Reversible USB Type C connector and 10 gigabit USB 3.1 are here

http://www.pcgamer.com/reversible-usb-type-c-connector-and-10-gigabit-usb-31-are-here/

by nkurz • 12 years ago

57 62 12 years ago

If laptops can charge via USB, international travel will be so much nicer.

USB has already made international travel much better (thanks to 90% of your key electronics being USB, and international USB adapters being cheap and reliable, or heck just buy a local one in each country, they're $5/each).

Most laptops have a "brick" which works in most countries, but you still need to find the correct local cable or have an adapter (and frankly some adapters are unsafe/bad). In a future where everything is USB (type-C) which might be 10+ years off, everyone will benefit.

JoshTriplett• 12 years ago

USB has already made international travel much better (thanks to 90% of your key electronics being USB, and international USB adapters being cheap and reliable, or heck just buy a local one in each country, they're $5/each).

I often travel with just one power adapter, for my laptop, and then I charge my cell phone from my laptop via USB, rather than bringing a separate charger and thus needing a second power adapter.

joezydeco• 12 years ago

Stay away from cheap USB adapters made by mystery manufacturers:

http://www.righto.com/2012/03/inside-cheap-phone-charger-and...

jewel• 12 years ago

If laptops can charge via USB, international travel will be so much nicer.

I got the HP Chromebook 11 for just that reason. It charges with a micro-usb port, i.e. the same cable as android phones. It's nice to not need to bother packing a charger or cable for it.

It's too bad all ultrabooks don't add a micro-usb port just for this purpose (in addition to the normal charger). The current chargers are much thicker than the computer which is annoying, and it'd be nice if you could just leave a charger in your car and suitcase and figure that you'd be covered.

baldfat4• 12 years ago

Latest rumor is Apple's Air is going to have only one USB 3.1 port for everything. http://9to5mac.com/2015/01/06/macbook-air-12-inch-redesign/

No maglock power supply, no display port, just the one port.

millstone• 12 years ago

It is nice for charging overnight, but not so much for usage. Even a beefy iPad adapter (~2.1 amps) doesn't provide enough power during usage. If you want to run it without drawing down the battery, you need the included charger (3 amps), which had a tendency to overheat and melt in its first iteration.

fuzzywalrus• 12 years ago

I'd like to see an interim conversion adopted for charging from USB3.1 to things like Magsafe on the MacBooks. In the dark days of laptops, stepping on the power cable could end your laptop, USB 3.1 looks like it'd be a return to that if used as a primary charging source.

Other than that, USB3.1 looks fantastic. Thunderbolt 1.0 speeds, big power, and much better connector.

stormbrew6• 12 years ago

to things like Magsafe on the MacBooks

Unfortunately, the owner of patents on magsafe is unlikely to allow that to happen.

baldfat4• 12 years ago

Also the makers of magsafe are possibly ditching it for usb 3.1 if the latest macbook air rumors are true.

http://9to5mac.com/2015/01/06/macbook-air-12-inch-redesign/

pinaceae• 12 years ago

well, plus a super attack vector.

plugging into power is safe, as no data access is possible. some high-sec site solder USB ports shut. already a headache with smartphones and tablets that use the single-port concept (USB, Lightning).

that free USB charging station in beijing airport might not be so free after all...

scentoni• 12 years ago

Practice safe charging: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1137339450/lockedusb-ad...

oh_sigh• 12 years ago

This calls for a USB condom? http://www.zdnet.com/article/protect-your-devices-with-a-10-...

helper• 12 years ago

When can I buy a phone with a Type C connector?

seanp2k22• 12 years ago

Well, Nokia is on board, and I expect all the other mfgs will follow in 2015: http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/18/7239695/nokia-n1-first-ta...

Welp, time to buy 15 new USB cables again! At least it's worth it this time, vs mini -> micro, which has been a lot less durable in my experience (the shape of the mini B connector + height made it a lot less likely to bend at the flexible plastic part you grab)

stormbrew6• 12 years ago

From mini to micro they moved the stress and failure points from the port to the connector. I'd rather replace a cable than a port, so imo it was a significant improvement.

doczoidberg2• 12 years ago

Even better than USB 3.1 is Wigig and wireless charging. Broadwell does support Wigig. Where are the Wigig docking stations now?

seanp2k22• 12 years ago

Wireless charging is pretty lame in that it only works <1cm from the base, something my toothbrush has done for the past decade. It's useful for devices where a port is undesirable (e.g. Smart watches) but IMO otherwise pretty useless. If they had e.g. Desks which charged your laptop + phone when set on the desk, that might be the slightest bit more convenient than plugging it in, but it seems like a lot of tech for a little convenience.

I suspect Wigig will be as popular as WiDi, another Intel wireless technology: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiDi Keep in mind how long it took Bluetooth to really take off and work reasonably well between devices (4.0 IMO): http://www.bluetooth.com/Pages/History-of-Bluetooth.aspx (Bluetooth is 15 years old).

I remember having a Nokia 6600 back in 2003, with a Sony Ericsson bluetooth headset, and getting a lot of questions about it. The phone had 3G and a video camera, web browser, smartphone OS (at the time; Symbian S60) with apps, and the Bluetooth headset I had (HBH-660) had called ID and a button to hang up, was very light, and lasted quite a while on a battery (IIRC, it would connect to Bluetooth on demand, since low-power 4.x wasn't a thing then). It's kind of disappointing to me how this stuff hasn't advanced terribly in functionality in the 10 years since. It's still wearables which work ~poorly, Bluetooth inter-op issues (cars are pretty notorious), battery life struggles, etc.

300bps• 12 years ago

Wireless charging is pretty lame

I've had a Lumia 928 for about 19 months now and I have to disagree. I haven't plugged the phone in - to anything - since I bought it. I find just thunking the phone down onto the Qi charger much more convenient than fiddling with cables. Some day we'll look back on wires in general and laugh at how primitive we were.

vineeth• 12 years ago

Wigig docking stations have been out for a while on Dell. Check out the Dell D5000: http://accessories.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=1...

doczoidberg2• 12 years ago

It doesn't seem to work reliable with dell laptops even.

sp332• 12 years ago

From CES: "A story in three acts" https://twitter.com/dakami/status/552986333434490880 If you can't see it, it's advertising DisplayPort over USB Type C!

deskpro• 12 years ago

What I'm excited about here is monitor hubs. You plug your monitor into a power socket, and peripherals into the monitor's USB ports.

You arrive at work, and only need to plug your laptop into the monitor. The monitor hub sends power and data from peripherals to your laptop. Your laptop sends video to the monitor all through the same cable.

pdpi• 12 years ago

Yeah, that's basically what Apple offers today on their thunderbolt monitors (except those still need a separate power cable). Hopefully we'll actually see a wider adoption of the concept once it's on commodity USB-C instead of the massively expensive thunderbolt.

post_break2• 12 years ago

Only problem I've seen is that the thunderbolt hubs cost over $200, plus the cost of the cable. And even then they only have a few ports.

lsaferite4• 12 years ago

Interesting note I haven't seen mentioned, the Alt mode negotiation is only possible for directly connected devices as it does not traverse hubs.

jcr• 12 years ago

Previous discussion from yesterday:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8848712

masklinn• 12 years ago

USB cables have been carrying power for years, but the interface has never been rated to feed devices more than 10 watts.

7.5W (1.5A@5V) according to the Battery Charging Specification 1.2. 10W chargers are out-of-spec extensions, as were 5W chargers before 2010.

rgersten2• 12 years ago

As others have pointed out, there's a lot to be exited about. I definitely see this as a big step forward.

That said, I think the connector shape is flawed. I've seen too many micro USB connectors break off in phones because it's hard to make something that small strong enough for movement from the cable. I wish they would have chosen something closer to the lightning connector or magnetic for durability. I'd hate to have to replace the main point of connectivity of an ultra-thin laptop.

bryanlarsen• 12 years ago

Type C was designed to be more durable than micro-USB.

rgersten2• 12 years ago

I'm sure, and there's probably a ton of other considerations that went into this design e.g. space savings in laptops, manufacturing costs, etc. I just really like not worrying about connectors breaking after replacing laptops and cellphones early because of broken power/micro-USB jacks.

sliken2• 12 years ago

Microusb was designed to be more durable than mini-USB, but failed horribly at it.

cmyr• 12 years ago

From all accounts the connector is quite similar to a lightning connector.

bluthru• 12 years ago

In an alternative utopia: everything uses the lightning connector design.

guelo• 12 years ago

Good to see the little teeth on the plug are gone, they were the main failure mode for micro-usb cables.

AceJohnny2• 12 years ago

That was their purpose. It was either that or put the teeth in the female port, on your expensive device and impossible to replace when (not if) they broke down. Put them on the cheap and easily replacable cable was a wise design decision.

http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/18552/why-was...

Having no info on the mechanical properties of the Type C connector, I'm curious (and a bit skeptical) about how that'll live on.

stormbrew6• 12 years ago

Yeah. On that front, it kind of seems like a step backwards unless they've done something quite different.

lsaferite4• 12 years ago

The retention spring are still on the plug, they are just internal now.

USB Type-C Spec v1.0 Section 3.2.1 / Page 32 http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/

wondenderboy• 12 years ago

Sorry, I´ve read 10 gigabit Ethernet is here, who cares about USB?

TD-Linux• 12 years ago

Anyone know where I can buy type C connectors? They seem to be unobtanium at the moment.

cmsmith• 12 years ago

In reference to the 100W power carrying capacity:

That seems to me like a lot of power to be sending through a 0.5mm wide contact pin separated from the data pin by another 0.5mm. I see elsewhere that they have upped the voltage to 20V, which reduces the current required - is that all it takes?

lsaferite4• 12 years ago

Power comes across 8 pins (4 Vbus, 4 Ground)

From the spec: "3.7.7.4 Contact Current Rating (EIA 364-70, Method 2) A current of 5.0 A shall be applied collectively to VBUS pins (i.e., pins A4, A9, B4, and B9) and 1.25 A applied to the VCONN pin (i.e., B5 of the plug connector) with the return path through the corresponding GND pins (i.e., pins A1, A12, B1, and B12). A minimum current of 0.25 A shall also be applied individually to all the other contacts. When the currents are applied to the contacts, the temperature rise shall not exceed 30 °C at any point on the USB Type-C mated plug and receptacle under test, when measured at an ambient temperature of 25 °C."

http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/

lsaferite4• 12 years ago

The Vbus/GND wires are 20-28 AWG.

Reversible USB Type C connector and 10 gigabit USB 3.1 are here

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