USB C is the best thing to happen to peripherals since the mouse.
I would agree with you if there were a simple way to tell what the USB-C cable I have in my hand can be used for without knowing beforehand. Otherwise, for example, I don’t know whether the USB-C cable will charge my device or not. There should have been a simple way to label them for usage that was baked into the standard. As it is, the concept is terrific, but the execution can be extremely frustrating.
Hey that’s a fair point. Funny how often good ideas are kneecapped by crap executions.
I’m pretty sure the phrase “kneecapped by crap executions” is in the USB working groups’s charter. It’s like one of their core guiding principles.
If anyone disagrees with this, the original USB spec was for a reversible connector and the only reason we didn’t get to have that the whole time was because they wanted to increase profit margins.
Burn all the USBC cables with fire except PD. The top PD cable does everything the lower cable does.
Correct. The other commenter is giving bad advice.
Both power delivery and bandwidth are backwards compatible, but they are independent specifications on USB-C cables. You can even get PD capable USB-C cables that don’t transmit data at all.
Also, that’s not true for Thunderbolt cables. Each of the 5 versions have specific data and power delivery minimum and maximum specifications.
Yeah, I totally get that there is a need for cheap power only cables, but why are there what feels like 30 different data “standards”. Just gimme power-only, data, and fast-data. And yeah, in 2 years there’ll be a faster data protocol, so what, that’s then fast-data24, fast-data26, etc. and manufacturers have to use a specific pictogram to label them according to the highest standard they fulfill.
Do not all USB C cables have the capability to do Power Delivery? I thought it was up to the port you plugged it in to support it?
Nope. My daughter is notorious for mixing up cables when they come out of the brick. Some charge her tablet, some are for data transfer, some charge other devices but not her tablet. It’s super confusing. I had to start labeling them for her.
Come to think of it, all the USB C cables I have are from phone and device chargers so I just took it for granted. Good to know. Thanks for sharing some knowledge with me
The really janky ones you get with like USB gadgets like fans only have the 2 power lines hooked up and not the lines needed to communicate PD support, those will work exactly the same as the same janky USB A-microUSB cables they used to come with, supplying 5V/2A. You throw those away the second you get them and replace them with the decent quality cables you bought in bulk from AmazonBasics or something.
Agreed. They should be labeled with the rating.
This little guy works wonders for me.
No problem! Oh, and use a charger/power supply for the input. It’ll work on a computer port, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
I would agree with you if there were a simple way to tell what the USB-C cable I have in my hand
https://caberqu.com/home/39-ble-caberqu-0611816327412.html
This would do it.
Damn, check out the price of the thing someone else linked to at AliExpress for a fraction of that price. But having to spend money on that should not be necessary.
That aliexpress device doesn’t tell you what wattage or data speed the cable will max out doing. Just what wattage it’s currently doing (to which you’d need to make sure that the device you’re testing with on the other side is capable and not having it’s own issues). Also can’t tell you if the cable is have intermittent problems. If all you care about is wattage, then fine. But I find myself caring more about the supported data speeds and quality of the cable.
But yes, I agree that cables should just be marked what they’re rated for… However it’s possible well built cables exceed that spec and could do better than they’re claiming which just puts us in the same boat of not really knowing.
Edit: oh! and that aliexpress tester is only 4 lines(usb2.0 basically)… usb 3.0 in type c is 24 pins… You’re not testing jack shit on that aliexpress. The device I linked will actually map the pins in the cable and will find you breaks as well.
Buying a basic, no-frills USB-C cable from a reputable tech manufacturer all but guarantees that it’ll work for essentially any purpose. Of course the shoddy pack-in cables included with a cheap device purchase won’t work well.
I replaced every USB-C-to-C or -A-to-C cable and brick in my house and carry bag with a very low cost Anker cable (except the ones that came with my Google products, those are fine), and now anything charges on any cable.
You wouldn’t say that a razor sucked just because the cheap replacement blades you bought at the dollar store nicked your face, or that a pan was too confusing because the dog food you cooked in it didn’t taste good. So too it is not the fault of USB-C that poorly manufactured charging bricks and cables exist. The standard still works; in fact, it works so well that unethical companies are flooding the market with crap.
There should have been a simple way to label them for usage that was baked into the standard.
There is. USB IF provides an assortment of logos and guidelines for ports and cables to clearly mark data speed (like “10Gbps”), power output (like “100W” or “5A”), whether the port is used for charging (battery icon), etc. But most manufacturers choose not to actually use them for ports.
Cables I’ve seen usually are a bit better about labeling. I have some from Anker and ugreen that say "SS”, “10Gbps”, or “100W”. If they don’t label the power it’s probably 3A and if they don’t label the data speed it’s usually USB 2.0, though I have seen a couple cables that support 3.0 and don’t label it.
