a USB-C cable not working
| would probably also feel gaslit over buying the "wrong
| USB C cable", because they bought a "USB C cable" and
| "USB C should just work, why do I have to remember which
| of 12 different connectors my computer uses, I thought
| the point of USB C was a unified connector".
| samatman wrote:
| I don't actually want this. I would rather have the
| problems that come with incompatible cables than the
| problems which come with incompatible ports.
|
| In particular, if my Thunderbolt ports didn't support
| bog-standard USB, that would suck. I would need special
| ports which weren't as powerful, or even more dongles, or
| both.
|
| As it stands, things are.. fine, actually. I have one TB
| cable that works on everything, and a small handful of
| USB-C cables which work on most things. and a USB-C-or-
| Thunderbolt-and-I-don't-know-or-care to DisplayPort which
| stays plugged into my monitor. and a USB-C-or-
| Thunderbolt-etc to microHDMI for my camera.
| 8note wrote:
| I think that doesn't make a lot of sense.
|
| You'd need a cross product of different cable shapes for
| all the different available features, since the cable
| could support any number of them.
|
| On top of that, the connector has mechanical constraints
| to handle, and some of these connector shapes will be
| suboptimal and undertested
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| This does seem like it would be helpful. They started
| coloring the USB-A ports blue for those that were
| compatible with USB 3 high speed data. I think the
| challenge may be to get people to understand it more than
| being afraid to plug blue in to black. I know quite a few
| people just assumed the color choice was a design choice
| and if the cable fits, plug it in.
| ohazi wrote:
| Indicator recommendations are routinely ignored. There
| are already color codes for type-A ports, and there's the
| "lightning bolt" indicator for Thunderbolt USB-C ports,
| but PC manufacturers ignore them when they want their
| laptops to have a certain look and feel (e.g. gaming
| laptops want red or green everything, Apple wants
| aluminum everything, etc.).
|
| Cable manufacturers are going to do whatever is cheapest.
| grlass wrote:
| Yeah, it's a bit of tragedy.
|
| Resistor style stripes on cables would be fun, a stripe
| for each feature such as bandwidth, power, etc; perhaps
| already suggested (and ignored). Though complement for
| ports would be trickier.
|
| Embossing symbols in the style of thunderbolt might be
| the way to go, even if the standard is not fully adopted.
| spicybright wrote:
| Ha, I love the color idea.
| omega3 wrote:
| This is terrible for colorblind people.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > each feature such as bandwidth, power, etc;
|
| Honestly that's about all you need.
|
| Even just a bandwidth indicator would be suitable 90% of
| the time.
| SiVal wrote:
| Since the design philosophy behind USB-C is "it must
| always _seem_ as though it _should_ work ", I think we'll
| need something like the old "tube testers" a few of us
| still remember.
|
| Decades ago, when your TV was behaving badly, you would
| take the back off (unplug first!), pull the vacuum tubes
| out, and take them in a bag to the nearest convenience
| store. They had a "tube tester" the size of a washing
| machine. You'd plug each tube into a connector, one at a
| time, press the "test" button, and the needle on the dial
| would show good/poor/fail. The body of the tester was a
| cabinet containing replacement tubes you could buy (and
| which you could even test right there).
|
| We might need to start using USB-C cable testers. Plug in
| a new cable, get a good/poor/fail analysis of each
| potential USB-C feature, then you mark your cable
| yourself with some labeling scheme.
| lazide wrote:
| God damnit - TAKE MY MONEY!
|
| I've been having to implement tons of my own testing
| because no cable ever works the way you think it will.
| I've got a giant pile of thick super beefy USB-C cables
| which only transmit data at USB 2.0 speeds. Which per the
| USB standards committee is apparently Working As
| Intended, but that is definitely not ok.
| bogidon wrote:
| From the actual spec[1]:
|
| > All EPR cables shall be Electronically Marked and
| include EPR-specific information in the eMarker as
| defined by the USB PD specification. As defined in the
| USB PD specification, EPR cables are marked as 50 V and 5
| A capable. All EPR cables shall be visibly identified
| with EPR cable identification icons as defined by the
| USB-IF. This is required so that end users will be able
| to confirm visually that the cable supports up to as high
| of PDP = 240W as defined in the USB PD specification."
|
| Both are important. I also wish devices had some UI to
| easily show the capabilities of a connected cable to the
| user. I could not find actual visual representations of
| the the "identification icons".
|
| [1]: (page 143) https://usb.org/document-library/usb-
| type-cr-cable-and-conne...
| ctoth wrote:
| Can confirm, sucks if you're blind.
| gord288 wrote:
| Some kind of Braille markings, or similar, really should
| be a standard part of the spec.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| My Oculus Quest works fine with a 3meter AmazonBasics USB
| cable that I got for like $15. I think the only advantage
| of the official link cable is that it gets you 5m without
| needing to add an extender to a 3m cable
| ianlevesque wrote:
| Yeah the Quest even added USB 2 support.
| neither_color wrote:
| It works but it if you run a high bandwidth game like
| Flight Simulator you might hit some performance limits,
| you can check your cable speed in the quest desktop app.
| jessikat wrote:
| At least USB-A receptacles were coloured... did we really need
| to descend into hell for a slightly slimmer reversible plug
| that wears out even faster than USB-A cables?
| Causality1 wrote:
| Not to mention they're significantly thicker and wider than
| the micro-b socket they replaced, so many tiny products will
| continue shipping with micro-b indefinitely.
|
| Also I've destroyed probably half a dozen of them by
| accidentally stepping on or rolling my chair over the
| connector and smushing it flat.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| The little ones broke too often.
| aboringusername wrote:
| We should give anyone involved in the USB-IF a test:
|
| Here are 10 different cables, you must accurately describe each
| of their features in detail (USB speeds, charging speeds/power
| delivery, video out? What version of Display Port does it
| support?). Make one mistake and you'll be executed.
|
| Obviously I don't advocate for that but it's damn annoying you
| can have one cable do so many different things and not know by
| looking at it. At least USB 3 was often times blue to offer a
| distinction.
|
| These days I plug in a cable and prey it functions as
| advertised (sometimes it's 50/50).
|
| Awful mess.
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| The issue isn't the number of things supported, it's that
| there are optionally-supported things. If every cable needed
| to support everything, and every host port needed to support
| every valid device type, it'd be fine. But instead you get
| cables that don't properly work with alternate modes, host
| ports that don't implement DisplayPort, etc. It's cheaper,
| but ridiculously frustrating.
| cletus wrote:
| Sorry but not true. To get full bandwidth really limits how
| long the cable can be. Like I don't think you'll find
| 40Gbps cables longer than about 0.5m.
|
| This is more expensive too (eg there are generally chips in
| the plugs at either end to handle attenuation).
|
| But there's obviously a use case for cables longer than
| that.
|
| It is true that we have cables that support data but not
| power and power but not data or data at different
| bandwidths and so on. It's a mess. But it's not a case of
| simply choosing not to support optional features.
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| No, it's a matter of expense. It's possible to embed a
| redriver in the cable every 0.5m, and thus get longer
| cables at full speed. They're just very, very expensive.
|
| There are three alternatives: one cable type that does
| everything and is easy to use (but gets expensive quickly
| as it gets longer), multiple cable types that each do
| somewhat different things but use identical connectors,
| or multiple cable types that each do somewhat different
| things and use different connectors. The USB-IF went with
| the "multiple cable types, identical connectors" option,
| which is cheap but extremely confusing. The "multiple
| cable types, multiple connectors" is what USB was created
| to avoid. So the only remaining option to remove
| confusion is to have expensive cables.
| danhor wrote:
| The Apple Thunderbolt 3 Pro Cable (2 m) is one of the
| only cables that can support everything usb-c over such a
| long distance [1]. But that costs 129$, which just
| wouldn't work for smartphone charging for which cables
| (usb-c 2.0 & 60w, the least you can do while still being
| spec-compliant) cost 7$. I think I haven't seen such a
| clear & easy to grasp demonstration of tradeoffs anywhere
| else.
|
| [1] For the longest time, this was the only cable to do
| it all. I think more are available now, but they're still
| very much non-affordable.
| jsight wrote:
| > These days I plug in a cable and prey it functions as
| advertised (sometimes it's 50/50).
|
| Are you preying on the folks at USB-IF?
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Don't forget super speed, super speed+ and super speed+ 2x2
| [deleted]
| jl6 wrote:
| Is there a possible outcome where cable components become cheap
| enough that every USB-C cable is a universal cable that does
| everything?
| izacus wrote:
| No, since Thunderbolt needs active cables with amplifiers
| very quickly, which is driving the cost of TB3 cables well
| over 50$ for distances that a standard 15$ USB3.1 easily
| beats.
|
| Physics is a problem here.
| chippiewill wrote:
| No because vendors will keep putting custom things into their
| cables to support magic XYZ feature.
| sokoloff wrote:
| As long as there's a penny to be made by shaving component
| costs, probably not.
|
| I have USB micro cables that "work" to charge phones or for
| data but will give voltage throttling errors if used to power
| an RPi3 or later. This is presumably from using wires
| internally of too small gauge. I can't see things like that
| stopping.
| kalleboo wrote:
| No, because they will keep adding features at the high end as
| the previous high end features get cheaper and new high end
| features become possible
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Not if you want cables that are longer than two feet. There's
| a tradeoff between speed and distance.
|
| And that's after you solve the problem of people trying to
| cut out a couple pennies of copper. And the people that want
| thinner cables just for charging.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| I know design and all this, but I would prefer red, blue, green
| plugs and corresponding colors on my laptop to make it easier
| what I can plugin where - with my desktop I which has around 10
| USB ports I always struggle to find the right one.
| rini17 wrote:
| Are there cheap devices that measure USB cables? So that user
| plugs the cable into it (both ends) and it will list what
| protocols/bandwidth does it support. And electrical resistance
| of course.
| chmod775 wrote:
| I haven't had dealings with these new USB cables yet. Can
| anyone enlighten me what is happening here?
|
| In older USB cables you used to have four, five, or nine pins
| that were directly connected via copper wire to the pins on
| the other end. With the exception of charging-only cables
| that didn't connect the data pins.
|
| Is the issue just that the new cables tend to only connect a
| subset of the 24 USB-C pins?
| georgyo wrote:
| USB-C cables can have all sorts of logic embedded in the
| cable, including inline resistors to signal capabilities.
|
| However, when it comes to power delivery. For both old
| style USB and newer USB-C, the thickness of the copper
| matters for how much amps the wire can carry.
|
| IE apple has a 30W charger that comes with a different
| thickness than their 61W charger. And using the 30W cable
| with the 61W charger.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201700#usbc
|
| > For the best charging experience, you should use the
| USB-C charge cable that comes with your Mac notebook. If
| you use a higher wattage USB-C cable, your Mac will still
| charge normally. USB-C cables rated for 29W or 30W will
| work with any USB-C power adapter, but won't provide enough
| power when connected to a power adapter that is more than
| 61W, such as the 96W USB-C Power Adapter.
|
| The best part is that the cables look nearly identical with
| some very small print on the cable that says they are
| different.
| consp wrote:
| As a solution by anecdote:
|
| My (by now) ancient laptop simply won't charge (or boot
| if cold) if the wattage of the psu is insufficient. This
| will easily solve that problem as you find out when the
| battery runs out of juice. I noticed this as it
| originally came with a 45 watt charger but after a
| processor upgrade the required power would be at least 60
| watt.
|
| Note that it will charge the battery when off with any
| charger, it is just slower.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| > The best part is that the cables look nearly identical
| with some very small print on the cable that says they
| are different.
|
| If you're lucky, that is.
|
| One would think that after nearly 2 decades of USB cable
| confusion the standards bodies and vendors would make an
| effort to make the cable identification easy, but no.
|
| I suspect it's because they _actually_ want consumers to
| end up buying lots cables and the churn it causes.
| numpad0 wrote:
| kinda https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07Y8BPVV4
| wsinks wrote:
| Wow, the tool that I didn't realize I wanted. Let me know if
| you find one. I don't have an inexpensive one.
| jerf wrote:
| How much information about the cable is exposed to a
| computer's interface, even if nothing is plugged in on the
| other side? Could this just be a computer program, albeit one
| that may only work with certain controllers?
| _Microft wrote:
| Maybe with an attached labelling machine to print the results
| in a way that could easily be affixed to the cable? ;) Oh,
| and please with an integrated wirecutter that automatically
| destroys cables if their results are too bad?
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Heh I had a cursed micro-USB cable at the office that only
| carried power, no data - had fun debugging why my board did
| not work.
| ectopod wrote:
| My micro-USB charging cable is worse than that. It
| appears to transfer data but it always flips a few bits.
| Quite surprisingly, no part of the protocol stack catches
| this. The cable quietly delivers slightly broken files.
| rini17 wrote:
| These charge-only cables are supplied as standard with
| cheap chargers.
| vel0city wrote:
| Sometimes those are useful. I've got a Canon camera which
| can charge by MicroUSB, but if it detects _any_ data it
| doesn 't engage the charger and does data only. So having
| a power only cable is the only way to charge it without
| taking the battery out and putting that on a charger.
| Dagonfly wrote:
| https://www.chargerlab.com/category/power-z/
|
| These read out the e-marker and tell you the supported power
| delivery and USB data speeds.
|
| The irony that their product comparison table has 30+ rows
| should not be missed!
| unwind wrote:
| That's a great idea, really!
|
| I guess it is not completely trivial though, and would
| probably end up costing a fair bit due to the max bandwidth
| etc.
|
| Just measuring resistance accurately enough for short cables
| for all conductors sounds hard.
| rini17 wrote:
| In ideal world it would be part of spec of USB host that it
| can test cable and report to user. That would not be
| expensive at all.
|
| Resistance is most important for power connection. To
| determine if voltage drop is acceptable does not need high
| accuracy.
| skybrian wrote:
| It actually is sort of nice, because "works" isn't binary. It's
| nice to be able to charge a laptop with what you have, even if
| it doesn't charge quite as fast. You can transfer data over a
| cable at lower speeds even if it doesn't run at top speed.
|
| Using the "right" cable is performance optimization. This isn't
| like the old days when plugging things in the wrong way might
| damage your machine.
| MrSourz wrote:
| A good example happened to me yesterday. I brought my MacBook
| and charger to my partner's family's place along with my
| USB-C SSD that has some files I thought I might need on it;
| however, I managed to forget the USB-C charging cable for my
| computer. I ended up using the USB-C cable that came with my
| SSD. It's not charging at full speed, but it's working!
| shalmanese wrote:
| The old days being 2018?
| https://bgr.com/entertainment/nintendo-switch-charging-
| cable...
| andrewmunsell wrote:
| Explaining to my aunt or uncle or grandparents that, no, the
| cable and charger they bought isn't the right one for their
| phone/laptop/whatever even though it fits isn't ideal. Sure,
| it might just charge slowly (cue family tech support call),
| but it could also just show "not charging" on OS X for
| example, which is just confusing for most people.
|
| It's a real problem, even if tech savvy people are fine with
| lower charge speeds because we know that the
| charger/cable/device combo only supports PD profile whatever.
| texaswhizzle wrote:
| How is this any different than buying the wrong cable in
| the past? You used to have to choose USB2, USB3, USB3.x,
| micro USB, mini USB, DisplayPort, Mini DisplayPort, HDMI,
| mini HDMI, VGA, DVI, thunderbolt, and more.
|
| I think people are either too young to remember this
| disaster, or have just outright forgotten.
| nuodag wrote:
| I spend years explaining to my family that its not a
| catastrophe if they can't find their phone charger, it's
| micro USB, see, just take this one from the drawer, it
| doesn't matter if it says Samsung or Sony, if it fits it
| will work.
|
| They were right being mistrusting apparently.
| chrisacky wrote:
| Even I have this problem. I bbought an amp reader and throw
| out anything reporting below 0.4ma/h. So many devices come
| bundles with poor cables my house is riddled with cables
| that I just never want to use for charging.
|
| I'm actually TERRIFIED of pluggin anything in to my kids
| Switch other than Nintendo's official cable, incase I brick
| i t.
|
| Does anyone know if they've patched this? I have some Dell
| laptop charger USB-Cs which I use alot, and I've had to
| caution everything in the family to never plug the Switch
| into it despite it fitting and despite every room in the
| house having such a charger...
| whelming_wave wrote:
| The Switch cable situation is always going to be a bit
| finicky, because their port is on the extreme edge of the
| spec's tolerances - it gets shorted because it's actually
| possible to cross the power into the wrong terminal,
| IIRC, with some wiggling. Safest to go with the official
| stuff, which people haven't reported issues with.
| robotnikman wrote:
| I use an HP laptop USB C charger with my switch
| sometimes, if that anecdote helps.
| MinorTom wrote:
| The Switches USB-C implementation is genuinely broken, so
| this isn't the fault of the connector. A spec-compliant
| charger, cable and connector will never brick anything
| (or catch on fire, for that matter)
| [deleted]
| alerighi wrote:
| Not using the proper cable could lead also to fires, for
| example. We are talking about a significant amount of
| current. If you don't use a cable rated for that current, the
| cable or the connector will overheat, and possibly start a
| fire.
|
| And it's not a remote possibility. It happened to me with a
| fast charging phone power supply and the phone, and the cable
| was the one provided by the manufacturer! The type-C
| connector at the phone side was red hot and started to melt,
| probably caused by a bad connection caused by dirt in the
| phone connector. Fortunately I was there, and smelled the
| burnt plastic and disconnected the cable, but what if that
| happened at night?
|
| And it's not something trivial that power supplies and phones
| can detect, there is not a way to determinate the voltage
| drop in the cable built into the standard (basically all they
| needed to do was to add a voltage sensing pin on the
| connector, to be shorted with VCC at the load side, so the
| power supply could sense the voltage at the other side and
| determinate if there too much drop, but as far as I know it
| doesn't have it).
| modeless wrote:
| > Not using the proper cable could lead also to fires, for
| example
|
| Only if the cable or device is defective or damaged. Which
| is true of every type of charging cable or connector.
| zlsa wrote:
| It should be impossible for any set of non-damaged, non-
| defective, spec-compliant set of USB-C cables and
| peripherals to cause fires. The specifications are very
| carefully designed to prevent any combination of cables and
| devices from causing damage.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Yeah the problem is that there's nothing to stop product
| designers from specifying the connectors even though the
| device doesn't logically support the implied standards.
|
| Some people here talked about the Switch; but it's a
| general problem. For example: I have an external USB
| drive that has a Type A USB 3 host socket on the back of
| it (???). It came with a cable with a Type A USB 3 plug
| on one end and a USB C plug on the other end.
|
| Now that's a combination of connectors you will
| definitely see elsewhere. I have such a cable that came
| with my PS5 for charging its controllers - but I know for
| a fact that it's not interchangeable with the one for my
| external drive.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| But what does universal shape of connector has to do
| with?
|
| Power negotiation applies to USB-A just as it does with
| USB-C... (I think)
| chx wrote:
| > Power negotiation applies to USB-A ju
|
| Nope it doesn't.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| >The specifications are very carefully designed
|
| I need assurance though that my cables were carefully
| designed.
| Animats wrote:
| _It should be impossible for any set of non-damaged, non-
| defective, spec-compliant set of USB-C cables and
| peripherals to cause fires._
|
| Then there's the crap offered for sale on Alibaba which
| somebody on Amazon will resell and which will show up on
| a checkout rack at the gas station. USB-C has very tight
| tolerances and unusual material requirements. Dirt or
| water can create a conductive path all too easily with
| USB-C pin spacing.
|
| "Decreasing the risk of fire in USB-C connectors" is
| worth watching.[1] It's an ad for a plastic material, but
| covers the problems.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/jYqDh9q5H6I
| koube wrote:
| The Nintendo Switch can be bricked if you use the wrong
| cable, although my understanding is that it's not built
| to the USB-C spec: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitc
| h/comments/87vmud/the_...
|
| Either way, this is an incredibly common device that can
| be damaged by incompatible hardware where it's difficult
| to determine compatibility without bricking the device.
| fouric wrote:
| > it's difficult to determine compatibility without
| bricking the device
|
| _This_ is the problem! This is what everybody talking
| about the specs doesn 't get - it's difficult to (1) tell
| which spec a device _claims_ to support and (2) verify
| that it _actually_ supports it (see: a lot of cheap
| devices on Amazon) and also (3) in real life many devices
| do not support the specs (i.e. this isn 't a theoretical
| problem).
| vokep wrote:
| Unless I'm mistaken, there is a license to call a port a
| USB port, though goods are commonly sold without that. In
| theory the solution is simple: only buy products that
| have the actual USB logo and ensure certification, and
| the USB-IF should retain the right to significantly fine
| any manufacturer advertising being to spec and using the
| logo who is in fact not.
|
| In practice, people aren't going to stop buying nintendo
| switches, unfortunately.
|
| Still, its not entirely necessary to support all specs or
| have that be entirely clear, what does need to be clear
| is if you can expect safety specs to be followed. If I
| plug in my nintendo switch to a charger thinking it'll
| charge at lightspeed but it takes hours, oh well. If I
| plug it in and it destroys the device then that should be
| pretty much an unforgivable problem. Personally I'd be
| happy to abstain from buying such a device due to that,
| though also personally I did buy one, expecting no
| issues, and only found out months later when seeing it
| mentioned somewhere online. Ideally research is done on
| every product to ensure things like this aren't the case,
| but again in practice, that doesn't always happen.
|
| I'm not sure what the fix is, other than outright making
| USB not so universal by requiring a license for any and
| all vendors using the design, if the license is cheap
| enough, maybe that could work? I don't know the
| legalities so much but maybe a free license could be
| required for _any_ implementation, which would only have
| the spec of "make sure it doesn't brick charger or
| device, and make sure it doesn't catch on fire"
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Either way, this is an incredibly common device that
| can be damaged by incompatible hardware where it's
| difficult to determine compatibility without bricking the
| device.
|
| This is 100% Nintendo's fault for using the USB-C
| connector type but not actually bothering to adhere to
| the USB-C specification.
| unparagoned wrote:
| When I last worked with USB, there were all sorts of
| resistors over the pins telling you about its capabilities.
| I'm pretty sure usb-c has that as well. Your device should
| check the spec of the cable and inly draw the amount if
| power its rated for
| dragontamer wrote:
| > We are talking about a significant amount of current.
|
| Are we?
|
| I'm not sure how they deliver more power in this
| specification. But traditionally, the additional power
| (from 5W to 20W to 100W) was through additional *voltage*,
| not current.
|
| > And it's not something trivial that power supplies and
| phones can detect, there is not a way to determinate the
| voltage drop in the cable built into the standard
| (basically all they needed to do was to add a voltage
| sensing pin on the connector, to be shorted with VCC at the
| load side, so the power supply could sense the voltage at
| the other side and determinate if there too much drop, but
| as far as I know it doesn't have it).
|
| Surely we just set a current-limit, written into the
| specification. Then we choose AWG wires / connectors as
| appropriate to support that current.
|
| Voltage can't go up arbitrarily, but voltage can safely be
| increased to ~48V or so in most applications. After 48V,
| humans start to get shocked / hurt, so that's probably the
| reasonable limit.
|
| -----
|
| And I'm pretty sure you can sense the voltage drop across a
| cable. USB-3 delivers 5V by default, and then you send
| protocol commands to increase your voltage to 12V or
| whatever. If you detect that the power-supply is only
| supplying 11V (after the 12V command), then its either a
| PSU-error or a cable-error. And I'm not sure if it even
| matters which is which (either way, you're not getting
| enough power, so your device needs to probably shut off)
|
| You can then disconnect / reset your device and maybe stick
| to 5V default specs.
| dangerlibrary wrote:
| > Voltage can't go up arbitrarily, but voltage can safely
| be increased to ~48V or so in most applications. After
| 48V, humans start to get shocked / hurt, so that's
| probably the reasonable limit.
|
| Car batteries in ICE cars are nominally 12v. Grab both
| terminals and tell me it doesn't hurt.
| throaway46546 wrote:
| It just tingles a bit if anything.
| beervirus wrote:
| It doesn't tingle.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| When I was a kid, we had this massive high-voltage
| transformer that produced about 2,000 volts, at some sick
| amperage.
|
| We used it to make jacob's ladders. That was fun.
|
| Until I touched the two bars.
|
| I woke up on the other side of the room, smelling
| burning... _me_.
|
| That _wasn 't_ fun...
| sjruckle wrote:
| I've done this. It doesn't hurt. In fact I didn't feel
| anything besides the battery terminals.
| StrictDabbler wrote:
| Ok, done. Many many many times.
|
| 12v can't exceed the resistance of human skin so it
| doesn't matter how much current capacity it has. You can
| hold onto those terminals all day.
|
| It's settled science. If you doubt it, tests of this are
| all over YouTube. It's just true.
|
| Now your tongue, perhaps...
| amluto wrote:
| If t you short a car battery, you might not get
| _electrocuted_ , but the results are unlikely to be
| pretty.
| wearywanderer wrote:
| You can't short a car battery by touching the terminals
| with your unbroken skin, anymore than you can short a AA
| battery by touching both ends.
| dandelany wrote:
| ...it doesn't hurt. Dry skin isn't conductive enough to
| pass any significant current at 12V. But if you inserted
| electrodes into your fingers so the electricity conducted
| through your wet inner bits, you can be killed by a lot
| less than 12V across the heart.
| martyvis wrote:
| I have never felt anything holding 12V DC in my hands.
| Putting your tongue across 9V "transistor" battery
| terminals is another thing though.
| dragontamer wrote:
| I've left a 9V battery in my pocket once and it touched a
| penny. I definitely felt that, lol.
|
| But yeah, 9V and 12V don't hurt your skin at all. The
| worst you'll get typically is when you accidentally short
| it with some metal, and something becomes burning hot
| really quickly.
|
| But this "burning hot" issue can happen even with 1.5V
| NiMH batteries or 3.3V Li-Ion batteries (even hot enough
| to start a fire in your pocket! Like all those vaping
| accidents).
|
| That's not "shock" or "electricity", that's literally
| heat from some other thing messing up the battery pack.
| So its not really the same.
| maxerickson wrote:
| It's 5 amps at 48 volts, defined in
| https://usb.org/document-library/usb-power-delivery
|
| That level of power delivery is negotiated after the
| devices are connected. The _cable_ also has to advertise
| that it is capable of that power delivery.
| contriban wrote:
| From what I understand, the cable has to advertise the
| supported power output, it's not like a raw power outlet
| that will start a fire if you use a random thin cable. A 5W
| USB cable will probably never receive 240W, even by
| mistake.
| wearywanderer wrote:
| I can count the number of times I have ever had to charge my
| laptop with somebody else's cable on one hand. And I've been
| using laptops exclusively since 2006.
|
| My current laptop (an XPS 9310) has USB-C for charging. But I
| would be very reticent to ever charge it with somebody else's
| cable, and without a 'usb condom' I wouldn't even consider
| charging from some random public cable (e.g. airport charging
| kiosks.) USB charging for laptops has the same "untrusted
| cable" problems as USB charging for cellphones.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Meh, I would rather know that what I have is going to work
| correctly. Now we're going to have many more calls to
| customer service complaining that our devices aren't
| charging/transferring-data at the advertised rates and every
| rep is going to start by telling us to use only the cable
| that was provided with our device. _I_ , a technical person,
| don't enjoy dealing with this stuff, and it's going to be
| hell for my non-technical family and friends (who will
| naturally come to me with their problems).
|
| That it won't damage their device is certainly wonderful, but
| I definitely think the cons outweigh the pros.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > It actually is sort of nice, because "works" isn't binary.
|
| Spoken like a true gaslit tech user.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| "Works" may be a spectrum, but "works optimally" is binary.
|
| There is so much variation in the USB spec that a data
| transfer or a battery charge could take a few minutes or a
| few hours depending on which cable and which port/adapter you
| use, with no foolproof way to make sure you're putting
| together the right equipment, because regardless, it still
| "works", just not very well.
|
| Don't get me wrong, it's great that it "works". I just wish
| it was clearer what I need to make it work optimally, aside
| from just using the one brick and cable that came with my
| device (assuming I was so lucky).
| jayd16 wrote:
| I'd much rather have this and all the fallback than "well it
| could work but they put a little nub on the port so it doesn't
| fit."
| [deleted]
| relate11 wrote:
| What kind of idiocy is this? Apparently you can already buy
| cables for the BADUSB exploit:
|
| https://sneaktechnology.com/pentest-engagement-scenario/badu...
|
| Better carry your original cable and device with you at all
| times.
| HugoDaniel wrote:
| yay global warming
| ulfw wrote:
| Laptops shouldn't ever need 240W. That's just getting stupid. Buy
| a desktop if this is what you need!
| Filligree wrote:
| I can't take a desktop with me on an airplane.
| kiwijamo wrote:
| You can! Many years ago I took a desktop machine (minus
| monitor, keyboard, etc as my friends already had spares of
| these at the destination) on not one but two flights (going
| there there and the going back back). Surprisingly the people
| checking in my bag didn't seem to surprised--the only unusual
| thing was that they asked me to sign a declaration that the
| airline wouldn't be responsible for any damage. The bag tag
| went all around the machine (I didn't have the original box
| so I took a gamble to see if the airline would accept the
| machine itself) and off it went on the belt at departure. And
| on arrival it came on the carousel with all the other bags.
| It worked fine after both trips. All so I could join a gaming
| session with my friends in another city! Though it should be
| said I can see why it might be more tricky once you factor in
| a monitor and other things. And I probably wouldn't do it
| again now I have a laptop that can run some pretty decent
| games--but yes good memories... :)
| folmar wrote:
| A SFF would do nicely. A NUC even more so, but is not really
| up to high workloads
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| You can't take a laptop with a battery larger than the 16"
| MacBook Pro on an airplane either! https://www.theverge.com/2
| 019/11/13/20962380/apples-16-inch-...
| salamandersauce wrote:
| Nobody sells laptops with batteries bigger than that! Guess
| why? Because you're not allowed to take them on planes.
| Just means gaming laptops have less battery life is all.
| gbrown wrote:
| Most of these gaming laptops likely don't; they're really
| not intended to be used for heavy gaming while on battery,
| because the battery can't support the discharge rate needed
| by a high end GPU.
| gbrown wrote:
| No thanks, I'll keep my gaming laptop. Far more portable than a
| desktop, lots of compute overhead, and I can use it for games.
| At home it's basically a desktop with external keyboard and
| monitors.
|
| Oh yeah, and when it's not being used with the dedicated
| graphics card, it gets 6-9 hours of battery life.
|
| Oh, almost forgot - it's lighter and about the same size as my
| 2012 13" MBP.
| pa7ch wrote:
| Does it require 240 watts?
| gbrown wrote:
| I guess not, it says 180 on the back. Haven't bothered to
| meter it under full load + charging though.
|
| To be clear, I'm skeptical of pushing that much power over
| USBC.
| josefresco wrote:
| For some people (like me), a laptop is merely a portable
| desktop.
| pmlnr wrote:
| 240W !? On what, a fraction of a mm bloody copper cable?! Whoever
| designed this hadn't actually encountered electricity in real
| life.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| OK, call up the USB-IF and ask them a question. A simple
| question. When USB-PD was developed in the ancient year of 2014,
| was it truly unforeseeable that, you know, laptop GPUs use a lot
| of power, maybe we should support more than the arbitrary 100W
| number on this connector?
| kube-system wrote:
| It doesn't sound like 100w was arbitrary. Increasing power
| always means increasing either the voltage or the current, or
| both. Increasing the current means you need larger conductors,
| i.e. a larger connector and thicker wires. Increasing the
| voltage means mitigating arcing concerns, which was mentioned
| in the article.
| burntwater wrote:
| Apple and Microsoft's Surface had (does the Surface still have?)
| the perfect connector - the Magsafe. The more we dig into this
| power over USB-C garbage, the farther away we go from that
| perfection. The patent expiration cannot come soon enough, I
| seriously hope all portable device vendors bring it back.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| There are already plenty magnetic USB cables, most will only
| carry power or maybe USB 2.0 though
| hhh wrote:
| Surface still does have this connector, but can also charge
| from USB-C at reduced speed!
| burntwater wrote:
| That's the perfect way to do it. If it's docked, you likely
| don't care as much about the charging speed. And if you're
| using on your lap or coffee table, you probably care more
| about the MagSafe aspect.
| wearywanderer wrote:
| Magsafe were the perfect _connectors_ , but it was a huge shame
| that Apple botched the cables attached to those connectors. I
| went through three of them in three years; they yellow within
| months then start to fall apart. But worse than the cables were
| the fanboys who were always eager to blame me for the cables
| failing. I've never had such problems with cables before or
| since. Despite liking the connector itself, I am glad to see
| these gone.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| The leaks say MagSafe is coming back on the MBP 14" and 16"
| laptops coming, possibly, at WWDC next month.
| TheRealSteel wrote:
| I'm going to be very annoyed if Apple ditches the Touch Bar
| and gets that close to making the perfect laptop, then takes
| away my USB-C charging.
|
| Knowing Apple they would never offer both.
| burntwater wrote:
| I've sworn off the past 5ish years of Apple laptops, but if
| they bring MagSafe back, ideally along with a non-Touchbar
| option, that just might be enough to bring me back!
| servercobra wrote:
| The rumors are indeed that Touch Bar won't be on the new 14
| and 16in either. I won't miss it, but I certainly don't
| mind it.
| mnouquet wrote:
| OOTH, you'll still be stuck with Big Sur (or worse).
| nindalf wrote:
| This is pretty good for the people who have such laptops, but I'm
| just struggling to understand the use case for a laptop. A laptop
| that consumes that much power can't possibly have much battery
| life. At that point, are you getting much portability out of your
| laptop? Why not just use a desktop?
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| I have a desktop and a laptop. Playing a game on my desktop
| means spending time well away from my family. Using my gaming
| laptop on my dining room table means I'm still around. I can
| answer the door, help out if need be. Makes things much easier
| in a busy household.
| Filligree wrote:
| It's still a mobile form factor.
|
| That's basically why. It's a computer you can take with you,
| without worry about packaging or needing to bring cables.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| > Why not just use a desktop?
|
| Gaming laptops that contain high-end GPUs can consume this much
| power while charging the battery and running games. And such
| laptops are still way more portable than a desktop. You can
| lift the laptop and keep it in your car, drive off and have a
| gaming PC ready-to-use where ever you end up. Same cannot be
| done with any desktop.
| pastrami_panda wrote:
| Typically they're throttled by poor thermals. I'd be
| interested to know if anyone has recommendations for rtx
| grade laptops with nice CPUs in 15-17 inch form factor that
| doesn't throttle but are still somewhat portable. I have not
| found any but I think I've been testing too thin ones (XPS
| and Blade).
| 3np wrote:
| Have you checked out Thinkpad P15/P17? I can't speak to as
| to if and how (probably to some extent unless in ideal
| climate) they throttle, but generally Thinkpad P series are
| holding up pretty well (obviously at the cost of slimness).
| Can be configured with up to Quadro RTX 5000 Max-Q 16GB.
|
| EDIT: Judging by notebookcheck, you should also check out
| HP ZBook Fury 15 G7, Thinkpad T15g, Dell Precision 7550,
| and MSI WS66.
|
| https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-
| ThinkPad-P15-Gen-1-lapt...
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| There are a number of "balanced" gaming laptops that cut
| back GPU power a bit to accommodate a thinner, lighter
| build without throttling often or at all.
|
| One such machine is the ASUS Zephyrus G14/G15 and in the
| next month or two, M16 which weigh ~4.5lbs and come with
| Ryzen 5000 mobile CPUs (up to 5900HS) and 95W variant RTX
| 3000 GPUs (up to RTX 3080). I've been using the G15 for the
| past month and it's not bad, kind of a midway between a
| Macbook and traditional gaming laptop. Its looks are low
| profile enough that I wouldn't be embarrassed to bring it
| into an office.
|
| If you're willing to push the slider a bit further in the
| power direction, there's machines like the Lenovo Legion 5
| Pro and Legion 7 16", which weigh about 1lb more than the
| Zephyrus machines (~5.5lbs) but come with significantly
| beefier cooling, a higher TDP CPU, and 130-150W variant RTX
| 3000 GPUs. They're a bit more of a desktop replacement but
| still fairly reasonable to lug around, nothing like the
| 8-10lb behemoth Alienwares of old.
| pastrami_panda wrote:
| Ok great info, gonna check for one with a huge battery.
| I'd like to learn more about undervolting and such to see
| how much battery you can save. I want to work on it on
| battery for long stretches of time, activating the GPU
| periodically to crunch or render something and then
| turning it off to save on power.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Have XPS 9570, can confirm that it works gorgeously for a
| minute or two and then throttles down to nothing. This is
| both before and after opening it up to clean out the fans
| and redo the thermal paste.
| pastrami_panda wrote:
| I've had some luck forcing it to use integrated graphics
| until explicitly told otherwise, but CPUs tend to run hot
| as well. I have not yet tried new Zen processors but due
| to power draw I suspect they perform good in these
| conditions
| tobiasSoftware wrote:
| There are two use cases for laptops. The first is the normal
| one where you carry your laptop around wherever you go, and
| actually use it on your lap sometimes. The second is to view
| your laptop as a mobile desktop, where you have a few stations.
| The laptop would always be plugged in, but it might be plugged
| in different places.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| What's "that much power"? More than 100 watts?
|
| I can find a laptop with a recent ryzen CPU and an RTX 2060
| that gets 10 hours of battery life. At the same time, those
| parts could be pushed to 150 watts if you had enough cooling.
| And you'd need even more power to charge while using it flat-
| out.
| elzbardico wrote:
| I think such kind of devices are primarily _portable_ and
| occasionally _mobile_. It is a subtle but important difference.
| Most gaming PC notebooks over 13 " are too bulky anyway to be
| considered mobile devices. The only beefier notebook that still
| reasonably can be used as a mobile device even at 16" screen
| sizes are, in my experience, macbooks pro. but YMMV
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| I use my laptop as a portable desktop and plug it in where I'm
| going. I have zero use case for a laptop that isn't plugged in.
| math0ne wrote:
| I like to be able to move a powerful computer to different
| rooms of my house.
| salawat wrote:
| Because most desktops don't have integral screens and
| keyboards. Nor do they stay on and compute in an albeit
| degraded state in transit.
|
| Not everyone is just using laptops as a word processor/browser.
| Sometimes you just need oomph.
| asdff wrote:
| i would love if my macbook stayed on and computed when i
| closed the lid. behavior is pretty inconsistent no matter
| what settings i check in control panel. sometimes i close the
| lid and it holds its ssh connections, sometimes it drops them
| and i don't know why.
| salawat wrote:
| Can't help on the lid closure, but apparently there's some
| screensaver setting that tells the system to keep working
| in the background even when the lockscreen appears after
| screensaver activation.
| Animats wrote:
| 50V at 5A through a tiny USB-C connector. That's pushing a lot of
| power through dinky wires.
|
| Next, people will want o be able to jump-start a car via USB-C.
| c2xlZXB5Cg wrote:
| Next in playlist: Talking Heads - Burning Down The House
| throwaway4good wrote:
| I thought the industry was moving away from intel cpus?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| GPUs in gaming laptops use _WAY_ more power than even the
| hungriest mobile CPU.
|
| Strong mobile CPUs like the Ryzen 5800H are usually in the 45W
| ballpark while mobile RTX 3080 class GPUs can go as far as
| 170W+ and that is still half of what the desktop equivalent can
| draw.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| What's the cooling situation on such a laptop?
| fogihujy wrote:
| Somewhere between "drone" and "fighter jet" in most cases.
| asdff wrote:
| if you are paying money for a gaming laptop, you probably
| aren't tolerating the teensy unidirectional laptop
| speakers, and have some serious cans on your head for
| gaming that mask the helicopter on your desk.
| cyrksoft wrote:
| Many of them use vapor chambers, they are quite good as a
| cooling solution[0].
|
| [0]https://www.1-act.com/resources/heat-pipe-
| fundamentals/diffe...
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| How much do you like your hair-dryer?
| banger180 wrote:
| USB-c Power Delivery does not require an intel CPU, so I don't
| see a problem.
| burundi_coffee wrote:
| I think he was referring to the absurd amount of power some
| Intel CPUs require.
| kiwijamo wrote:
| My SO has an AMD gaming laptop that came with a 135W power
| supply. Surprised the heck out of me as I typically see
| Lenovo/Apple laptops with 45W or 65W power supplies.
| Doesn't seem to be an Intel-only thing.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Then other power-hungry device categories will become the
| beneficiaries of this. External GPUs with a high power
| draw, for instance.
| bin_bash wrote:
| don't external GPUs have their own power?
| [deleted]
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