How many kinds of USB-C to USB-C cables are there? • Hacker News Board

Re: How many kinds of USB-C to USB-C cables are there?

#141

Post by zaroth » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:11 AM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #79

starsinspace wrote: post #42

After buying a screen which has only a USB-C DP-Alt-Mode input, I was recently in the market for a matching cable. My only requirements were “it should be as long as possible, at least 2 meters” and “it needs to support DP-Alt-Mode”. Now I thought this would be easy, just ask Google what kind of cable I need, right...? Well... no. Not at all. I wasn’t able to find any information whatsoever what kind of USB-C cable i…

Why don't they give NAMES to these different types of cables? They seem to have either no names or too many names where it's unclear what is intended for the consumer. Just giving the cable a clear name (in words, not icons), so you could know what you were buying, and a device could say "you need this kind of cable", and a person could write a blog saying "to support DP-Alt-Mode you need X kind of cable" and all use…

So apparently, according to TFA, the DP capable cables are "SuperSpeed" and marked with an SS.

Learning just that one fact made it worth the click. I now know to just always look for SuperSpeed (or the SS marking) on any cable I buy.

If we could just all start calling them SuperSpeed cables, SuperSpeed10 for 10Gbps, and I assume we will eventually have SuperSpeed20, etc... that would be just fine by me! Honestly, better marketing IMO as well.

The time for the "USB" acronym has passed. Especially since the debacle of "USB3" and Gen1 Gen2 nonsense. "SuperSpeed", optionally followed by a number which indicates a data rate would be just lovely.

Re: How many kinds of USB-C to USB-C cables are there?

#142

Post by vmlinuz » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:12 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #100

vxNsr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of Dell's implementation is that the TB port has a little thunderbolt next to it while the usb-c one doesn't.

Not to be confused with the little thunderbolt next to some USB ports that indicates charging capability.

Clearly, that's a lightning bolt rather than a thunderbolt. Very very frightening.

Not to be confused with Apple's Lightning connector, of course...

Re: How many kinds of USB-C to USB-C cables are there?

#143

Post by j0057 » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:18 AM UTC

Then there's also OnePlus Dash charge, which looks like a USB power brick with a USB-C cable. However the phone negotiates higher voltage with special circuitry in the adapter, so that kind of takes away from the 'Universal' in 'USB'. At least I now know that it might maybe work with a superspeed cable.

Re: How many kinds of USB-C to USB-C cables are there?

#144

Post by deepsun » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:22 AM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #74

derefr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see your point. Devices are free to support or not support whatever capabilities they want. Having a specific port is no guarantee that the device will use this or that capability offered over that port; mostly it's a guarantee it'll use at least one capability offered by that port. The problem with USB-C is that many of the cables don't do everything. Nobody else is complaining that the devices don't do ever…

If a device has an HDMI port I know I can use that to connect a display. I don't know details like the supported resolutions, but at least I know that's a supported use case. If I notice that a device has a USB-C port all I really learned is that it has a USB-C port. Who knows what it does.

My monitor has HDMI ports, but doesn't run full-resolution through it, because HDMI doesn't support that throughput.

So I'm not sure having HDMI is better or worse. I would prefer having slightly cheaper monitor, if anyway I'm going to buy proper DisplayPort cable.

Re: How many kinds of USB-C to USB-C cables are there?

#145

Post by zaroth » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:25 AM UTC

This part at the end was intriguing...

> Cables 2-6 are required by the USB specification to include an electronic marker chip which contains vital information about the cable. The host should be able to read that eMarker, and identify what its data and power capabilities are. If the host sees that the user is attempting to use DisplayPort Alternate Mode with the wrong cable, rather than a silent failure (ie, the external display doesn't light up), the OS should tell the user via a notification they may be using the wrong cable, and educate the user about cables with the right logo.

But how is the host OS going to notify me that the cable is the wrong kind of cable to support display output, if it doesn't even know that I'm trying to connect a monitor on the other side? Can I fallback to legacy USB2 speed to identify the peripheral and then decide a higher speed cable is required?Would it have to be based on the user action of trying to toggle the primary display (i.e. Windows-P), triggering a prompt assuming a monitor was connected and that the cable is the wrong type?

Perhaps rather than the host trying to guess that, it would be better for the peripheral to detect on its side that the cable is the wrong type, and then displaying a very helpful full-screen slide explaining the issue. In the case of a monitor, it could even include a QR code to scan with your phone to bring up further documentation, complete with Amazon affiliate links to buy a better cable, you know, because you know, monetize all the things.

Re: How many kinds of USB-C to USB-C cables are there?

#146

Post by cududa » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:25 AM UTC

windexh8er wrote: post #139

starsinspace wrote: post #42

After buying a screen which has only a USB-C DP-Alt-Mode input, I was recently in the market for a matching cable. My only requirements were “it should be as long as possible, at least 2 meters” and “it needs to support DP-Alt-Mode”. Now I thought this would be easy, just ask Google what kind of cable I need, right...? Well... no. Not at all. I wasn’t able to find any information whatsoever what kind of USB-C cable i…

I generalize them for friends who ask and break them down into these variants: * USB 3.1 (Type-C to Type-C) Charge Only * USB 3.1 (Type-C to Type-C) Charge and Data @5Gb * USB 3.1 (Type-C to Type-C) Charge and Data @10Gb * Thunderbolt 3 (Type-C to Type-C) Charge and Data @20Gb * Thunderbolt 3 (Type-C to Type-C) Charge and Data @40Gb I believe 5/20Gb cables are generally rated at 65W and 10/40Gb cables at 100W. But li…

I appreciate your response, but holy hell how is anyone supposed to memorize all that to buy a damn laptop or phone charger

Re: How many kinds of USB-C to USB-C cables are there?

#147

Post by zaroth » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:35 AM UTC

killjoywashere wrote: post #134

So, if I always buy "USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10gpbs) rated at 5A", am I ok?

Apparently yes, unless you need Thunderbolt!

Re: How many kinds of USB-C to USB-C cables are there?

#148

Post by r00fus » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:36 AM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #140

USB has become an odd sort of universal standard where everyone's best bet is to stick with the cable that came with the device.

I follow with that result, we establish a causal $ reason for this mess - USBIF signatory manufacturers wanting to not compete with the aftermarket.

Re: How many kinds of USB-C to USB-C cables are there?

#149

Post by hendry » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:40 AM UTC

Even if I have a good cable, what I find confusing is what to expect USB-C speeds to be between devices.

Say I mount my GH5 with my MBP. What can I expect the speeds to be?

Re: How many kinds of USB-C to USB-C cables are there?

#150

Post by bscphil » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:41 AM UTC

manacit wrote: post #34

msbarnett wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a MacBook Pro it’s not so bad, because rather than try to save a few cents Apple wired every USB-C port for everything that it supports, so there’s no real distinction between ports (but you still need to distinguish between very similar looking cables that handle, say USB 3.0 in one case and an active TB3 40 Gbps in another) It’s at the low end of the market that USB-C is an entire mess. This port on your lapto…

If I'm remembering correctly, it's not that far off from the (blue?) color coding with the USB A connector to indicate USB 3 support for particular ports? Either way, when power gets involved as well, that is a terrible user experience. I had a friend bring over a Dell laptop with a USB C port that I naively assumed had TB3 support (it was listed as being "optional" on Dell's website). Turns out that the only way to…

> For better or for worse, though, that's a manufacturer problem - they could have easily just not allowed _any_ USB C charging and stuck with an AC adapter

For what it's worth, I personally would be thrilled by such a decision. I'm against having my power supplied through a data cable and data port. In theory it's safe, of course, but in practice people have fried equipment with bad cables. It's a hard standard to get right. It's as if we were all using Rust for systems programming up until 2016, when we all switched to C because it was "more powerful". In theory you can write safe C. In practice ...

I also think display connections should have their own interface. It needlessly complicates the protocol when we already have perfectly good connectors for this, HDMI, micro-HDMI, Displayport...

USB should be a dumb protocol with a passive cable. The only distinguishing feature between different USB C cables should be transfer speed, and different rates should be given a clearly labeled version number and distinguishing color, like USB 3.1, 3.2 etc.

Of course no one's actually going to implement this, probably the companies involved profit off of incompatibilities. Whenever you have to buy a new cable or new device because it's not supported by the old standard, it's proof this approach is winning.