USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

https://debugger.medium.com/usb-c-was-supposed-to-simplify-our-lives-instead-its-a-total-mess-626bb2ea3688#Echobox=1601499898

by gozzoo • 6 years ago

590 605 6 years ago

debugger.medium.com

coldtea2• 6 years ago

Tired with these articles. USB-C has saved me tons of hassle.

macintux• 6 years ago

You could...not read them?

coldtea2• 6 years ago

Yes, but I'm not just a selfish person caring for my self. I want to spare the whole world of such mediocre articles.

julianlam2• 6 years ago

Sometimes it seems like I'm the only person with absolutely zero issues with USB-C. I have a Lenovo monitor that delivers power+HDMI+usbhub to my laptop, and having to only plug one thing in to access all my peripherals is amazing. I used a bog standard Anker USB-C cable for this.

amelius2• 6 years ago

Just wait until you have to write an embedded driver for it.

Decker87• 6 years ago

I'll be waiting for a long, long time then.

martin_a2• 6 years ago

Ah yeah, who doesn't do this everyday? I've written like... five of these today alone...

Honestly, you'll find those "for me it's SUPER stressful"-cases everywhere, but it will not touch 99.99% of the other people.

megous7• 6 years ago

I did, it's not pleasant. :)

Waterluvian3• 6 years ago

I’m sure for some it’s a nightmare worthy of writing about, but yeah I’ve never had a problem.

I love that USB-C trivially expanded my laptop to having two DisplayPort devices so I can run 3 4K screens at 60hz

5423542342354• 6 years ago

It isn’t a nightmare, but it is an issue of conflicting compatibility. He flat out states that it is a vast improvement, and then goes into the issues it does have and what fixes should be focused on as we iterate in the future. I personally have had some of these issues, where some of my older chargers and cables do not work with more modern devices, as well as some devices having proprietary chargers and cables to get full power (looking at you, Oneplus “warp charging”). It isn’t the end of the world, but they are issues I hope people work on, so we can move closer to more universal standards and interconnectability. USB C is a huge step towards that, but it isn’t’ there yet.

oefnak• 6 years ago

What laptop do you have that does 3×4K@60Hz? Is it loud?

jacobush• 6 years ago

Hehe, my new work Lenovo laptop needs some kind of USB-C dongle for it to connect an external monitor. In the end, one needs two Lenovo chargers, the dongle and cables. Fun stuff. Plus the power supply to the monitor, of course.

I expected what you said, got something else altogether.

sq_6• 6 years ago

I have a Lenovo monitor that delivers power+HDMI+usbhub to my laptop, and having to only plug one thing in to access all my peripherals is amazing.

I've been all-in on USB-C for a while now, and I just finally got to use a friend's monitor with that feature set the other day. It was so awesome! I expected to have to plug a keyboard and mouse in, etc., but I just sat down and plugged in the USB-C cable to my MBP and everything just worked.

reader_mode5• 6 years ago

I have a 34WK95U-W 5k monitor I use for the same setup :

- initially OSX had a bug with my 2018 Vega20 MBP and I couldn't even use the monitor it would keep glitching out - I had to switch to beta channel to get it working - I cannot get DP 1.4 to work properly - I can either have half resolution with HDR on DP 1.4 or I can switch monitor to DP 1.2 and get full 5k without HDR

- I cannot use the monitor with my wife's Lenovo laptop for charging and 5k display - if I try to do both it constantly resets the display - I'm assuming it draws too much power, when I plug a separate power adapter it works fine

- I am not sure if this monitor would work with an AMD laptop that has USB 3.2 as LG only advertises thunderbolt support but theoretically DisplayPort Alternate Mode should work. Also have no clue if it would charge or if the USB hub functionality would work

Overall this was a pretty unsatisfying experience for a 2000$ device.

ip26• 6 years ago

For some reason text doesn't render sharply over USB-C on my 4K. So I just switched back to display port instead, and continued with life. That's been the only issue.

WolfRazu• 6 years ago

Chroma subsampling perhaps?

benhue• 6 years ago

So I was the same until the cable that I used with the monitor broke and I thought I could just use the same cable that shipped with my MacBook Pro (which are quite pricey), it didn't work as I had no idea you needed a cable that supported video and for a while assumed my monitor was broken. Now imagine a less technically literate person experiencing this.

rhacker• 6 years ago

Definitely not alone. I have a USB A headset. I have a new macbook pro with USB(C/thunderf*ck?) adapter that lets me use this headset on my mac. No biggy.

Anyway one day I was like, huh, I bet this won't work, but I plugged my Mac adapter into my Oneplus phone, with the USB A headset attached. The phone actually detected the headset, including the volume up/down button built in.

So yes, USB-C simplified my life.

MikeKusold• 6 years ago

USB-C monitors are a complete mess too. My LG monitor only charges at 65W over USB-C, so I still need to plug in my MBP charger to avoid depleting my battery. A lot of docks also face this problem.

cwhiz3• 6 years ago

I have not had a problem with anything. Multiple MacBook Pros, Switch, Quest, iPad, thumb drives, external drives, monitors, portable monitors, XPS13, and more. Never had a problem with a cable, and never had a problem with a power adapter.

Maybe it's just luck? Maybe it's because I generally avoid the cheapest items on Amazon? I've been swapping cables and adapters around for 3+ years now with no issues.

jeremymcanally3• 6 years ago

Really? I find it to be a game changer for me.

The fact that my laptop, Switch, iPad, and several other devices can all share a charge has made my life much easier. I can just sprinkle a few of them throughout the house and never be without power. Before it was always a hunt to find a cable, or I had to be in [x] room to charge [y] device because that's where the charger lived.

Plus, I can charge my MacBook on either side, so that's basically life changing on its own. :)

blablabla123• 6 years ago

Same for me, also that I can use the same docking station for my work and my private laptop is awesome. Of course the support for the (quite complex) standard is not fully there yet, so one cannot blindly buy or connect new stuff.

buzzerbetrayed• 6 years ago

Did you not read the article? Because your response doesn’t address any of the issues brought up in the article. Mainly that all the usb-c cables you sprinkle across your house might not have the same functionality. And if you plug your switch in to one it might charge it, while another will not.

ilikehurdles• 6 years ago

Exactly! This has been my experience. I bought 3 different USB-C cables for my keyboard until I found one that let the keyboard work as the original did. I have a few usb-c cables that will charge my gopro and a few that won't. I like the form factor, but the standard itself is a mess.

duxup3• 6 years ago

Because your response doesn’t address any of the issues brought up in the article.

Not the issues, but it addresses the gist of it.

For that person (and me) it has simplified things. If simplifying your life is part of the measurement, it has for some folks.

leetcrew6• 6 years ago

Mainly that all the usb-c cables you sprinkle across your house might not have the same functionality.

this is a problem if you expect things to be like USB2 where you can collect all these random cables and power blocks and use them interchangeably. this wasn't always true with USB2 anyway, with all the out of spec "fast charge" implementations.

there are a lot of optional features and speed tiers for USB3, which is certainly annoying. but you have the option of buying a bunch of cables that support everything you need/use and scatter those around your house. they will work with any standards compliant equipment, which is really the best you can hope for with any standard.

jeremymcanally3• 6 years ago

I did read it, and for my use cases, I don't have issues. I understand others' use cases may not match mine, but this situation seems basically like any other connectivity standard in the history of technology. Except this time, the universality for what most people use it for has actually managed to catch on. :)

Drew_• 6 years ago

Mainly that all the usb-c cables you sprinkle across your house might not have the same functionality.

If you buy decent cables they all do. The reality is that whatever devices you're plugging the cables into might not support every feature you're looking for. Instead of blaming poorly built devices or ignorant consumers it must be the shape of the cable that's the problem surely.

Rebelgecko• 6 years ago

FWIW I've never had an issue with the cables. The only time USB-C has bitten me is when trying to charge a device using a charger meant for a lower tier of hardware. I've never had any issues with USB-PD chargers. For example my MBP charger works on everything. My phone chargers don't work at all on my cheap Chinese laptop, but they'll trickle charge my MBP (which has honestly been a lifesaver). Even my $20 battery pack will get me a few hours of laptop life

Latty• 6 years ago

Those problems are hardly unique to USB-C.

With Micro-USB I had charging cables that didn't have data lines in them, Kindle power adaptors that didn't offer enough output for my phone to charge off, and non-standard devices that didn't follow the spec and only worked with certain stuff.

In my experience, it works well enough I've actively only been buying USB-C stuff where it is at all possible to do so for a while now.

It feels like these complaints are inevitable to me: a spec with no flexibility would become redundant too quickly or cost far too much to implement in most devices to ever see widespread adoption.

cwhiz3• 6 years ago

This is a problem with essentially any cable. The only difference between old and new is that the new problem is with a single plug instead of a handful of plugs.

cowmoo728• 6 years ago

Except the switch doesn't actually use usb-c pd, it's a different proprietary thing that uses a usb-c connector.

greenshackle2• 6 years ago

This is such a terrible design decision.

dathinab10• 6 years ago

No it uses USB-C PD!

It's just incorrectly implements the switch to an alternate mode which it uses for it's duck which causes 3rd party docks to fry switches.

It's generally more sensitive in that alternate mode as it draws more power.

The dock itself is a different matter.

But the switch does implant USB-C PD just fine.

I'm frequently charging it with my laptop charger and many people do so as far as I know.

It's also why using a power bank with the switch works just fine.

vr465• 6 years ago

Aha - you may find that your Switch CANNOT in fact share a charge - Nintendo's port is not necessarily safe to use with anything but its supplied charger. And I've just learned this lesson with a $60 bill from Nintendo repair after the port went pop and couldn't charge the device. I only have reputable chargers in the house from Apple and one from Anker aside from the Nintendo's own.

All my apple kit works fine off the Apple chargers, but I do have an external hard drive that has mixed Thunderbolt 3/USB 3.1 ports, which are absolutely not the same.

I love the port, but the standard just hasn't caught up and when a company like Nintendo flouts it anyway, you have a big problem.

izacus5• 6 years ago

Aha - you may find that your Switch CANNOT in fact share a charge - Nintendo's port is not necessarily safe to use with anything but its supplied charger. And I've just learned this lesson with a $60 bill from Nintendo repair after the port went pop and couldn't charge the device. I only have reputable chargers in the house from Apple and one from Anker aside from the Nintendo's own.

It has worked reliably with pretty much every charger I threw at it so this sounds like one of those urban myths.

philplckthun• 6 years ago

I think it's fine to point out the Thunderbolt mess, or the PD vs non-PD devices (although non-PD is becoming exceedingly rare as far as I can tell at least for "larger" devices), but using the Nintendo Switch seems like a bad example in my opinion, since it explicitly does not follow all USB standards, especially in fact on charging.

jeremymcanally3• 6 years ago

I use it with my Apple charger without issue, and I've done that since I got it quite a while ago. While I don't doubt your experience, it sounds like perhaps your situation isn't quite universal. Defective Switch hardware maybe? Not sure, but it works well for me.

cameronh90• 6 years ago

I charge my Switch with various USB PD chargers (mostly Anker but also Apple, Google and others) and haven't had a problem so far.

I was trying to find some information about what would cause PD-compliant chargers to fry the Switch. It appears that while the switch is PD-compliant itself, they used a slightly non-standard connector that reduces tolerances and could, in some situations (most likely worn cables) cause some pins to electrically bridge and fry the port.

To be honest, this doesn't seem like an issue with USB C, just Nintendo intentionally implementing it wrong. They should have either used a proprietary port for the docking mechanism rather than modifying USB C in an unsafe way then saying only to use their proprietary charger.

api• 6 years ago

That is Nintendo’s fault.

chmod775• 6 years ago

$60 bill from Nintendo

A $60 bill to fix their fuckup? I'd have returned that under the (legal) warranty.

JAlexoid4• 6 years ago

I use my Lenovo USB-C charger - charges everything perfectly well. No issues for over 3 years now.

It's Apple's stuff(the irony of it, right?) that has all kinds of problems. I don't even charge my MacBook with Apple's chargers anymore.

Spooks• 6 years ago

Charging is fine, the issue is using under wattage 3rd party docks or using a bad charger for the dock while playing, as it pull more power when it is in dock mode.

Charging it has never been an issue for anyone and this is the first I heard being a charging issue

arghwhat• 6 years ago

Aha - you may find that this is not true at all.

Not only has the Switch always charged safely, later revisions are also more compliant. The issue has always been with the charger and dock. Never PD compliant chargers straight in the switch.

The thunderbolt 3 + usb C thing is true though. My Thunderbolt 3 dock won't charge a non-TB3 device. I'd consider that a minor issue though, especially as USB4 fixes it entirely.

rolobio• 6 years ago

From my research a few years ago, this is caused by the Switch asking the charger for 20V, but it actually expects 15V. The Nintendo charger obeys this hidden rule, but any other charger will happily provide 20V. I think the difference between a 20V and 15V charge isn't significant enough to blow the Switch up the first time you use it, but, over time it will blow up.

JohnTHaller• 6 years ago

Side Note: Make sure you buy your Apple chargers from Apple. If you bought it from Amazon or similar, there's a good chance it's fake.

birdyrooster• 6 years ago

Also if your switch battery ever gets really really low, you can’t charge it with anything other than the OEM charger.

sergeykish3• 6 years ago

This explains why there are so many "no charge" Nintendo Switch in TronicsFix videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xix7qzbOT6Q

oso2k• 6 years ago

I haven’t found this to be true. I’ve used 4 or more different chargers. A couple off-brand USB-C chargers, USB-C dock/charger, Apple USB-C chargers, USB-C to USB 2.0/3.0 cables with 1A, 2.4A, 2.5A chargers. All worked without issue. In fact, I left the Nintendo wall wart at home (I usually travel for work) and just bring along a USB-C to USB cable with me.

willis9363• 6 years ago

I was livid with Nintendo when the Switch launched. It took decades of hard work to get the interconnect industry to play nice with common standards. It’s a fragile, prosperous peace. It doesn’t take much to destroy it. Nintendo’s careless actions threaten a lot more than a few toys.

rsync• 6 years ago

"I love the port, but the standard just hasn't caught up and when a company like Nintendo flouts it anyway, you have a big problem."

Can't this hazard be eliminated with some kind of "USB Condom" that would, at least, universalize your cables and ports ?

I have a USB condom that I use for standard USB ports for disabling data lines (turning them into power only cords) - I assume you could build a smarter, more sophisticated USB condom that would allow you to safeguard against these edge cases and incompatibilities ?

city412• 6 years ago

I could see it being great if all your devices are on it. But when you have usb-c, usb micro, usb mini and usb-b devices, the cables are a total pain. On top of the special pain usb-c brings onto itself. I have a cabinet that is basically dedicated to usb cables, using organizers to keep them all accessible and searchable. That does help a lot. But I feel like having to go that far is a sign usb was not as well thought out as it could have been.

syshum• 6 years ago

Well that just means you are not replacing all your devices every 12 months like the manufacturers want....

thrower1232• 6 years ago

Micro-USB was better. Especially since there are still so many existing devices that used micro-USB ports.

himlion• 6 years ago

No, those cables are not durable at all. Cheap or expensive, they don't last more than a few months with heavy use.

izacus5• 6 years ago

Only if you forget that there were at least 10 differente incompatible standards on how the device told the charger to pull more power.

izacus5• 6 years ago

It gets even better when you find out you can get a HDMI/Power dock that works with Switch, laptop, phone and can provide video and charge them all without having to carry 15 cables with you.

Can it be confusing? Yes. But it's a hellova improvement from bunch of disjoint cable standards we had before.

dx872• 6 years ago

Nintendo says you shouldn't use anything except 1st party cables with the Switch. There were articles a couple of years ago talking about Switches being bricked.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/08/heres-why-nintendo-sw...

oblio2• 6 years ago

This is on Nintendo being jerks. Just because web server X doesn't implement the standard correctly, that does not make TCP or HTTP bad.

dathinab10• 6 years ago

Note that most bricking was with 3rd party docks (due to the Switch not so standard conform HDMIish + charging alternate mode).

Bricking your switch with a "pure" charger mostly only happens with but fully standard conform chargers used with the wrong cable.

Most (all?) Hight voltage/amper chargers like e.g. for laptops work just fine on the switch.

Through it's a bit more troublesome for the dock.

outworlder• 6 years ago

Why are they saying 'bricked' when they mean they were destroyed? 'Bricking' is normally a firmware issue.

Do we say that a car was 'bricked' when we trash it in an accident?

sq_6• 6 years ago

100% agree with you on how convenient USB-C can make things. Being able to carry one 60-90w brick with multiple USB-C PD outputs and charge pretty much all of my devices off of it is amazing.

On the other hand, I would say that all of us here on HN probably aren't the target audience for this article. Collectively, I'd say HN readers are likely to understand that different USB-C bricks, cables, and devices are going to support different things and research our purchases accordingly. The article seems to be more targeted at people who will grab a $3.50 gas station cable and expect it to charge their phone at 18w and laptop at 65w.

mnky9800n• 6 years ago

But I think this is a problem when the elkjøp guy gave my wife the wrong usb-c cable for charging her phone.

znpy• 6 years ago

The article seems to be more targeted at people who will grab a $3.50 gas station cable and expect it to charge their phone at 18w and laptop at 65w.

In their defense, all those cable look exactly the same.

I haven't gone through the whole usb-c/thunderbolt reading yet [1], so I might as well make the same mistake. And the fact that you're supposed to do the whole reading thing is probably the source of the problem.

You see the same plug, same colors on the connector, you EXPECT to work the same.

[1] Most of my devices are micro-usb, my Dell work laptop charges via thunderbolt/usb-c but I've got the Dell dock for that.

billpg4• 6 years ago

Are those people who buy cheap cables in the wrong?

Maybe I do need to buy those gold-plated cables.

sandworm1017• 6 years ago

> The fact that my laptop, Switch, iPad, and several other devices can all share a charge has made my life much easier.

It must be nice to have all new things. I cannot afford to renew all my devices every few years, nor do I want too. Just looking around my room now, I probably have several thousand dollars worth of SDR dongles, battery packs, wifi adapters, raspberry bits and external drives for various projects. They are all on the old connectors/standards but work perfectly well. I have no intention of tossing everything because there is a new cable standard with go-faster stripes.

falcolas11• 6 years ago

Plus, I can charge my MacBook on either side, so that's basically life changing on its own.

Yeah, be careful with that - for some MacBook Pro models charging from the left side will cause overheating and CPU throttling issues.

paulirwin• 6 years ago

I was curious about this so had to go digging. For those that want the citation: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/why-you-shouldnt-cha...

chorsestudios• 6 years ago

Does this still occur with the latest version of MacOS?

ogre_codes4• 6 years ago

There is a preferred side, but if you need juice, you can sit down in a coffee shop[1] you don't need to worry about it. Just make sure your main setup at home/ your office is correct.

[1] we'll be able to do that again sometime right?

kalleboo7• 6 years ago

I had the same issue on my old MagSafe MBP though, and there you don't even have the option of charging on the right to work around the problem

ethbr02• 6 years ago

This is a simple problem, and there's a simple solution.

Problem: Physical connectors previous encoded information about data/power transfer mode support. When USB C unified the physical connector, that information was lost.

Solution: Mandate visually encoded supported standards on the USB cable in colored ring form, a la resistors.

Make them plastic, so you can snip them off if the aesthetic bothers. But I should be able to reach into a bin of different USB C cables, and determine what each cable can and can't do.

The law here for specifications teams should be: assume the consumer is never going to read your spec. Their ability to use the technology shouldn't be contingent on their doing so.

leetcrew6• 6 years ago

Physical connectors previous encoded information about data/power transfer mode support. When USB C unified the physical connector, that information was lost.

this is not strictly true, at least for USB. you can use a USB 1.x to connect USB2/3 endpoints, but you will only get 1.x speeds. there were power-only cables that didn't transfer data at all. they are all physically compatible. unless you're familiar with the pin layout, there's no way to distinguish the different flavors of A ports.

abruzzi• 6 years ago

Solution: Mandate visually encoded supported standards on the USB cable in colored ring form, a la resistors.

I agree in principal, but please don't do it with colored rings. Many of us have much more limited color perception due to colorblindness. I recently purchased some 8 cable 1/4" TRS snakes, and the only thing identifying which connector on one side of the snake was connected to a connector on the other side were colored bands--many of which I couldn't tell apart. I ended up pulling out a multimeter to test continuity, and then labeled then with unique glyphs on each end that weren't dependent on color (i.e. 1, 2, 3, etc.).

namdnay• 6 years ago

I wish the iPhone used USB-C...

traveler01• 6 years ago

You have the Switch V1? Mine is the V2 and I even charged it with a powerbank and works just fine.

wslh• 6 years ago

I agree completely and we should blame Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch.

Speaking about Thunderbolt via USB-C it is incredible to sit in my work desk, connect a single cable to the notebook and suddenly having a desktop computer with three external monitors, keyboard, mouse, and many other ports. I have not tried an eGPU yet but will be happier if thunderbolt evolves faster and gives more extensibility options to notebooks. I cannot forget to mention that another USB-C dongle that I use can also be connected to the mobile phone and converting the mobile phone into another desktop computer with mouse, keyboard, and an external monitor. Before USB-C and Thunderbolt you should acquire specific dongles for specific devices.

JAlexoid4• 6 years ago

Until they manage to get Ethernet through that cable without a converter - it's no bueno.

As for an eGPU user - the issue with eGPU is the cost of setup, but Thunderbolt docks are also stupid expensive(above $200 for one). I built my eGPU setup for $350(PowerColor+RX550), as a good Thunderbolt dock is in the range of $300.

dgellow• 6 years ago

Plus, I can charge my MacBook on either side, so that's basically life changing on its own. :)

You may want to read this stack exchange answer: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/363933

TLDR; If your MacBook Pro runs hot or shows a high % CPU for the kernel task, try charging on the right and not on the left.

CogentHedgehog3• 6 years ago

Same, USB-C is one of those things that for me just works.

I buy USB-PD chargers and cables from reputable brands, and everything just charges. When I use the cables for data transfer, it just works -- no muss or fuss like there were with some of the charge-only converter cables for charging micro-USB devices.

Now if I were using Thunderbolt 3, yeah, you need a higher-end cable and there are restrictions on cable length for speed purposes (or moving up to a more expensive active cable). But I think that's a fair trade-off for being able to use that same cable for everything else as well.

We cannot WAIT until our household says goodbye to the last couple devices with legacy ports and we can throw the last few converter dongles in a drawer. Looking at you, Apple and Amazon Kindle -- when are you going to get with the program and ditch your legacy Lightning and micro-USB ports respectively?

texasbigdata• 6 years ago

Ah so that’s why the thunderbolt cables are 1.5 feet :)

jorgekong• 6 years ago

Which specific cables (or brands) would you recommend?

antman• 6 years ago

My HP Elite X2 G3 tablet charges with other usb chargers only when off. When on, a HP windows utility pop ups that says not a good charger and then stops charging.

jwr• 6 years ago

Every discussion about USB-C quickly devolves into one group saying that it's a mess and pointing out all the intricacies and complexities, and another group saying "hey, I'm charging my stuff and it's fine!".

USB-C was not supposed to be a glorified power cable. It promised much, much more, and manufacturers annoyingly restricting the port choices on newer laptops made that promise even more prominent. It has failed miserably on that promise.

thelean12• 6 years ago

I don't think the public knows or cares about any promises made. The vast majority of people are extremely happy that they can charge their laptop and their phone with the same cable. That's a major improvement from previous generations of chargers and has absolutely simplified the situation. And it's only getting better.

originalvichy• 6 years ago

Did you read the article? USB-C is not just a charging cable. I can understand you are happy, but your happiness could have been achieved with ubiquitous micro-USB with extra power delivery capability.

The real disappointment is that USB-C could unite power and data delivery so that you won’t have to think about using a different shaped input for display/power. Due to patchy support this is not possible. It is explained in the article well.

INTPenis• 6 years ago

Yeah I have to say I share that sentiment.

Now when I travel I use my Lenovo charger to charge my Android phones and tablet.

Unfortunately work provides me with an iPhone so that's still one more charger. One more piece of plastic floating around the ocean in the future. God damnit apple...

untog• 6 years ago

I got a USB-C to lightning cable and it works great.

robotresearcher• 6 years ago

A usb-c to Lightning cable would get you to to a single charger. Also allows charging phone at low current from laptop in a pinch.

slykar• 6 years ago

If you ignore laptops, then Micro-B basically did charge everything in my house. The introduction of USB-C made things worse, because now I have to deal with both connectors.

dathinab10• 6 years ago

Only until everything is USB-C ;-}

Like in 10 years when due to innovation we start migration to another standard...

maxcan• 6 years ago

This is also my experience. Quest, iPad, MacBook, headphones etc can all mostly use the same chargers. Really all I need to track is that the MacBook needs a thicker cable and this pretty much solves any compatibility issues.

This article feels like an engineer complaining like: "the spec is too long for me to read and is therefore bad."

petters• 6 years ago

I felt the same way as you until my laptop was destroyed by a third-party charger.

notacoward2• 6 years ago

This doesn't seem like a factor in favor of USB-C. I regularly charge any of two dozen USB device in my house from any of a half dozen smart chargers, using too many micro-B cables to count, and it has been months since I spent even one moment thinking about compatibility among them all. This kind of setup was already common.

My USB-C devices are the ones I need to worry about. All of the chargers I've bought (not the ones that came with devices) have at least one USB-C port, but the charger I have in my bedroom is too weak for the laptop I'm using in the family room right now, which is precisely why they stay in different rooms. And then there's the Switch, as others have mentioned. At least for the devices I own, USB-C is far more differentiated/fragmented than USB-B. The only thing that's unified is the physical connector.

ETA: I see a lot of other comments saying they don't have problems. Almost to a one, they seem to be Mac users talking about fairly static setups, and recommend "top of the line" (i.e. expensive) docks etc. I suggest that those experiences are even less representative of the typical non-HN user than my own.

ziml772• 6 years ago

Bringing up the Switch is unfair to USB-C. That would be like complaining about IEC C14 if Nintendo decided to make a connector that was just a hair larger and swapped hot and ground. Not being compliant is completely Nintendo's fault.

ogre_codes4• 6 years ago

Almost to a one, they seem to be Mac users talking about fairly static setups, and recommend "top of the line" (i.e. expensive) docks etc.

You don't need "Top of the Line" anything, you just need to avoid random junk. Micro-USB isn't much better in this regard. The cheaper cables charge slower and have slower data transfer rates.

The big difference here is many USB-C devices need a lot more power, so when you buy a crappy cable, it's a lot more of an issue.

x3haloed• 6 years ago

The versatility of the port is amazing. It’s very useful to be able to use the same cable to charge, move data, and push audio and video.

However, it’s confusing AF. I feel like the first failure really is that it’s very unclear which ports and which cables support which features and how fast. You really have to know the technical differences when shopping. And you basically have to label every cable you buy, otherwise you have no idea what it’s capabilities are when you find it in your closet a year after buying it.

The other huge issue is spec compliance. It’s not clear to the average consumer whether they’re buying spec-compliant devices or non-compliant device-killers.

astura• 6 years ago

Well, tfa mentions the Switch in particular as having potential issues with some chargers:

Other devices, like the Nintendo Switch, only partially support the standard, and some unsupported chargers have bricked devices, reportedly due to the Switch’s maximum voltage being exceeded.

It also mentions issues with some devices/ports supporting "Power Delivery" and some not, and no way to tell them apart by just looking at them.

So, yeah, you can get lucky and everything just works, but that's not universal.

dathinab10• 6 years ago

Btw. It's only unsupported third party docks and chargers which themselves are not standard compiland.

muyuu• 6 years ago

Yea I agree. I'm super negative and I don't think I've ever liked any other USB before, but this standard is great. I only wish some of my older hardware had it, won't buy a new tablet without USB-C.

maxbaines2• 6 years ago

Completely agree.

stormbrew• 6 years ago

There's a lot of telephone garbling going on in a lot of the replies to this thread about the switch.

There's a really detailed post from one of the third party dock makers (genki) about all the specifics of the switch's usb-c PD implementation, including the fact that the switch uses a (nearly) bog standard usb-c pd controller chip: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/ckaiiv/an_e...

Just because nintendo won't warrant use of third party docks or claim compatibility doesn't mean it's not compatible. Nor does any anecdotal experience of a usb-c charger frying a switch (I've fried a dell laptop's battery with a busted usb-c cable, does that mean dells aren't conformant?).

cortesoft• 6 years ago

Am I the only one who misses the Magsafe chargers? My kid just yesterday pulled my wife's laptop off her desk to the ground because she got caught in the charging cable.

It was such a game changer to not bend plugs/break laptops when you got the cord stuck on something.. and we gave that all up just to have one port.

yodsanklai• 6 years ago

I do miss it but less than what I expected. My laptop has a good autonomy, so I'm less dependent on charging. Also, most of the charging happens when it's linked to the usb-c monitor where you can't trip on the cable (which is above the desk).

gfxgirl• 6 years ago

That's how I wish it was for me but it's not. So far the largest charger I've been able to find only has 2 USB-C plugs. So, switch + pixel + pocket wifi + macbook air

Then I have lots different computers. My Macbook Air has USB-C, my MacBook Pro has USB-A, My brand new desktop PC has USB-A, my Razer laptop has both USB-A and USB-C, my Playstation has USB-A. I have USB-A SD-Card readers and USB-A hubs.

Then, when If first got the Macbook Air I ended up going through 3 different USB-C hubs until I finally figured out how to buy one that actually supported 4k-60hz (the first 2 only supported 4k-30hz). Then later, I tried to use the Razer on a USB-C monitor. It worked but at some point the keyboard and mouse were flaky. Turned out apparently I needed a Thunderbolt HUB, not a USB-C hub (plugs are the same) so now I've gone through 4 hubs.

you can read about the 4 or 5 kinds of possible USB-C hubs you might end up with if you're not careful. I have no idea how a non-techie figures this out.

https://www.bigmessowires.com/2019/05/19/explaining-4k-60hz-...

And then, I still have 3 iPhones that all use lighting (USB-A to lighting) and a few other devices at are USB-Micro (Kindle for example)

And several external hard-drives that are all that USB-3 wide plug to USB-A

I'm sure by the time USB-D arrives USB-C will be great and all my cables will be USB-C on both ends and all my devices will only have USB-C sockets but right now it's a mess

barkingcat• 6 years ago

The problem is that they all probably can't share chargers or cables.

Be aware that cables of different specs of usb-c are known to burst into fire when you use them for charging or to connect devices of different specs.

mcguire• 6 years ago

I haven't experienced USB-C much yet, but I have a good tangle of micro-USB cables that I need to label:

* Some carry data, but won't charge things.

* Some charge, but don't carry data.

* Some charge at a higher amperage.

Once upon a time, back when we used PS-2 connectors for keyboards and mice, we had the same problem. A keyboard wouldn't work in a mouse port (although they were the same physical connector), but a mouse might work in a keyboard port.

Would it be wrong for me to say I would like to take an old PS-2 cable and strangle anyone who thinks this kind of antics are a good idea?

qwerty4561274• 6 years ago

Sharing a charger isn't the only cool thing. Being able to attach an ordinary USB-C thumb drive to an iPad is a very useful too. If only computers (including MacBooks and desktop PCs) had more (2 is never enough) full-featured (Thunderbolt-enabled) USB-C ports (and didn't give up built-in SD card readers) that would really be awesome.

markstos• 6 years ago

The mess isn't about you, it's about the rest of us.

Old USB printer cables have a "USB-A" end that goes into your computer and the USB-B end for the printer. You can't mess that up.

I've recently handled multiple support calls from a family member due to USB-C confusion. I have to explain "This USB port is only for power, this USB port is for power and data. And don't try to try use HDMI through your USB hub because it some some strange problem. Use this other USB-C port only for your monitor".

Maybe USB C is better for a few, but it's worse for many.

kalleboo7• 6 years ago

I have an external IDE/SATA hard disk dock that has a USB A port on it... and comes with a USB A to A cable. It's absolutely insane.

Stupid manufacturers will do stupid things with any standard. Nobody should be making a laptop with one USB C port that's power only and one that's power and data.

ketamine__• 6 years ago

Same, I'm a big fan. The only issue I have is that 1) the power bricks aren't cheap, small, and powerful enough and 2) charging things through my MBP doesn't work well because the wattage (60) isn't high enough. The external hard drive won't work if my phone is plugged in as well.

GaN chargers are pretty cool. I found the Hyper Juice to be a shit product though. Still waiting for Anker to release some high watt chargers.

m4632• 6 years ago

that is just the physical properties of the cabling. basically just power.

thayne• 6 years ago

Did you actually read the article? The problem is that not all usb-c ports/cables/chargers are the same, but they all look the same.

bla3• 6 years ago

It's a mess, but it still seems much better than the situation before to me. It's true, you currently need to be careful when buying cables, but if you are, you can charge all your devices with the same plug. And usb-c video means your monitor can act as usb hub for keyboard and mouse over the video cable, so you only need to replug a single cable to move video and mouse and keyboard between computers. I use this a lot with my laptops, I find it super convenient. It's not like the previous situation was easier to navigate for consumers. Sure, I'd be nice if usb-c was an even bigger improvement, but it doesn't deserve to be called "total mess".

crote9• 6 years ago

Yeah, but try explaining to your non-technical friend with two monitors why connecting their laptop to both via USB C works, but their phone only gives video output on one.

There are at least 5 ways to transfer video over USB C: Straight USB, HDMI alternate mode, DisplayPort alternate mode, MHL alternate mode, and Thunderbolt. Then it's also possible for an alternate mode to only use a subset of the available lanes, the lane count doesn't match the lanes available in the "real" connector, and the protocols have multiple versions.

Labeling all of that as "USB C" is a massive mistake.

izacus5• 6 years ago

Would the situation be better when you'd have to explain why does his monitor have 3 different connection ports but not the 5th one he needs? Or that he's lacking the right converter cables for all different 5 possible types?

rubatuga4• 6 years ago

You are technically correct, but in reality, 99% of video goes over USB-C as displayport. Even USB-C to hdmi dongles have a conversion chipset in it.

falcolas11• 6 years ago

but if you are, you can charge all your devices with the same plug

I have expressly found this to not be true. I have a bluetooth headset that has a USB-C plug, but it only charges from a USB-A to USB-C cord. It also won't connect to a computer using a straight USB-C cord, but it will with a USB-C to USB-A adapter and a USB-A to USB-C cord.

The Switch won't always charge from every adapter (and some folks have reported damage from trying to use a generic adapter).

I tried to use an Apple USB-C charger with a Lenovo chromebook, and the chromebook would flash as if you were plugging and unplugging the computer every second.

I have a USB-C dock (Anker brand) for my work computer, and it works (mostly) but the power is so noisy that I have to use a separate port with a USB-C to USB-A for my USB headset.

So, yeah, USB-C is a real shitshow at my house.

oftenwrong4• 6 years ago

For "normal" people like my mother, it is worse. She ended up in a situation recently where something worked with one cable, but not with a different cable. She thought the cable must be broken. I explained the issue to her, and she understands now, but she still has a hard time remembering which cables and adapters to use for the various purposes. She can't just keep them in a drawer all together. She also has trouble telling USB C from USB micro and mini A since they are all somewhat similar in appearance. She still has many non-C USB devices.

It was easy for her to set up her computer back when we had color-coded and large, distinctively-shaped ports. For example: PS/2 for keyboard and mouse (violet and green), VGA for monitor (blue), 3.5mm audio for speakers and microphone (green and pink), C13/14 for power. Obviously, usability is way better these days; she can use her laptop without plugging in anything, and mostly things Just Work. However, I think these basic child's-toy-like usability cues were valuable, and maybe we need something similar to keep USB C easily-understandable.

One day I hope that it will all be sorted out. Every USB cable and adapter will have full support. You can plug any USB C into any USB C and it will work like magic.

sergeykish3• 6 years ago

Buy some colored tape or colored cable protectors.

AgloeDreams• 6 years ago

This is silliness. This has gotten worlds better by just making chargers that work with everything and realizing that only some cables work for some needs. If you are a big hardware nut, sure you can run into issues, but 99% of the time, the same cable that charges my Phone charges my Tablet, and my laptop and my headphones and my switch and powers a wireless charger, all from the same brick. This is as opposed to the world 6-7 years ago where that would be a littany of cables and bricks.

Is it perfect? No.

Is it better? Yes.

silvestrov• 6 years ago

The big problem with Apple is the mentality of "it just works, so you don't need any info".

This means that when I plug a cable into the USB-C port on the MacBookPro, I can't get any info about what kind of cable it is. I can't get "this cable is for power only" information.

And there is no standard for markings on cables and power supplies that tell this.

vernie• 6 years ago

It's a bit of a mess but it's a net positive and there's worse shit going on.

baconandeggs2• 6 years ago

USB-C charging is truly revolutionary.

USB-C data is a clusterf*k, and worse of all, is not UNIVERSAL anymore.

gruez2• 6 years ago

USB-C charging is truly revolutionary.

Is it? I guess it's nice that I can charge my phone with my laptop charger, but it has the same issue as usb-c data where everything physically fits but are incompatible. eg. having to worry about whether a aftermarket charger provides enough voltage/current to charge your laptop.

ahartmetz2• 6 years ago

Well, I tried, and I could charge my Thinkpad using a 5V/2A phone charger and an A->C cable. Very slowly of course, but it worked. If I was somewhere and I had forgotten my laptop charger, I could worry about whether a phone charger will work, but without USB-C, I could be sure that it won't work.

megous7• 6 years ago

You can also charge your phone from your laptop and vice versa. Or one phone from other phone. Or just link two phones with a wired data connection with no power exchange.

There's a lot more flexibility than there was prior to USB-C.

axaxs• 6 years ago

Revolutionary? It's a hot mess. Some usb will charge my phone very slowly, maybe at 3w. Some will charge what I call 'medium', at around 15w, and some at 30w. And the charger that came with it is its own special usb-c thing that isn't standards compliant. I noticed that cord doesn't even attempt to charge my Stadia controller. Sure, they all do plugin and most do charge. But have fun guessing which ones charge at which speed.

atoav• 6 years ago

So all issues with USB-C boil down to

- Apple made some different standard that uses the same Plug

- Power supplies come at different power ratings (who would have thought!)

Of course this is not ideal, but it is already better than not being able to get _any_ 3rd part power supply at all.

baconandeggs2• 6 years ago

Those are not all the issues. For example, you can't get a usb-c hub to get more usb-c ports, they don't exist.

CubsFan10602• 6 years ago

Yeah, I've noticed that too. That mystifies me.

qppo2• 6 years ago

I don't know about the power rating thing so much. USB-PD is a lot more complicated than having a dumb brick with a rectifier and regulator. And while I trust my cohort of wall warts not to burn my house down, I spend way more on 3rd party USB C bricks because I have no faith in anything I buy on Amazon.

dafoex4• 6 years ago

Also the so-called "killer app" for USB-C - the HDMI output - just doesn't work on all devices, and there's barely any way of knowing beforehand.

Jugurtha• 6 years ago

I could charge a phone with a laptop's charger, then charge another laptop with that.

Contrary to other 'messes', this one is worth surmounting.

jansan• 6 years ago

The simple fact that USB-C usess a rotationally symmetrical connector is a huge improvement for me. Everything else, well, it worked for me before.

tcskeptic• 6 years ago

Very much not my experience. In fact USB-C is one of those technical advances like adaptive cruise control that I just can't imagine going back from. My only pain point has been the dongles needed to connect older USB devices to my MacBook Air that doesn't have the ports -- but I would rather deal with that than not having USB-C at all.

sandworm1017• 6 years ago

Don't worry. USB-C and associated standards are five+ years old now. Some new standards will be along soon enough. Then we will all have to buy new chargers/cables/devices again, continuing the cycle of chasing the universal bus nirvana.

https://www.pocket-lint.com/laptops/news/intel/147329-usb-4-...

> The USB 4 specification was published in late 2019 and will probably appear in devices in late 2020 or early 2021 - it usually takes around 18 months for devices to come to market once a new standard is published for the first time.

shawnz3• 6 years ago

USB-C isn't going anywhere, USB 4 still uses that connector.

sandworm1017• 6 years ago

Ya, but the OP wasn't just complaining about the connector. Rather, he was also commenting on the various standards that use that connector.

And FYI, I hear it is to be called "USB4", not "USB 4". Why? Because reasons.

dubcanada• 6 years ago

USB 4 is using USB C connector.

sandworm1017• 6 years ago

Same connector, but different standards. We will likely still have to buy new cables/devices to take advantage of the new features.

postingawayonhn• 6 years ago

USB-C is the form factor. USB 4 is one of the protocols that works using the USB-C connector.

wlesieutre5• 6 years ago

Thunderbolt becomes part of the USB spec, everything else stays the same, and you're planning to throw out your devices and buy new ones?

sandworm1017• 6 years ago

No. I'm planning on keeping the stuff I have and leapfrogging the current pile of USB-C standards. Once they settle down, probably the week before the USB-D connector comes out, then I'll consider buying all new devices.

spaetzleesser• 6 years ago

It definitely could be better but overall I think it’s a win. The only thing I am missing is that there are no USB-C 4-1 hubs like you can get for USB-A. Some of the cables also seem pretty finicky.

eclipxe• 6 years ago

USB C is amazing. Seriously it is one of the most day to day “simple” things that reduce friction in my life.

tootie2• 6 years ago

Isn't the magic of USB-C Power Delivery that it can negotiate a voltage? Previous iterations of USB only operated at 5V and USB-C can operate anywhere from 5-20V.

freeone30006• 6 years ago

Not all USB-C cables support PD!

And not all PD-capable cables support every range or combination of voltages and wattages.

jk7003• 6 years ago

It's not magic when step down DC-DC converters take as much space as power negotiation crap and all that's really needed is single 20 volts. Look at new ATX standardization development with proposals to leave only 12 volts, dropping 5 and 3.3 - that's the right way to standardize on power delivery. What USB-C is doing is not standardization, but an attempt to undermine standardization to profit from selling expensive cables and locking people into brands, just as device manufacturers did with non standard ports for mobile phones in the past and were eventually fined for it and forced to use standardized USB power delivery.

tootie2• 6 years ago

ATX isn't comparable. The power supply producers and consumers work together. USB is meant to power a vast array of devices that simply can't all be aligned to a single voltage.

spideymans• 6 years ago

There is no situation in which I’d rather have traditional USB ports on my devices, over USB-C

bluedino2• 6 years ago

I have an LG 4K monitor, a MacBook Pro, and Sony headphones that charge over USB-C, so in that scenario USB=C has been bliss.

But with older machines/monitors, I need a pile of adapters. Still, I like it-for the most part.

The worst thing about USB-C is the dock situation for laptops. None of them are perfect, and most of them are garbage. $200-300 is a bit hard to swallow when I've been buying Lenovo docks for $50 for the longest time, but today's laptops don't have the docking port on the bottom.

martin_a2• 6 years ago

Are you using a Lenovo USB-C dock? Are you happy with it?

My work laptop is a Dell and their USB-C dock seems to work just fine (at least for me).

bluedino2• 6 years ago

I'm not, but we have Lenovo USB-C docks at the office, as we have Lenovo laptops. They're all buggy. I'm still using a traditional dock as mine hasn't been upgraded yet so I still have the port.

falcolas11• 6 years ago

I have an Anker hub/dock (HDMI, ethernet, USB-A), and it works fairly well. A bit noisy for a lower quality (i.e. poor power filtering) USB sound card. It does not provide USB-C power pass-through, however.

whywhywhywhy3• 6 years ago

It's honestly such a complete joke it's not even funny anymore. My USB-C MacBook Pro with it's pathetic two ports that my work bought for me is now old enough that the battery is starting to fail and we're still in a world where this single cable for power, screen and ports just doesn't seem to really exist.

I'm starting to be convinced the port is fundamentally flawed, dongles with multiple ports are never reliable enough to keep a drive mounted for any heavy work, HDMI glitches out. Doesn't matter what dongle I try they all have some sort of thing wrong with them.

The only dongle that works reliably enough to do light video editing with a drive is the $20 Apple single USB-C to A adapter, which converts one of your single USB-C ports to a single USB-A port.

The fact that Apple hasn't released a usb-c hub speaks volumes, lets be honest they could charge $500 for it and people would still defend and buy it. But I feel the reason they haven't it because the technology fundamentally doesn't deliver on this promise and it would be just as unreliable as the 3rd party ones.

josho4• 6 years ago

A good (read expensive) dongle will work fine. I have one that reliably powers 2 monitors (a 5k and a 4k), 1gb network and powers my macbook.

I think the real problem is we get a lot of cheap products coming from China with very little quality control. QC is poor because they have no incentive to build in quality. E.g. you likely don't realize how flaky the dongle is until after the 30 day return policy, the branding on many of these plugs is minimal so you don't even know which company to avoid for your next purchase.

maerF0x0• 6 years ago

+1 to this.

I had bought a "top reviewed" HDMI / USBC cable on Amazon. It seemed to have issues overheating and dying. Bought the Insignia version of the same from BestBuy and it works like a champ (even when it's 100f outside and my house has no AC).

It's not about where you buy it, but the quality matters.

It was an eye opening experience when I left the 1 star review, the vendor keeps pinging me with bribe offers to take it down. So when you see even a little bump of 1 star reviews, you have to know that those are the people who have some integrity and there likely is a proportion missing.

tristor• 6 years ago

This is exactly it. If you want anything that actually works and is reliable, you pretty much cannot buy it on Amazon, you need to buy it directly from the company that makes it. I have a Henge Dock for my older 13" MBP and it's worked perfectly for years over USB-C, and on my newer Touchbar 13" I havea a 2-port USB-C microdock from HyperDrive. I use Anker PD/IQ3 chargers and cables, and I have no issues whatsoever.

There are companies making good products, but you have to be willing to pay for them and you have to buy them directly from that company usually. Even if you find that product on Amazon, due to SKU commingling you can assume most of the inventory is counterfeit.

Too many people go to Amazon, type some generic keywords in, and pick "Amazon's Choice", which is some "brand" off AliExpress with no QC. It's not just electronics, this is true for things like car parts and tools as well. It's somewhat shocking how much Chinesium-grade products have infected every aspect of American life due to the ubiquity of people buying through Amazon and Amazon's complete lack of inventory QC.

Friends are amazed that so much of my stuff works, and it seems the only way people find out about good stuff now is via word of mouth because you can't trust online review sites which are mostly just reformatting Amazon star rankings with affiliate links. The state of ecommerce in 2020 is appalling.

crote9• 6 years ago

I own a 4k @ 60Hz monitor. If I were to buy a laptop, I'd like to connect it and a bunch of USB devices via a single USB C cable. Easy, right?

Except that the monitor only supports DisplayPort 1.2. 4k60 requires a bandwidth of 12.54 Gbit/s. DP 1.2 consists of four data lanes, each providing 4.32 GBit/s, so my monitor requires four full lanes. DP 1.3 and up provide at least 7.48 Gbit/s, so 4k60 would only require two lanes for that.

USB C consists of 4 data lanes. When using the DisplayPort alternate mode, it can assign either 1, 2, or 4 data lanes to DP. The other lanes can be used for USB. In addition to that, it also offers a single USB 2.0 lane.

If a dock - even an expensive one - supports a resolution of 4k60 via DP and provides USB 3 ports, will it actually work for me? It could use DP 1.2 by assigning four data links to DP , but that means USB gets downgraded to 2.0 and I don't think any hub actually supports this. It could use DP 1.3+ and assign two data links to DP and two to USB, but if it outputs that same DP signal, it won't provide the bandwidth my monitor needs so it must actively convert two-link DP 1.3 to four-link DP 1.2. Again, I don't think any hub actually supports this.

The hardware I need can definitely exist. It's a pretty normal thing to ask for. A lot of docks, even the expensive ones, will claim to support what I need, but as far as I can tell not a single dock actually can. Because USB C has so many protocol options, figuring out what is supported has become nearly impossible.

hinkley3• 6 years ago

Or spring for a monitor with thunderbolt on it, and ditch the dongle or move it to a permanent location behind the monitor.

I am currently waiting for thunderbolt 4 support to upgrade my other monitor, so can have a hub in there somewhere instead of some devices plugged into each monitor.

coryfklein4• 6 years ago

But oh god why do we even need the dongle! What backwards world is 2020 where you can't plug a monitor into your computer?! At least, not any actual real monitor I have at home or have seen in the office.

whywhywhywhy3• 6 years ago

Which dongle is this that works and can it keep a drive mounted while video editing?

As I said don’t you think it’s strange that if this product supposedly works perfectly then why isn’t Apple shipping one with a premium price tag.

ryanianian• 6 years ago

Don't cheap out on a USB-C hub: get a Thunderbolt 3 hub.

I have a few CalDigit Thunderbolt 3 hubs. They're great. 4k monitor, gigabit ethernet, a number of USB-3 devices, and power-delivery for my Macbook. They are decidedly not cheap, but I wasted a lot of money on plain USB-C hubs (not Thuderbolt 3 which uses the same port but is not the same) that are now effectively trash.

I've got one at all of the "workstations" in the house. Tired of working in the bedroom? Unplug one cable and move to the office that has an identical setup and everything works and is easy.

macspoofing• 6 years ago

and we're still in a world where this single cable for power, screen and ports just doesn't seem to really exist.

I have a Dell XPS with a dock. There's only one USB-C connection between my laptop and the dock which provides power, screen and usb ports. It's pretty nice to come into the office and plug only one cable in (back in the pre-pandemic days)

robotnikman• 6 years ago

From my experience, Dell and HP docks have worked for me and a few different windows laptops, so they seem the best choice if you use windows.

Not sure about whats best for Mac though, and Linux... I love linux systems but my experience with linux laptops has not been the best.

IshKebab• 6 years ago

we're still in a world where this single cable for power, screen and ports just doesn't seem to really exist

It does. I have a Macbook Pro that connects to two screens, a keyboard, mouse and ethernet via a single USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 cable. The fact that not all USB-C cables are Thunderbolt 3 cables is annoying, but at least they label them pretty clearly.

snuxoll• 6 years ago

I bought a Dell UltraSharp U2719D explicitly for use with my work-issued 2019 MBP and it’s worked a treat. Plug one cable in, the display lights up, laptop starts charging, USB devices attached to the monitor connect, just like that.

Since the only place I “dock up” is at home it’s been a perfect solution. This right here is where USB-C should be heading, not annoying docks you need to lug around.

efxhoy• 6 years ago

I have used three USB-C displays extensively: a Dell U3219Q, an LG 27ud88 and an LG 32ud89. The 32" Dell and 27" LG work flawlessly: usb ethernet dongle, usb ssd drives, USB audio interface, mouse and keyboard work great. They don't even crap out on sleep/suspend. My LG 32UD89 has been rubbish though, it needs to be powered on before the macbook wakes up or it needs a hard power cycle to detect USB-C input.

They are all very pricey though.

jayd163• 6 years ago

Its not USB-C so much as those MBP ports are a bit buggy. Depending on the model, you might have better success if you try the port that's on the other side of the laptop.

pedro_hab• 6 years ago

I agree, I have an Apple dongle and it glitches too, albeit less often than the non Apple dongles.

Sometimes even my Apple keyboard won't work connected to the dongle, I have to put in and out a few times for it to work.

Things that never happened with old USB cables.

japhyr• 6 years ago

I tried some cheaper, smaller hubs for my ~2018 macbook pro 13", and nothing worked well. They either didn't work with an external monitor, or they did but they interfered with wifi.

I finally bought a CalDigit TS3 Plus. It was way more than I had hoped to have to spend on a hub, but it has worked without issue for over a year now.

https://www.caldigit.com/ts3-plus/

joshstrange• 6 years ago

+1 for the TS3 Plus. I spent A LOT of time looking around at the dock/hub state of affairs when I got my 2018 MBP 15" because I wanted to drive 3-4 external monitors and wanted as few cables as possible. The CalDigit drives my 2 2K monitors (but can drive higher, at least 4K IIRC) via DisplayPort and then I plug in 1-2 other Thunderbolt 3 -> DisplayPort (or HDMI for my older monitor).

From the hub (read: 1 TB3 cable plugged into my MBP) I get:

* Gigabit ethernet * PD to my laptop * 1 DisplayPort (which I use to drive 1 monitor) * Digital Optical (I don't use it) * 1 TB3 port (which I use to drive the other monitor with a TB3->DP cable) * 1 USB-C 10Gbps port * 1 USB-C 5Gbps port * 5 USB3 5Gbps ports (old square style) * SD card reader * Headphones/Mic output/input

It is wonderful to plug in 1 cable and get my power for my laptop, internet, monitors, webcam, wired mouse/keyboard, Lightning cable for iOS development, Micro-usb for Android development, external SSD for CCC backups, and label printer (and probably something else I'm forgetting). I just want to reiterate, all of that from ONE cable. It's pretty amazing.

This is, by far, the best setup I've ever had and I have never had a problem with it in the 2+ years that I've been using it. I picked mine up for $299.99 and it's worth every penny. I see it's $250 on Amazon right now and if this thing died today I would (after a tiny bit of research) re-buy it immediately.

Here is the product page: https://www.caldigit.com/ts3-plus/

dizzystar• 6 years ago

Have you tried powered adapters? That's what I'm using and I've had zero problems. This includes adding things that wouldn't work with a passive adapter.

cwhiz3• 6 years ago

My wife and I have both been using the "CalDigit TS3 Plus" nearly every single day since December 2018. 3-4 different laptops, 2-3 monitors each, endless accessories and drives, etc. Zero issues.

I keep this hub[0] in my laptop bag for traveling and I haven't had any issues with it in over two years, either. I've plug in monitors, daisy chained USB-C, plugged in my iPad as a second monitor, and projected over HDMI numerous times.

And I have this[1] monitor for traveling.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074DRW84M/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b... [1]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y8SSQG5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

throw0101a• 6 years ago

To paraphrase Winston Churchill: USB-C is the worst form of interface, except for all the others that have been tried.

My pet peeve is nomenclature of USB versions: 3.2 Gen 1, Gen 2, 2x2, USB 4 Gen {2,3}x(1,2}.

duxup3• 6 years ago

Normally I'm not a fan of semi-silly short comments but man that really hits home for me.

USB-C has simplified my life a great deal compared to all the others. It's not perfect, but the gains have been very significant compared to the past.

josho4• 6 years ago

The solution, I believe, is rather simple. The standards group should require any cable/device with USB 3 support to include a label on its packaging detailing which capabilities of USB 3 are supported.

Think of the nutrition labels on food packaging, instead showing what the device does and does not support, something like this:

Power Delivery——–30w max

Thunderbolt————No support

Bandwidth————–800Mbps max

Video———————4k / 30 fps

megous7• 6 years ago

Some of these values are determined only after hooking the devices together. The devices may support 5V/5A (25W) but cable may only support 3A (but it can do 36W at 12V/3A), after connecting the devices you'll get max 15W.

Dylan1680712• 6 years ago

A device using 5V/5A is nonstandard to an ugly extent but that's fine, because the actual spec of the cable is amps and there are only two options: 3 amps and 5 amps.

And we could fold the thunderbolt/bandwidth/video into one single speed rating without much trouble, if the desire was there...

5423542342354• 6 years ago

Agreed. Pick a set of standards all cables/monitors/chargers/etc. must have and a set of optional standards they can have. So any and all devices you get, all will be at least able to do A, B, and C, and if you need something to do X, Y, or Z, you can clearly see which devices and cables support those more niche needs.

Deciding what is a must have is the more tricky part. I personally think power is a must have. I think every charger and every cable should be able to charge every device. I think having a USB C charger, cable, and device, that it should not even be possible to plug it in and have it not charge because one of those three things does not support the other two.

oftenwrong4• 6 years ago

Much like nutrition labels, this will probably be confusing to the masses to the point of near uselessness, and will mostly be ignored. How many people know the difference between USB 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, superspeed and superspeed+, etc? Furthermore, how will a person know what a cable supports after it is removed from its packaging? You can't fit a table on a cable.

kcb• 6 years ago

That's not going to stop the cheap cables on Amazon from mislabeling their products. This happens all the time today. Off brand HDMI cables pretty much always state specs they don't really support.

josho4• 6 years ago

But that's not a USB-C problem, that's a consumer protection issue. I'm surprised that we don't have a bunch of class action lawsuits against Amazon for misleading advertising through their marketplace. (yes, I know many of the vendors are the ones to blame, but Amazon facilitates the transaction and is a large target to go after).

dekerta• 6 years ago

The problem with that is most people don't keep USB cables in their original packaging. How am I going to know the specs of a particular cable when it's sitting loosely in a drawer with 20 other USB cables?

josho4• 6 years ago

Fair point, add a QR code tag to the cable that contains the specs. The general point here is that the industry could, and should, be doing something to address consumer confusion.

sergeykish3• 6 years ago

SD cards is a good example, each card lists Generation, Capacity, Sequential writing speed (Speed Class / UHS Speed Class / Video Speed Class), Bus Speed.

Chargers lists Voltage, Current and Power.

ksec2• 6 years ago

Once you start doing that. How is it any different to using HDMI for Video, Power Cable, and USB for other things?

Using a specific Cable for their own purpose "is" intuitive for vast majority users. Choosing the right USB-C cable is not.

Causality12• 6 years ago

I hate the mess. You look at a type c port and you have no idea what it can do. I have a phone that can use it to move data at USB 2 speeds and supports Display Link video output. I have a phone that can output HDMI and charge while doing it using the proper adapter. I have a tablet that can't charge over it. I have another tablet that can charge over it but only at 400mA and uses a different port to charge at full speed.

FatalLogic2• 6 years ago

Would it be possible for our existing USB-C interfaces (software and hardware) to provide more information to the user? I mean, could the UI tell us:

(1) Your external device is <whatever class of device> and it requests power at 12V, minimum 15W, up to 40W, and it requests data at up to 100Mbps down/5Mbps up

(2) Your cable promises to accept power at up to 25W, and data at up to 40Mbps bidirectional

(3) I can offer power up to 60W, and data up to 500M/100M

And, this is what we have negotiated (and what appears to be working):

Data: 40M/5Mbps and Power: 12V/25W from host

* *

Is that feasible? It would be nice.

I don't agree USB-C is a 'total mess' (the physical interface is quite good), but it is a sad disappointment. I hope it will get better.

megous7• 6 years ago

Yes, it is possible.

dafoex4• 6 years ago

And for manufacturers to accurately label what their devices can do, so there's no surprises when you read one thing only to find out its false and you can't get HDMI out of your phone

FatalLogic2• 6 years ago

That would also be good. The possibility that a USB-C device might support some extended standard, for video or high bandwidth or high power and so on, has been abused for marketing purposes, and now this is damaging the public perception of USB-C

There would still be surprises when you plug in the wrong kind of cable, unfortunately, even if the device is honestly described

Tepix2• 6 years ago

It would be nice. But just trying to buy a DisplayPort 1.4 cable tells you that companies selling cables would rather sell you a "4K" DP cable instead of referring to the standard, leaving you non the wiser.

Kirby64• 6 years ago

The power portion is already handled by USB-PD protocol. Part of the negotiation protocol is telling each side "what they can offer" and "what they accept" and picking the highest one that matches both sides. It often isn't displayed in software because I'm not sure there's a way (or at least a unified way) to display that back to a host processor.

Data doesn't make sense since USB2 is USB2, there's no context on how 'fast' it is (besides USB high speed vs. standard speed). USB3/Thunderbolt/etc is more complicated, but that's also a tricky behavior.

In principle, I agree that it would be nice if there was a unified software that could tell you what is negotiated and what an upstream device is 'looking for'. I imagine we might eventually get there... maybe... kinda depends on hardware vendors to enable that though.

duxup3• 6 years ago

I love it... it has simplified things for me a great deal.

There are some misc technical issues but as more and more devices only use USB-C things are getting simpler and simpler for me.

Without a formal docking station both my laptops dock with a single USB-C, video, power, keyboard and mouse and all (FINALLY!).

All my USB-C devices charge at a reasonable (even if not consistent) rate, all of them can take any of my batteries I can carry with a single cable.

grillorafael• 6 years ago

It simplified a lot for me I must say

3np• 6 years ago

While it's a mess, my limited understanding is that as long as cables actually do what's advertised, the following three types should cover all scenarios (until TB4 is a real thing at least):

  * USB-C PD: For charging/PSUs
  * TB 3: TB stuff (displays/network/GPUs/etc)
  * USB 3.2 data: other data stuff

dcchambers2• 6 years ago

USB-C is mostly a mess if you try to get away using the cheapest adapters/cables you can find, that often times won't follow the spec. Most of the issues vanish if you use high-end cables/adapters from reputable manufacturers. This is a departure from the world of Micro USB where most cheap cables worked just as good as "high end" cables.

There are caveats. For example, my Nintendo Switch, a major electronics device from a major company, doesn't fully comply with the full USB-C PD spec. As a result, you can't assume any power adapter will work.

It's these caveats that are the real downfall... for those of us in the technology world, it's easy for us to be aware of them. For everyone else, it's not. There's also the whole Thunderbolt 3 & 4 using USB-C thing. I do feel bad for non-technology people trying to wrap their heads around this one.

In general, I've had good luck with USB-C. I can power my laptop and display to a 4K monitor with a single cable. It's awesome. I've also had plenty of frustrating experiences and weird USB bugs with certain hardware combinations.

Despite some of the issues, I think it's still a net positive.

dafoex4• 6 years ago

Perhaps you're right, but when your £500 phone with brand new USB-C port doesn't support the so-called "killer app" you bought it for, its a bit of a pain. Luckily mine was refurbished and a few versions behind the current edition at the time, so I only paid £130 for a phone with no HDMI out.

quicklime• 6 years ago

Another caveat is that many monitors have USB-C ports, but many (most?) cables do not support video. Even my cable from a luxury brand in Cupertino doesn't support it, so it's not just about sticking to famous brands.

I'm not sure how a regular consumer is supposed to understand this. In the past, it wasn't possible to plug a VGA cable into a PS/2 port. Now, you just have to know these hidden properties of each cable.

rozab• 6 years ago

A simple pictorial system for showing these capabilities should have been part of the spec, like how USB-A connectors must have the USB logo on the top. Most manufacturers complied with that.

cptskippy• 6 years ago

There's also no reliable way to distinguish a cable's capabilities other than plug-n-pray.

That's not good when cable charger combinations can damage devices.

dcchambers2• 6 years ago

I think we need a better way to differentiate between the capabilities of the cable and port type. I like having a unified port, and I think it's ok that not all cables will do everything as a way to save cost, but it needs to be apparent to the consumer in easily identifiable manor.

e.g.

- USB-C

- USB-C-V (with video capabilities)

- USB-C-T3 and USB-C-T4 (with thunderbolt 3/4)

rubatuga4• 6 years ago

By any passive thunderbolt 3 cable from apple (longest is up to 0.8m) and you are guaranteed to have displayport and thunderbolt 3 support, in addition to USB3.

rattray2• 6 years ago

Right, that's what I'd call a mess. The purpose of a standard should be that if a product conforms to it, the consumer can trust that the product will work.

That isn't the case with USB-C.

I've had some "USB-C" cables that can charge but not transmit video, some that can transmit video but not charge, and some that can do both. It shouldn't be possible to sell a cable that can't do both and call it USB-C.

ThisIsTheWay• 6 years ago

Is USB-C a form factor, a standard, or both?

rubatuga4• 6 years ago

You can't have a cable that transmits video and does not charge. Even when using USB-C for video, e.g. displayport, it negotiates through a USB 2.0 connection which guarantees 5V @ 500mA.

takeda• 6 years ago

Perhaps the only way this could be resolved is some kind of certification and education of consumers that only certified cables/devices should be used.

For others they should go after the vendors for not following spec. Yes there are fakes, but companies like Nintendo could be forced to either comply or if they don't want to, use a proprietary port like they usually did.

coryfklein4• 6 years ago

And how exactly does one know they have received a "high end" cable or charger? Because it cost enough? Because a website claimed it was "Offishial Ankker CABLE"?

I'm with you; as an educated techie I'm confident I can find a setup that works for my devices, but I'm far from the common denominator here. Frankly I'm a little concerned when HN thinks, "Nah this isn't a problem, USB-C is working just fine for me. None of my devices have blown up yet" says anything about whether it's a good standard.

chungus_khan2• 6 years ago

It's also absurd to respond to a real-world problem like this by saying "well actually if everyone knew what they were doing and behaved perfectly, this wouldn't be an issue". Of course that's the case, but that sort of utopianism is unhelpful in the real world, away from the informed masses of HN.

d1zzy2• 6 years ago

And how exactly does one know they have received a "high end" cable or charger? Because it cost enough? Because a website claimed it was "Offishial Ankker CABLE"?

Ensure that whatever peripherals you buy that need high speed connectivity _come_ with the USB-C cables they need. Since the cable is part of the product the manufacturer will ensure they will bundle the cheapest cable that still works for that product as advertised. This works naturally for devices like USB-C docks, USB-C monitors and hubs.

The problem with USB-C is that many people look at it as a connector _and_ transmission standard but it is not, it's only a connector standard. The transmission standards are specified separately and they are many. Depending on your application (what do you use the USB-C for) certain cables may work or not. You'd have to do the research to determine which signal do you need to transport over that USB-C cable: is it PD power (up to what wattage/amperage), is it USB2 (how many devices), is it DisplayPort or is it Thunderbolt3. Then buy a cable that advertises support for the signal you need.

Alternatively, buy a cable that advertises support for the highest bitrate of all those transmission types, essentially buy a cable that advertises Thunderbolt3 support, but in that case don't be surprised why almost all TB3 cables are very short, it's not easy to transport 40Gbit/sec reliably. There are longer, but active and a lot more expensive, TB3 cables.

user5994461• 6 years ago

>> And how exactly does one know they have received a "high end" cable or charger?

Get the cable in a brick and mortar shop, rather than buying on Amazon.

Preferably a normal shop, not the cheapest wallmart or dollar store.

HelloNurse2• 6 years ago

It's these caveats that are the real downfall... for those of us in the technology world, it's easy for us to be aware of them. For everyone else, it's not.

I have the contrary impression: understanding the "caveat" implies strong distrust for the experts who know that "maybe it works" means "assume it doesn't work", while a blissfully unaware consumer could get lucky and never know that USB-C is actually fragmented and difficult to use.

JKCalhoun2• 6 years ago

mostly a mess if you try to get away using the cheapest adapters/cables you can find

Which, these days, is more or less everything you're likely to pull up on an Amazon search.

Cheap Chinese manufacturing has been amazing for providing the hobbyist with low cost electronics components but a nightmare for consumers that can often end up with something sub-par.

snapetom• 6 years ago

Ironically, if you used the fancier cables with the Pi4 instead of cheap ones, it won't power on. Which supports the "mess" argument, and another example of manufacturers are the culprit.

(Yes, I know it's been firmware fixed.)

remote_phone• 6 years ago

My friend and I ran into this mess over the last few weeks.

I’m trying to find a longer cable for my MacBook. Right now the 2m cable that came with it is too short. So I started looking. I couldn’t find one that was at least 3m long from Apple and I couldn’t understand why. I had to look on Amazon and only these cheaper manufacturers made them. Except they are fully USB C, they are USB C 2.0 to USB C 3.0 or some nonsense like this. My friend went ahead and bought that and then it turned out that cable didn’t work for one of his laptops.

Then he also wanted a USB C cable for his new external hard drive but in order to support it, it has a max length of 1m. If he chose a cable longer than that it would silently be slower.

I previously ran into this issue last year with a usb c to usb 2 cable I had. It wouldn’t charge my Switch properly and I didn’t understand why until I read up on how the Switch needed a certain type of USB C cable and the cheaper cables weren’t compatible.

The entire thing is a mess. There are some advantages definitely. My family has different laptops but they all support usb c, so now we only need to bring 1 charger on trips (when we eventually get to go on trips). The USB charger will also charge the Switch. That is a huge convenience. If you have top notch charger like the MacBook charger and top notch cables then it will probably work. But the operative word is “probably” and when it does it’s a huge hassle.

wlesieutre5• 6 years ago

I don't know about the higher wattage ones for the 87W or 96W chargers, but for the 60W adapter there are tons of 3m cable options including companies like Anker that make better cables than Apple does. For example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0832DC7W8/

And anyway, compare this to before USB-C. "My MacBook's magsafe cable isn't long enough, can I get a longer one?"

No, it's soldered to the power brick, comes in only one length, costs $80 to replace the whole thing if the cable frays, and no reputable 3rd party options exist because it was Apple's special sauce patented power connector.

I'll take USB-C over that.

netcan2• 6 years ago

Douglas Adams on Dongly Things: http://douglasadams.com/dna/980707-03-a.html

Spolsky on Martian headsets: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/03/17/martian-headsets/

It turns out that making power/data cables work without irritating the hell out humanity as a whole is a task that humans are uniquely unsuited to solving. We'll have to wait for AI or aliens to fix this.

Meanwhile, stop expecting the next standard to work as a standard. Buy a nice little bag for housing your cables, dongles, adapters and such. Keep it stocked. Remember to throw out defunct ones biannually.

The problem is not going away.

TOGoS• 6 years ago

Douglas Adams wants a standard 12V connector? Those 2.1mm barrel plugs are basically that. Most any 12V LED strip you buy from amazon will come with jacks already attached and maybe include a power supply. Half the small electronic devices I buy (USB hubs, Ethernet switches, external hard drives) use it, though sometimes they want 9V instead of 12.

netcan2• 6 years ago

Yep, but if he was still around he'd still have to have articles about how he has rooms full of little dongly things and doesn't want any more.

He was one of us. Believed problems like these could be solved. It turned out that the problem of having to own a collection of dongly things cannot be solved. It turns out that they are intrinsic to human nature.

beckler• 6 years ago

I really like interoperability and ubiquity of USB-C, but I think the part that I find frustrating is that the actual cables themselves are not standardized around data transfer rates.

I recently bought a small USB-C hub that allowed you to connect to it with your own cable, and it has an HDMI port. I also decided to buy a longer, but cheaper USB-C cable to connect it to my machine, thinking it would work. Well the HDMI port wouldn't work at all. Everything else was fine. I actually ordered a replacement because I thought the hub was defective.

Come to find out, it will only work with USB-C cables with e-marker that allows a higher data rate. This info wasn't clearly stated anywhere, it was only listed deep in a support post. So that was a fun discovery...

ses19845• 6 years ago

It's a consequence of consolidating on a single connector format.

It doesn't make economic sense for every cable with the same connector to support the same power or data rates. Sometimes you just need a phone charging cable, sometimes you want to charge and drive a laptop at over 100w, and sometimes you need to carry 4k60hz hdr video over 10ft which is pretty dang hard.

freeone30006• 6 years ago

So now we're in a world where the cables have different functionality, but you can't tell them apart. So you have to keep the cable with the device it came with and you lose the benefit of having the single connnector format entirely!

joejohnson• 6 years ago

I have had the opposite experience; USB-C is working fine for me on my MacBook Pro. I have a few legacy USB-A accessories that I can easily use an adapter for. Never had a problem.

sto_hristo• 6 years ago

All these additional standards stem from the simple fact that centralized governing bodies have no chance at making innovations as fast as independent private companies. I wish the USB IF would shift into higher gears.

dafoex4• 6 years ago

Couldn't agree more. Will that HDMI dongle work with your device? Is it a Power Delivery port or just half an amp? Who the heck knows when the manufacturer themselves give conflicting information!

shadowgovt5• 6 years ago

I don't think the issue is as hard as the author makes it out to be.

1) have device

2) have charger

3) plug device into charger

4) does it charge?

5) if no, write on charger "sucks" and get another charger

If one is worried about buying the wrong charger, here's a hint: people review these things on online stores, and cheaper is worse.

nonbirithm2• 6 years ago

I bought a set of cables positively reviewed by Benson Leung for my new phone, and they worked fine.

Recently I bought a new laptop and it doesn't charge with it, or any other USB cable in my place, except the one it came with, which is too short, and only ends in USB-C so I can't use it with any other power adapter I own. I don't know why it doesn't charge with any other cable.

If not even Benson Leung's recommended cable works, what then?

This is the frustration. All USB-C cables should have some bare minimum features that all of them supply, and be clearer about which ones have which features. Labeling it all the same USB-C leads to the frustration so many people are talking about.

shadowgovt5• 6 years ago

I mean, if there's a magic cable to charge just that one device, sounds like that device is broken.

5423542342354• 6 years ago

Multiply that by millions of people and 10s of millions of devices and it is a pretty big deal. How is advocating for a standard so that every purchase wasn’t a crap shoot a bad thing? Having to sort through reviews just to attempt to determine basic functionality is ridiculous. I don’t read reviews to find out of a table lamp will plug into the wall because the basic standard of delivery power over a power cable is a given because of a set standard.

shadowgovt5• 6 years ago

It took quite a long time to get to where you could assume an arbitrary table lamp plugged into an arbitrary wall socket would work.

falcolas11• 6 years ago

There's also the cable between the charger and PC, and the capacity of that matters too. It might not be the charger, it might be a limit on the cable's power capacity.

cletus• 6 years ago

USB-C is the dumbest thing ever and case in proof the foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

We went from a situation where no plug fits but if it does it works to a situation where every plug fits but none of them works.

All USB-C cables appear identical but can be different. For example:

- Does it carry power? If so, how much power?

- Will it charge my device? Not all USB-C chargers charge all USB-C devices.

- Does this cable carry data? If so, what speed?

- Does it carry a Thunderbolt 3 signal?

On Macbooks we lost utility when we lost Magsafe but "gained" the ability to plug power into any of the 2/4 ports. Frankly I'd rather have Magsafe. I'm sure that every port supporting power must increase cost. It has issues too as using ports on one side can lead to overheating, for example.

And of course no cable can really do everything. The only cables that can are necessarily short (<0.5m) and expensive. I know. I use them for my Thunderbolt dock to my MBP.

Where before I had the right ports on my MBP. Now? It's almost unusable without a dock or adapter. It's so dumb.

EamonnMR• 6 years ago

We used to have multiple incompatible chargers that looked different so you could tell them apart. Now you have multiple incompatible chargers that look the same, so you need to use trial and error to figure out what can charge what. It's a mess.

giancarlostoro• 6 years ago

I think one solution to the USB-C hell is to color them like USB 3.0 is colored blue. Color based on intended usage. If your phones port doesn't match the color there's a chance your phone's port will blow up. Otherwise, how the heck do you really know which cable is compatible with which device?

billpg4• 6 years ago

A few years ago, I had a phone with a micro-USB port, along with a few tablets, portable batteries and other gadgets, all using micro-USB. I had chargers around the house, in my car and at my desk at work. Life was good.

Then I upgraded by phone, to one with a USB-C port.

Most of my chargers had a single USB port, so I would need to detach the cable if I wanted to switch device. That's if I had a cable to hand. I had invested in around 20 good quality micro-USB cables and now I needed more. Some chargers had the port integrated into the plug so that would be useless for the phone.

In the end, I acquired a set of converters so I could put a little dongle on the end of each cable in case I wanted to charge the phone. I silently curse the USB people every time I attach or detach the extra tip.

Frankly, the new connector was completely unasked-for. If the phone manufacturer had offered a choice between micro-USB or USB-C, I'd have gone for micro-USB every time. The ability to plug it in either way around just isn't enough to make it worth switching.

yyx• 6 years ago

It would have been great to have micro-USB in the shape of USB-C. Without all those new features and extra pins so manufacturer could replace the port just by soldering to the same 5 traces. This could've been over within a year.

billpg4• 6 years ago

I was surprised to find the converters I purchased were so big because of the electronics inside. I had imagined a converter would just need to be a micro-USB socket and a USB-C plug with some wires joining the two together.

oxplot• 6 years ago

There are multiple aspects of USB-C. There's the charging standard USB-PD and data transfer standards (display, audio, data, etc).

As far as charger spec goes, I am very happy. There are adapters that can supply multiple voltages, practically powering all my mobile devices. For all the other devices that come with barrel jacks, I made my own module to convert them to USB-C [1].

[1] https://fpx.oxplot.com

anticensor• 6 years ago

Indeed it is a mess. A myriad of different kinds of cables that all have the same plug, but are in fact incompatible.

chmike• 6 years ago

I'm using an iPad and I can't read the article. When I click on the link I end up on the page message of the day. That's frustrating. It looks like medium is a Total Mess

crazygringo3• 6 years ago

I'm just surprised there are still a lot of mainstream accessories that aren't available in USB-C.

I bought a Logitech C920 webcam the other day (the most pouplar model)... and it's still only available in USB-A. If you want a Logitech webcam with USB-C, you've got to pay over twice as much for a model like their StreamCam.

I'm happy to use dongles for HDMI or Ethernet when I have to. But the fact that I still have to use dongles with brand-new devices that are still only made in USB-A seems ridiculous. At this rate, I don't see how we're ever going to move on.

warmwaffles• 6 years ago

it's still only available in USB-A

That's because it is still the most common type of port out there and it doesn't require a huge bandwidth that USB-C provides. If anything it would be overkill and over priced for what you get.

I think logitech is waiting for USB-C to become more prevalent and the cost to manufacture to drop.

crote9• 6 years ago

The interesting thing is that for small-bandwidth applications, USB C isn't that difficult to add. Compared to USB A, it's literally a different connector and two additional resistors on the CC pins. The power / data pins of USB C are completely compatible with USB 2.0.

crazygringo3• 6 years ago

So after more than 5 years, USB-C is still too expensive and "overkill"?

That might be true, but then it's a massive failure. The entire point of USB-C is for the whole computing ecosystem to migrate. If that's prohibitively expensive for a common webcam, then it's an utter design failure.

But I have a hard time believig it actually is true, since I can also find a bunch of cheap USB-C stuff on Amazon as well. So I hope it's not true, at least.

zajio1am2• 6 years ago

Even today, new desktop mainboards have 6-8 USB-A ports and zero or one USB-C ports. So it is not surprising that accessories (especially ones for desktops) are offered with USB-A connectors.

falcolas11• 6 years ago

And that doesn't even get into Keyboards, Mice, USB Headphones/sound cards, printers, USB storage keys, bluetooth/gaming keyboard dongles...

The list of peripherals not broadly (if at all) available in USB-C is nuts.

rubatuga4• 6 years ago

A USB-C male to USB-A female adapter is to spec, but a USB-A male to USB-C female is not allowed. This asymmetry is the reason why USB-A is the common denominator.

NelsonMinar• 6 years ago

There's a simpler but similar problem with HDMI cables now. Over the years new versions of HDMI keep coming out with higher bandwidth to support higher resolutions. But there's no way to look at a cable and tell what HDMI version it supports. These days HDMI 2.0 is minimal but you want HDMI 2.1 if you want to support HDR10 or anything over 4K@60. There's also a bunch of side features in HDMI (like CEC) that are not reliably implemented.

edoceo3• 6 years ago

I've got some HDMI cable that only works in one direction. Fortunately the ends are labeled Source and Display.

delfinom• 6 years ago

The problem is everyone is trying to make USB-C everything while completely ignoring price points. Nobody wants a fucking $100 cable that's going to wear out for basic fuck-it purposes. So you start to create production segmentation. Then it couples into directly shit like Microsoft refusing to implement PD in Surface Books because they do not trust on the market cables to safely handle the 100W they need without catching fire and there's no way to verify. Or do you what other vendors do and "fork" PD so that you can make sure both devices are yours strictly.

Sadly it seems there is a march to making cables even more expensive to duck tape on more solutions.

kome• 6 years ago

it's funny, because for me USB-C is not a thing in my life, everything I use is basically standard usb (mouse, keyboard, stick) - and for headphones i still use the jack.

princevegeta89• 6 years ago

I will leave Apple products out of the equation, because I think they're a mess in terms of changing ports with every generation. Maybe that's what the OP is worried about.

USB-C has really simplified a lot of things: - Which way do I plug in? Any way. - Can I charge my new Ultrabook laptop with the same cable as my phone? Most certainly. - Is the port easy to recognize? Yes, just give it a quick look - Forget the Micro USB from now on? Yes

I'd say we're still at 70% along the transition, but compared to other solutions the C is way better and more convenient.

worldmerge• 6 years ago

After moving to USB C for my phone, I'm so over Micro USB and can't wait till devices like ESP32s use USB C.

ben7799• 6 years ago

All I know is my 2018 15" MBP is flaky as heck plugging in docks, monitors, keyboards, etc.. through the various USB-C dongles & docks. It almost never just plugs in and everything works. Sometimes you have to plug/unplug more than once, sometimes you have to wake/sleep the laptop, sometimes the Mac kernel panics.

I have 2 docks at home and have gone through 2 at work that cost as much as $300-400 (OWC and similar) and it's just flaky no matter what.

How do you blame the adapters, docks, whatever when some of them cost as much as a chromebook or a cheap windows laptop? All these dongles and adapters used to not even be required, something's really wrong when they cost as much as another machine and you still can't get things working as well as they worked in the past. Realistically I had less trouble docking my Windows laptop in the late 90s than I do with this MBP. That would have been with 1 monitor instead of 2 but otherwise all the same peripherals.

The only other USB-C device we have is a switch.. we've never tried to use it with anything but the nintendo chargers/devices so I guess we've just been lucky.

can16358p• 6 years ago

I didn't have any problems with USB-C other than trying to charge my Momentum 3 with MacBook Pro's charger (which simply doesn't work as apparently Momentum doesn't support PD), which isn't a real annoyance in daily life.

Sure, it's not perfect, but for most of the use cases it "just works", and I honestly believe it solves more problems than it creates even with its flaws.

Tokkemon• 6 years ago

And here I am still using DVI to run my monitors...

jaclaz• 6 years ago

... and I am using VGA, maybe we should be categorized as protected species ...

baybal2• 6 years ago

I can recommend one amazingly deal of a charger: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001218252042.html

120W type-c PD+QC

ourcat• 6 years ago

I'd say the spec is fine. It's the implementations of it that's a mess.

Mostly when it comes to the different voltages they can be set to provide.

Here's a video I saw recently which explains all about USB-C 'PD' (Power Delivery): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iumAnPiQSj8

falcolas11• 6 years ago

The spec drives the implementation. The greater the complexity of the spec, the fewer implementations will get it right, and those that do will be expensive.

Robotbeat• 6 years ago

Solution: USB-C is basically only used for charging and all data is done wirelessly (Bluetooth or WiFi 6).

helen___keller• 6 years ago

I like that with USB-C my wife and I can share a hotdesk office with monitor and peripherals connected by a USB-C hub, despite her using a windows laptop and I a Macbook. No more dongle hell.

On the other hand I was incredibly meticulous about vetting this hub before I purchased it because I know the positive experience is not universal.

vlovich123• 6 years ago

USB-C isn't a utopia in terms of fixing the USB complexity. All it truly solved was the connector problem which by itself is HUGE in retrospect and not something I appreciated.

If you thought the transition from ATA -> SATA or PCI, PCI + AGP, PCI-E path was bad, imagine trying to move an industry like USB that has USB1.0, USB2.0, USB3.0, USB3.1 and deals with peripheral components that change at an even slower cadence than internal ones (computers are something like 3-5 years, peripherals are like 3-10). By comparison mobile has had a life span of ~1-3 years (slowing down I think as there's plenty of 3-5 year users now & their numbers grow every year). The 1-3 cycle only happens for as long as you have a growing user-base & the churn is required for rapid change to be possible (the market economics support it).

When I think about the market dynamics, USB-C is a critical backbone you had to land first (which I didn't see when it was first being pushed on us in the consumer electronics industry). USB4 is going to clean some of it up. Without it we were never going to get away from the mess we were in. That being said, USB-C is still a big too big. That's why Apple hasn't moved. The question will be if the next push will be for contactless data transfer or a smaller connector. It'll depend on whether mobile needs the space (& again - even mobile is losing its power to power such a transition) & whether major consumer electronics will identify new small form-factor markets that require a smaller connector. If the Apple Watch/AirPods is any model for how these will work, then no. So we'll get USB5 & USB6, but it'll be "boring" transitions like it is with Ethernet RJ45 cables (Cat 4, Cat 5, Cat 6, Cat 6e, Cat7) etc. Some of the customer complexity will be trickier to navigate if the labelling piece isn't addressed for cables & ports (otherwise you get an alphabet soup of standard names supported by a given cable/port & what the peripheral requires). These are hopefully more manageable problems though (although more tricky than Ethernet). One could imagine where you have different classes to describe power the cable & port can run, a different class of the functionality supported (power only, peripherals, peripherals + displays). Peripheral speeds here would be > than ethernet so we're also potentially going to see USB-C consume the space of ethernet ports. This happened in laptops but it'll be trickier in PC form factors. Everything you'd plug into is RJ45 anyway & ethernet is significantly cheaper on a $/ft basis since it's cheaper. Maybe it'll intercept when consumer ethernet starts to be 10gigabit/s or 100gigabit/s (if USB4/5/6/ supports the speed & lengths needed & the cost is comparable, they'd probably just layer it over that). I remember working with 1gigabit and 10gigabit/s in 2009 at QCOM when the Cat6 standard for Gigabit had just come out & gigabit has only became prevalent in the past few years. You naturally want to consolidate these things as a business to simplify your costs if your sell-through is into a market with very long cycles. Any market that has more iteration. Wireless comms will be that a for a bit until BT & WiFi eat everything they haven't already (& potentially WiFi will eat BT eventually). Proprietary cheap connectors/wireless in the ultra low-cost niches will be the longest holdouts but even then they'll struggle as the customer demand will probably prefer the standard name it sees everywhere else.

wlll• 6 years ago

I absolutely loath it. I have a new 16" Macbook Pro, I had a 2014 Macbook Pro.

I now have to buy a crap ton of adapters to get the same functionality as I had in 2014, and sometimes they don't work. I don't know why, they are meant to, but they don't.

Also, Magsafe was a game changer.

If I had a choice between USB-C and ports-o-plenty as I had on my 2014 MBP I would choose the latter.

falcolas11• 6 years ago

Agreed. I've been on a macbook pro with USB-C only for about 4 years now, and I am still using a dock to provide 3 USB-A, a HDMI, and an ethernet port, plus power, and plus a dongle to run a USB headset adapter.

djhaskin987• 6 years ago

It was WORSE with USB micro, WORSE.

- All the same problems: not all USB micro are created equal, some are supposed to be used at different voltages

- But some cables for peripherals didn't use micro they used normal USB, which was hard to put in because you always got which way was up mixed up, that's gone now :)

- What's worse, all the USB micro cables eventually bent because they were so flimsy. 6 months shelf life, maximum.

- And they weren't symmetrical either

So now we have a cable that's symmetrical, that you can use for peripherals and power. Yes, different power cables disguised as the same is still a problem, but this is a step in the right direction if you ask me.

The only thing I don't like is that now peripherals are smaller and easier to get unplugged, like my HDMI to USB-C that I'm using right now for one of my monitors.

kart23• 6 years ago

Usb micro was such a garbage cable. After 6 months of using my phone, the connector action felt completely smooth, and you could pull the cable out with no force. usb-c has been much better, feels much more consistent and has a satisfying click.

ycombonator• 6 years ago

The male adapter is so thin it breaks if you hang even a moderately heavy cable or hub. I have to think about keeping the hub flush with the laptop each time I use it. What a mess.

unixhero• 6 years ago

It has simplified everything...

physicsguy• 6 years ago

My wife has a HP laptop from work that charges through USB-C. I have a Dell XPS from work that can charge by USB-C (because I have a dock for it which does that), but if I plug her charger in, it doesn't work. It's a mess.

sammycdubs• 6 years ago

Three things I love about USB-C

1. Charging is like 90% of what I use cables for, and I can just have the same cable for everything

2. USB-C displays are fantastic, one cable to my MacBook that handles charging, display output, USB-A ports etc

3. The only time I ever use USB-C ports for anything other than charging is from my MacBook, and so far every adapter/display etc has just worked

tzs• 6 years ago

Q1: would it be possible to make a dongle that when plugged into a USB-C port negotiates for maximum power and tells you what the port can do?

Q2: can it also do this for speed? (I'm not sure if there is a speed negotiation like there is for power, and even if there is I'm not sure if it would depend on the use--e.g., maybe a particular port supports a different maximum speed for network devices than it does for mass storage devices)

Q3: Can a similar thing be done for cables? A box you plug both ends of a cable into, and it tells you how much power you can put over the cable, and how fast it can go?

Q4: could these things be made small enough and cheap enough that it would be reasonable to expect nearly everyone to get them?

The above devices, plus readily available USB-C one to many hubs [1], would fix most problems people have with USB-C.

[1] Most USB-C hubs connect one USB-C port on your computer to many non-USB-C ports. Most that do have a USB-C port on the other side only have one (and sometimes that one is power only, not data).

osigurdson• 6 years ago

It is reasonable for device A's charger not to successfully charge device B. Damaging device B, on the other hand, is not acceptable.

cnst• 6 years ago

The biggest problem is Apple. They've removed USB-A from their laptops close to 5 years ago, because USB-C is the future.

They've also removed the headphone jack from iPhone; however, the USB-C is still nowhere to be found. Why?!

The end result is that we can charge a MacBook with a ThinkPad power adapter, but no longer have MagSafe; have been using ugly adapters on MacBooks for close to 5 years now -- with no end in sight, yet still cannot use the same headset for both a MacBook and an iPhone.

Ironically, from this perspective, Android is now more compatible with a MacBook than an iPhone is -- my USB-A headphones with the USB-A-to-USB-C adapter can be plugged directly into either my Android or my MacBook, without any extra adapters, other than the permanently-attached USB-A-to-USB-C one. (Of course, the opposite isn't true -- and the USB-C adapter for the headsets from my phone doesn't work in a MacBook, but at least the opposite way everything works.)

yabones• 6 years ago

The most important thing the Gen-X'ers did for widespread adoption of technology was making things 'shapes and colours' easy. The rectangle peg goes in the rectangle hole. The red wire goes into the red socket. Any kindergarten graduate could plug their peripherals into their PC with little or no expertise because the only way they could connect was the right way. Before this, everything was DB9 or DB25, and a complete mess of electrical compatibility despite common connectors. Now, we find ourselves in the same position, the same connectors everywhere but inexplicable incompatibility.

That's my hot take: USB-C is just Millennial DB-9.

anticristi• 6 years ago

Indeed, the apparent simplicity on the physical layer has moved the complexity onto the logical layer. I love the article, and it made me aware of a lot of things I didn't know.

However, my experience with USB-C is way better. I use the same charger for my laptop, pad and phone. I even use the same screen (with integrated docking station) for both my laptop and my phone (yay Samsung DeX), both at work and at home. This would have been impossible / unimaginable half-a-decade ago. (Anyone remember the "Lenovo-type" docking station vs. the "Dell-type" docking station?)

I agree that USB-C still has challenges to overcome, but I find the direction so-far to be the right one.

coryfklein4• 6 years ago

Apple MacBooks with USB-C are standard issue for everyone at our company. You know what else is standard issue? A f$#%ing dongle so you can actually plug anything into said laptop. I can't help but think that all these folks saying, "oh it's so nice, everything I've ever wanted to plug in runs on USB-C" represent a tiny minority of the real world.

The only two cables I own that can plug into my laptop connect it to:

1) the charger that came with it and

2) the aforementioned dongle

That's it. And no, I'm not going to drop a bunch of cash upgrading monitors, phone cables, keyboards, and mice to get rid of the dongle. Especially when the "USB-C compatible" ones all cost twice as much.

kstrauser• 6 years ago

What's wrong with that, though? Of course there's going to be a while where we have to deal with both standards, but that's true of everything. I have a USB A-to-C hub sitting on my desk. It's plugged into my Mac Mini's USB-C port, and all the legacy stuff plugs into it. That's not such a terrible situation.

coryfklein4• 6 years ago

Things wrong with dongles:

1) You have to select them (not an easy task when trying to make sure it has all the compatible ports and power requirements)

2) Increases the number of things you can forget to bring that can make your laptop unusable/less useable

3) They detract from the clean Apple aesthetic

4) They increase the cost of your setup, sometimes significantly if you want to match the Apple quality. MacBooks certainly didn't get cheaper when they switched to USB-C only.

I did not have any dongles before Apple moved to USB-C, so I didn't have to deal with any of the above. Also, none of these things needed to happen! Apple could have done what they usually do - gradually transition. Add 1-2 USB-C and then only eliminate the other ports when most folks could do without.

EDIT: One more thing to add - this "transition period" is probably going to last 10+ years for me because I bought a $350 Kinesis Advantage keyboard with a USB Type A connector. It's a solid keyboard that I expect will live at least 10 years.

zajio1am2• 6 years ago

What's wrong with that, though? Of course there's going to be a while where we have to deal with both standards, but that's true of everything.

Reasonable way how to handle transition period is to have computers with both USB-A and USB-C sockets, not just USB-C sockets and dongles.

6gvONxR4sf7o• 6 years ago

I wish I could just have one port. When at home, the port would go to a hub, and the hub connects a few monitors, a keyboard, a mouse, and power. Out and about, the hub would go to power.

Sadly, on my expensive as hell, powerful work supplied macbook pro, I need to plug three different USB-C dongles in to get multiple monitors, and I have to plug the USB keyboard and USB mouse into separate dongles, and power into a third. Why? I don't know. It's just the only way it works.

ogre_codes4• 6 years ago

Most of the rest of the issue is buying cheap adaptors and cheap cables. Get a name brand cable and verify what they are capable of. If you buy a $3 "MOKiN" brand USB-C cable and it won't charge your device, you've basically self-owned. Likewise any number of random cables on Amazon.

Lots of decent brands out there who make cables that do what they say they will do: Belkin, Monoprice, Anker, etc.

Another tip I got which is worth it's weight in cable in this case: If you need both USB-C and Thunderbolt cables, get different colors of cable and be consistent about it. I know a guy who buys all his cables in specific colors (even when the adaptor is different) so he can reach into his gear bag and get the right thing every time.

jbay808• 6 years ago

Even if it's a total mess, I have to say: it blows my mind that I can hook up my Thinkpad to an external GPU over USB-C, and all the necessary data makes a round trip to render an image on the laptop monitor within the frame update time, and it powers the ThinkPad at the same time over the same thin little cable.

And it automatically detects the graphics card when I plug it in and identifies it with no hassle.

Unbelievable.

Tepix2• 6 years ago

I tested all my Micro USB cables and threw away those that wouldn't allow quick charging with >5V.

Now with USB-C I'm reading some reports about problem but so far it's been good. I'm still optimistic that eventually all devices with USB C ports will support the full feature set on every port (nowadays that seems to be Thunderbolt 4, Displayport Alt etc). But that's just me being optimistic :-)

GoOnThenDoTell• 6 years ago

More detail on the mess

https://people.kernel.org/bleung/now-how-many-usb-c-to-usb-c...

rStar• 6 years ago

i blame the engineers

aj7• 6 years ago

“How any normal person is supposed to grasp this soup of standards, built atop a single port that looks the same, is anyone’s guess.”

How is any normal person gonna buy 3/8” shrink wrap tubing, a heat gun, and strain relief a batch of Lightning cables every 6 months? So they don’t last 3 months.

I know it’s irrelevant.

aow9rawo9rj• 6 years ago

I like it

I bought the original USB-C-only Macbook and I loved it. Now I have a Macbook Pro at home and another Macbook Pro at work, four Thunderbolt ports on each.

I think the big problem is the fact that it's still very implementation dependent and, as the author said, it's easy to get peripherals (particularly power-related) that don't do what you expected them to do. Then again, I have the same problem with USB1&2. How many times have you bought a cable and found that it only carries power, not data, because it only has two wires inside? That has happened to me dozens of times over the past decade. Still happens today. But when you get peripherals that work, USB-C and Thunderbolt3 are terrific. I don't use and peripherals at home. I have a dock on my desk at work that gives me gigabit ethernet, external keyboard and mouse, external hard drive, two displays, power, and headphones all through one Thunderbolt cable that takes one second to plug or unplug. It's terrific.

I remember old men ranting when the iMac didn't have a floppy drive, how it needed more serial ports, parallel ports, and fewer USB ports because no one uses USB, it's too expensive and it's never going to be practical. Those arguments didn't age well. USB-C is rolling out more slowly than previous options, but it is rolling out and it's terrific.

mlang23• 6 years ago

In my limited experience, I feel the contrary. Since I have my USB-C dock, I actually ditched my desktop. Something that took me until 2019 to actually pull off. One cable for power and all the data transfer I will ever need.

d1zzy2• 6 years ago

USB-C as a connector in certain situations is pretty awesome. A single USB-C TB3 connection between a Macbook Pro and a USB-C dock has allowed me (since COVID19 work from home lockdown started) to:

* charge the laptop

* drive 2 1440p @ 60 monitors

* connect 6 USB2 peripherals

* have 1Gbit wired ethernet connection to my router (for low latency and stable connectivity for all that remote desktop work)

One of the monitors connects over USB-C to the dock and that carries video signal and USB upstream so I could plug even more USB-A devices in the monitor if I wanted to. Imagine how many cables and what a mess would be to get this many peripherals connected to a laptop without TB3, now I just plug one cable to the laptop, very impressive.

johnwalkr• 6 years ago

I'm loving USB-C. I travel a lot and invested a few new devices and even upgraded a few devices to USB-C (you can find small boards on aliexpress which provide a usb-c port and output 5, 9, 12, 15 or 20V). Even my shaver charges by USB-C.

However it takes some research, and I wish the spec was pared down more. Others mentioned that Nintendo switch can be damaged by a bad charger. They also chose to implement HDMI out using displayport converted to HDMI, so very few HDMI adapters are compatible.

Thunderbolt vs USB is confusing.

Hubs are confusing. USB-C hubs are basically impossible. USB2 or 3 hubs work well but share the speed and power with multiple devices. Easy to understand. USB-C (3.2) can supply up to 100W and 20Gbps. But one device can use up to 100W, and one 4k@60fps HDMI signal can use up to 20Gbps (even more in fact). So it's not possible to make a usb-c hub without a lot of limitations. Not to mention it's not trivial to set each device as a power sink or source. That's why hubs generally have usb-c on one side and usb-a 2.0 or 3.1 on the other side.

I don't know what the solution could be, you can't keep the versatility without removing functionality.

exabrial• 6 years ago

The only "total mess" is the fact that Apple is having an internal struggle to keep their lightning port on their keyboards and phone. Affects only those who subject themself to the problem.

Asmod4n• 6 years ago

One solution could be to color codes the cables, so you see if it can support thunderbolt, charging or display port. And then different colours for the speed they support.

Same could be done with the connectors on the device you want to put them in. But I guess at least Apple wouldn't adopt them and simply support everything on every port and cable they sell, making their devices and cables more expensive but easier for customers.

dghughes• 6 years ago

Dell laptops at my old job used a WD15 dock for peripherals and power. All over a frail USB-C connector that often failed, or the dock failed. I don't know what to fault Dell's design or USB-C or both but it made for busy days. But a three inch long connector sticking out from the side of a laptop is a lever and bound to go crunch!

bleepblorp4• 6 years ago

In practice, the consumer-facing names of USB standards are dark patterns that allow manufacturers to scam customers without needing to make many (or any) product improvements.

For instance, take the fact that USB 3 and USB 3.1 Gen 1 are functionally equivalent and Gen 2 support (which brings with it the only actual improvements in USB 3.1) is an optional part of the USB 3.1 standard. The functional impact of this arrangement is that manufacturers could take USB 3.0 products, slap a 'USB 3.1' label on them, and market them as New and Improved for only the cost of new markings and marketing material.

Nice money if you can get it.

USB-C is even worse because every feature that end users actually want is optional and, in some cases (such as DP alternate mode lane support), isn't even listed in the fine print. Customers who don't have the awareness to spend many hours doing detailed research will very easily find themselves stuck in an expensive game of trial and error to buy USB-C devices that will actually work together.

Nice money if you can get it.

Like most modern tech products, the entire USB ecosystem reeks of the distinct smell of extractive scam.

llamataboot• 6 years ago

I am literally a senior programmer and I still cannot wrap my head around USB-C.

Is this a PD cable? Is this Thunderbolt 3? Is this DisplayPort-over-USB? Is this cable too long to be fast? Oh, this cable doesn't work for power. Oh that's actually not a power-equipped USB-C slot. Does this hub work? Oh, it only works for ports, not video. Etc etc etc.

I've literally taken to color-coding cables to know which ones I can use where, and if I just stuck to macs and high-end cables, sure, fine, but I have about 10 other devices that have "things" that plug into USB-C slots, but what those things can do and what they need to do them...

It's not helpful that Amazon has become a sludge of crappy products with fake reviews. Even I've ended up lulled in a few times and picked up something that just didn't work as specified at all.

therealmarv• 6 years ago

BTW where are USB-C hubs? It's 2020 and we cannot buy real USB-C hubs. Very seldom there is one... but they are hard to find (and often not good).

montzark• 6 years ago

USB-C is awesome. Quite cheap (40€) 20000 mAh Xiaomi power bank can output 20V/45W so I can use it to charge my T480s. Also bought cheap usb-c Power Delivery modules (can output 5/9/12/15/20V) which I used to provide power for my TS100 soldering iron. Combined with the power bank it's now a portable soldering iron. TS80 has usb-c even built in, no module needed.

bmurphy1976• 6 years ago

My Honda Odyssey has Android Auto support. It only works if I plug the USB-C end of the cable into my Pixel 3 in one orientation. If I rotate it 180º the systems can't connect.

I have yet to figure out why this is the case, but it's supremely frustrating when a reversible cable is not in fact reversible.

avhon12• 6 years ago

USB-C cables are only required to have the basic USB 2.0 differential pair on one side (the "top") of the connector. The mirror pair of pins in the connector are not connected to anything.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USB_Type-C_plug_pino... (Note the empty pair of pins on the bottom-center, right below "D-" and "D+".)

USB-C receptacles have the two locations this pair could end up in cross-wired, so that an electrical connection is made whether the cable is plugged in with the data pair on the top side or on the bottom.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USB_Type-C_Receptacl... (Note how "D-" and "D+" are mirrored top-center and bottom-center.)

This is more complicated than previous versions of USB, where there was exactly one pin that could be connected to D+ and one that could be connected to D-. If a manufacturer designed a USB-C device like this, with only one of two possible data pairs connected, then the cable will only work when plugged in "data-conductor side up". When plugged in "data-conductor side down", the D+ and D- conductors will be in unconnected pins in the receptable, and the unconnected pins in the cable will be in the receptacle's connected pins.

If this is actually what happened in your car, and you're the adventurous sort, you could possibly fix this by soldering two "bodge wires" to your minivan's USB port, one shorting the two D+ pins together, and the other shorting the two D- pins together.

laksdjfkasljdf• 6 years ago

This is not a USB-C problem.

Manufacturers treating users as stupid is the problem. USB-C is only one aspect.

If you look at specs from Apple, Nintendo and random-knock of brands from aliba.com, you will see that they only mention the ports. nothing else. Apple will sometime use a vague spec, like the wattage.

Now look at USB-C specs from HP and other more reputable sources. They will specify all the PD profiles, which thunderbolt version is supported, how many lanes, etc.

The same happens with WiFi devices. You will be lucky if lesser brands even mention the protocol, let alone antennae and MIMO details!

Same can be said of Bluetooth (from cars to headsets!) which will not say if they implement a specific profile or not, but will plaster "BLUETOOTH 5.0" on the box.

The irony, is that consumers see Apple and other offenders as having better products. Just look at this thread on how the very top voted comment is someone glad that it is convenient, even though the first reply to it is trying to explain how they can fry their devices, only to be replied by someone saying "i don't care, it worked fine with the one charger i tried".

billti• 6 years ago

The article mentions Power Delivery being present/not present as a compat issue, but even without Power Delivery, the amount of power a USB-C port can provide is inconsistent. From Wikipedia:

    VBUS and GND provide 5 V up to 900 mA, in accordance with the USB 3.1 specification. A specific USB-C mode may also be entered, where 5 V at either 1.5 A or 3 A is provided.[55] A third alternative is to establish a Power Delivery contract.

I spent hours trying to find how to add a USB-C port to my PC that supports the 15W (5V at 3A) one of my VR devices requires, and about gave up. (You're lucky if most motherboard or add-in card even tell you how much power they can deliver).

I get the desire to make the spec flexible so it can be simple/cheap when the extra speed & juice isn't needed, but it is really a confusing mess, and not helpful to consumers who just think "Oh it has a USB-C port. That'll work then".

I believe USB 4 was created to try to reduce this fragmentation and confusion, but not much in the way of implementation yet. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB4)

ziml772• 6 years ago

Let's not pretend that this is some new issue that has arisen from USB-C. There were plenty of identical connectors (or ones that would fit together at least) in the past that were absolutely incompatible to the point of risking frying your electronics. At least with USB-C, if a capability can't be matched between the connected devices and the cable, it just doesn't work. Nothing will go up in a puff of smoke.

And for anyone complaining about needing different chargers for your phone and laptop, how is that any worse than before? You needed to do the same before USB-C. Now at least you have the option to plug your phone into your laptop charger. (Though if your complaint about USB-C for laptop charging is in regards to fragility, then I agree. I'm afraid I'm going to break them. Never had that thought about a barrel plug)

dirtnugget• 6 years ago

Most annoying thing for me is that they just lose their grip over time, just like Micro-USB did. I bought a late 2016 Macbook Pro which was the first to sport USB-C. After a good two years with admittedly heavy usage, both of them were flimsy enough to develop regular dropped connections to monitor and power. This is something which seems to be near impossible to do on a 2015 machine with HDMI/USB-A/Magsafe.

ocdtrekkie• 6 years ago

USB-C felt like it forgot the entire design intention of previous cable standards: That connectors had a direct relationship to functionality.

When you build a PC, generally parts and cables only fit in places that they will function. When plugging devices into a computer, historically if you plug them in where they fit, it works.

USB-C's decision to buck this behavior made it more confusing for users, not less.

jscipione• 6 years ago

My problem with USB-C is that the physical connector wears out over about a year of regular use becoming loose and unreliable. Until that is fixed, USB-C will be substandard.

chx• 6 years ago

If you have any questions come on over to https://www.reddit.com/r/usbchardware

m4632• 6 years ago

I believe USB-C was a power-grab (literally and figuratively) by companies with proprietary agendas.

It's unfortunate they don't have strong strong interoperability requirements.

pkamb• 6 years ago

Why can't I find a USB-C hub with multiple USB-C ports?

https://superuser.com/q/1381139/122042

ojosilva• 6 years ago

Funny, I was hoping the article would address one of my main gripes with USB-C, but it didn't: the ports and plugs are dust magnets! Sometimes fluff in the port causes the plug to losely attach, making the cable fall off or simply not charging a phone overnight even when apparently connected. A lot of my friends have this issue with their phones, the port is too deep and rounds dirt up from fabric in your pocket. USB-C requires cleaning like no other plug I ever owned.

And in general, dust or no dust, it feels like a flimsy plug. Even the shorter micro USB typically snapped vigorously at their ports.

I think these physical design flaws are also quite an oversight for something that wants to be the plug-to-end-all-plugs.

Scapeghost• 6 years ago

I immensely prefer USB-C to any of the alternatives.

Tade0• 6 years ago

My experience with USB-C so far has been great, barring two things:

If I plug my phone to my laptop when the latter is on battery power it's basically a coin toss which will be charging which.

It's not noticeably more durable than micro USB. The jump isn't as great as from e.g. Mini USB, which was a nightmare in this regard.

FractalParadigm2• 6 years ago

The article misses my biggest gripe with USB-C - cables can come in both 2.0 and 3.0 in addition to Thunderbolt, with absolutely no way to distinguish the link speed by looking at the cable itself. I have 10 or so USB-C cables littered about the house in different lengths, I had to mark the only two that support 3.0 speeds.

It also doesn't mention the issues we see in USB-A to USB-C cables, where cheaper cables often 'forget' the pullup resistor required to prevent device damage[0].

[0] https://www.howtogeek.com/240777/watch-out-how-to-buy-a-usb-... - Does anyone know if this is still an issue? I haven't heard anything further in a couple years but I would assume it still rings true.

FractalParadigm2• 6 years ago

I actually thought of another one similar to my first gripe - they need to label the link speed and the amount of power the cable can sustain. I found another couple of cables I had marked (and very rarely used) because they won't give anything more than 5V3A. Some are only rated at 60W.

ksec2• 6 years ago

I hope Apple keep using Lighting on its iPhone.

Hippocrates• 6 years ago

The usb-c pd/non pd compat issues are infuriating for me. I have a lot of devices that act funky when paired with the wrong charger.. plus it is physically inferior to lightning (durability, size, sturdiness). I see people clamoring for usb-c on iPhones. I hope that doesn’t happen. My lightning iDevices seem to be the only things that I can pack one charger for.

I hope we can skip usb-c and get the next thing right.

nickflood• 6 years ago

Nobody mentions that USB-C enabled the production of laptop power banks. They are such a help for when you travel and want to work on a long flight or a train ride.

Power rating is a mess, and manufacturers are all trying to mislead the consumer as much as they can about it, so I agree, it's a mess if you don't research it thoroughly.

But I do research it, and my life is much better with it.

USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

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