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.
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.
This is not much harder the the issue of 8P8C connectors, which some (incorrectly) call RJ45.
Depending on cable configuration, pinout, wall plate and structured wiring system, that 8P8C might be usable (or not) for multiple different types of data networking, from the assorted ethernet speeds (some of which may successfully autonegotiate, but not all) to E1 to token ring, or for a serial console, or delivering power and audio to a remote speaker, or hdmi-over-utp, or even -48V telephony, and let's not even get started on the only-subtly-different but actually incompatible RJ45S connector, or people sticking RJ11 plugs in 8P8C ports.
And yet the world has coped with this proliferation.
I have experienced none of the issues described in the article despite possessing 30+ USB Type-C devices. The article above simply comes across as an overwhelming refusal to take any personal responsibility for technical purchasing choices.
My UPS uses 8P8C for it's USB port! I can't imagine how many cents they saved over using a USB B port (but I do know that I sure as hell don't want to lose that weird RJ45 to USB cable, who knows if the pinout matches whatever cable I can find on amazon)
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. :)
I'm not sure I see how this is an interesting definition. How is it different from HDMI or LAN cables? There the cables also define capability so "cables that look identical don't actually work the same way".
> How is it different from HDMI or LAN cables? There the cables also define capability so "cables that look identical don't actually work the same way".
In theory yes. In practice most of the cables are good enough for most users - e.g. in a home LAN cables are probably 10m at most, so even a cat5 cable can probably give people a connection that's as fast as their internet uplink. If the problems with USB-C are common enough to impact normal users (and I think lack of thunderbolt falls into that category) then that's a major difference in practice.
Quick check: how many of your USB-C cables can actually carry the 5Gbps (3.1) or 10GBps (3.2) bandwidth? Because I've had to try multiple products, all claiming USB-3 speeds, before I finally found one that delivered more than 480MBps (USB 2.0 speed).
It sounds like you've experienced either just pure luck or that you've carefully selected your components (which degrades the "universality" claim), at least for the Switch, since it doesn't fully implement PD and can short out.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
Silly question time, why would we not expect that?
I mean you can expect whatever you want. what I'm saying is the beautiful past where all USB cables were perfectly interchangeable never existed. in the last generation we had power-only cables, data-only (although this is out of spec, I believe), and various out of spec fast charging implementations. if you pick up a random usb charging block and micro-usb cable, there was never any guarantee that it would transfer data to your phone, fast charge it, or even charge it at all.
It is still correct for the end user to expect that. If you make something that breaks the expectation it should be your fault. A connector is a connector, a cable it a cable. If they all physically fit it should just work, and whoever broke that should be legally at fault. Now I will admit that cables break, and connectors wear out, both of which are not the fault of the manufacture. However it should just work.
Note that if you connect two usb-6 devices with a usb-5 cable (Intentionally using standards that don't exist yet) is may drop back to working like usb-5. If you connect a usb-5 device to a usb-6 device it should all just work - to the limits of usb-5 of course.
In other words, one kind of cable plus out of spec trash (but mostly benign micro-USB chargers with no chance of people attempting data transfers). The worst I've encountered with "old" USB is a vintage Nokia phone that refuses to charge from its data-only micro USB port.
With USB-C there are multiple official cable types, all with the same connectors, plus high voltages that can fry devices, plus complex protocols that are apparently too much for some manufacturers to implement safely.
I've only seen one charging-only cable, and it was a very weird shape. I've never seen a data-only cable. And while proprietary fast-charging exists does that affect the cables?
The cable situation before was pretty good, honestly. And if we could just mark the speed rating on USB-C cables it would solve almost all the problems. Maybe another symbol for the ones that can do >60 watts but even that is quite niche in comparison.
sure, if you're familiar with the pinout, you can tell whether the data or power lines are completely missing. there was still no guarantee that any arbitrary cable would work with whatever fast charge implementation you were using. you would likely get 0.5A trickle charging at least, but the device could also just refuse to charge at all.
from my perspective, USB-IF has taken a bunch of random shit that manufacturers were going to do anyway and made them proper (though optional) parts of the spec. I understand it didn't work out perfectly, but I don't really understand why they are getting so much flak for it. I'd much rather have a bunch of cables and devices that at least try to meet an official spec than to have a bunch of proprietary implementations that make no effort at being compatible.
Literally half the pins are missing on charge-only cables.
>but I don't really understand why they are getting so much flak for it.
From me, because my partner bought an USB-C to 3.5mm jack converter that refused to work with "this device only supports official huawei converters". That, and two completely different cables with almost disjoint functionality look _the same_. If they mandated color coding or anything else to be able to physically determine what cable is what, I wouldn't complain.
That all said, the _charging_ story is decent enough, everything else is garbage.
> Literally half the pins are missing on charge-only cables.
okay, but unless you know which pins are missing, how do you know you're not looking at a data-only cable?
> From me, because my partner bought an USB-C to 3.5mm jack converter that refused to work with "this device only supports official huawei converters". That, and two completely different cables with almost disjoint functionality look _the same_. If they mandated color coding or anything else to be able to physically determine what cable is what, I wouldn't complain.
this sounds like more of a huawei issue than a USB-C issue. if a manufacturer is just going to refuse to support a standards-compliant cable, you're out of luck either way. color coding would be nice though, they could have made that mandatory rather than recommended. I'm sure companies like apple wouldn't give a fuck either way and would just go with whatever looked aesthetically pleasing, USB-IF cert be damned.
> That all said, the _charging_ story is decent enough, everything else is garbage.
what "everything else" is garbage? there are higher speed variants, but you seem to already consider it reasonable to look at pins, so that shouldn't be a problem for you. thunderbolt support doesn't need any special pins; it just needs a high quality cable, which is analogous to the charging situation for this and the previous generation.
>okay, but unless you know which pins are missing, how do you know you're not looking at a data-only cable?
You know it's a different cable and that's enough.
>this sounds like more of a huawei issue than a USB-C issue. if a manufacturer is just going to refuse to support a standards-compliant cable, you're out of luck either way. color coding would be nice though, they could have made that mandatory rather than recommended. I'm sure companies like apple wouldn't give a fuck either way and would just go with whatever looked aesthetically pleasing, USB-IF cert be damned.
That is made possible by USB-C standard. USB-A and USB-B cables were too dumb to support that.
>you seem to already consider it reasonable to look at pins
The pinouts are the same for all different types of cables. It is literally impossible to differentiate cables based on visual inspection. The USB-C standard is a unified charger and a bunch of different cables in with the same connector.
I just grabbed a power-only microUSB cable out of my cable box (it came with a microUSB-powered soap dispenser!), and it has all the pins, but only the power pins are actually wired.
And how exactly are you going to keep track of which cable is which?
It might not be so terrible if they came labeled with symbols or letters or colors or something. But there is absolutely no way to know which cable does what once you've taken it out of its packaging that (hopefully) lists its specifications correctly.
Good luck remembering which white cable was which.
> And how exactly are you going to keep track of which cable is which?
it's really not that hard. for travel, I have three identical cables that work with all my portable devices. for devices that spend their whole lives in one place, I use the cable it came with.
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
Exactly, and honestly it's pretty intuitive: big devices need big chargers. For me, my laptop is the only device I own that needs a big 100w adapter, everything else can share smaller adapters.
And one big benefit of the current USB-C era is that 15-18W power adapters are more ubiquitous than ever, and compact enough that there's almost never any reason to use a smaller one anymore. And more and more devices are not coming with their own power adapter these days, which is better for the environment and simplifies my life, every usb-c device I own can be charged by the same chargers and will charge quickly.
It's way better than each device coming with its own adapter of arbitrary shape that may or may not be able to be plugged in without blocking the adjacent socket on the wall or power strip, with seemingly arbitrary max power output, with an arbitrary choice of using usb A/mini/micro connector.
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.
> 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.
