Interesting that two major-ish companies sell products that are out of spec (rpi and Nintendo). Is there any insight on why these decisions were made? Business and engineering opinions would be equally interesting.
Raspberry Pi admits to faulty USB-C design on the Pi 4
51–60 of 165 posts
Re: Raspberry Pi admits to faulty USB-C design on the Pi 4
#52Reminder to self: being an early adopter sucks virtually always. Edit: Sure, the issue is rather easy to circumvent, but anyone would have preferred not to have it. At the very least, it affects the resale value. My point is that whenever the answer to the question 'do I need it absolutely right away?' is no, it's better to wait a bit, no matter how much you intend to buy it at some point.
There's always a risk/reward going on being an early adopter, in this case it's far from the worst though. It's a 35$ purchase, and at worst you have to get a new cable.
Re: Raspberry Pi admits to faulty USB-C design on the Pi 4
#53While this isn't great, as a consumer I don't really see too big of a problem. If I get a raspberry pi to use for home automation or as a media center, do I really need it to work with every USB-C cable? I'd think I'd just find one that works and let that be the dedicated raspberry 4 cable. If you're building a product based on Raspberry Pi that you're selling to others, then sure I could understand the outrage.
Just buy the official power supply instead of "finding" random junk.
Re: Raspberry Pi admits to faulty USB-C design on the Pi 4
#54I preordered, and it hasn't shipped yet. I wish there were an option to wait and get a fixed one later instead.
I ended up cancelling my pre-order from Element 14, you could potentially do the same depending on who you ordered from. I didn't cancel because of this, but just because I got really busy with work and I know it'll be a few months before I get to pull it out of the drawer. Better to let someone else have it to use than take a pre-order spot for my desk drawer.
Re: Raspberry Pi admits to faulty USB-C design on the Pi 4
#55>a board revision with a spec-compliant charging port should be out sometime in the "next few months."
Are they going to change the boxes and their product spec to remove USB-C from it when they are not USB-C compliant?
Re: Raspberry Pi admits to faulty USB-C design on the Pi 4
#56Reminder to self: being an early adopter sucks virtually always. Edit: Sure, the issue is rather easy to circumvent, but anyone would have preferred not to have it. At the very least, it affects the resale value. My point is that whenever the answer to the question 'do I need it absolutely right away?' is no, it's better to wait a bit, no matter how much you intend to buy it at some point.
I simply ordered one with the official power supply(at £8 it's cheaper than literally any branded USB-C charger) and would never even know there was an issue if not for the articles here.
Doesn't this mean that you can't use the Branded power supply with anything else? I'm so used to all my micro-usb (and hell, even mini and normal USB) based power delivery systems being 100% compatible, save using a 0.5amp supply simply won't charge my old phone as quickly as a 1.8 or whatever amp supply.
Is this untrue in the world of USB C? I haven't experienced any oddities yet with my Pixel 2
Re: Raspberry Pi admits to faulty USB-C design on the Pi 4
#57Reminder to self: being an early adopter sucks virtually always. Edit: Sure, the issue is rather easy to circumvent, but anyone would have preferred not to have it. At the very least, it affects the resale value. My point is that whenever the answer to the question 'do I need it absolutely right away?' is no, it's better to wait a bit, no matter how much you intend to buy it at some point.
There is an old joke about the American West which goes, "Q: How do you know which people were pioneers? A: They are the ones with arrows in their back."
USB-C is a phenomenally complex system from an engineering perspective, serving at least three masters (compatibility, power delivery, and enhanced performance). As these systems go through the standards process you have vendors designing silicon in anticipation and engineers designing circuits. Not surprisingly, I have met just as many EE's who 'design by looking at something that does something similar' as software engineers who start with code that does something close and hack it into compliance.
Actually taking the time to develop an understanding of the complex system after it has made it through its final standards ballot, and then build systems with it take too long in today's market. You would bring something to market 3 to 5 years after the first products hit and were probably establishing defacto standards.
So the business side pushes to get something out, the engineering side learns just enough to get it to work in their lab, and the trademark validation/usage process is new/non-existent. As a result you will see early products that are broken in various ways until the collective knowledge and number of correct examples reaches the tipping point. After you reach that point future designs will likely work reliably because the chance of everyone involved having enough examples to start from is high, and compatibility issues will have been publicized and thus written into the book of "things not to do."
Re: Raspberry Pi admits to faulty USB-C design on the Pi 4
#58Great maybe theyll deliver the 8gb model while theyre at it
Quadrupling the memory over the previous version wasn't enough for you?
Re: Raspberry Pi admits to faulty USB-C design on the Pi 4
#59While this isn't great, as a consumer I don't really see too big of a problem. If I get a raspberry pi to use for home automation or as a media center, do I really need it to work with every USB-C cable? I'd think I'd just find one that works and let that be the dedicated raspberry 4 cable. If you're building a product based on Raspberry Pi that you're selling to others, then sure I could understand the outrage.
Just buy the official power supply instead of "finding" random junk.
...but then why follow specifications at all?
Re: Raspberry Pi admits to faulty USB-C design on the Pi 4
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I simply ordered one with the official power supply(at £8 it's cheaper than literally any branded USB-C charger) and would never even know there was an issue if not for the articles here.
Doesn't this mean that you can't use the Branded power supply with anything else? I'm so used to all my micro-usb (and hell, even mini and normal USB) based power delivery systems being 100% compatible, save using a 0.5amp supply simply won't charge my old phone as quickly as a 1.8 or whatever amp supply. Is this untrue in the world of USB C? I haven't experienced any oddities yet with my Pixel 2
>Doesn't this mean that you can't use the Branded power supply with anything else?
No, check the article for an explanation.