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USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

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Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#191

Post by Drew_ »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #19
jeremymcanally wrote: post #4

Really? I find it to be a game changer for me. The fact that my laptop, Switch, iPad, and several other devices can all share a charge has made my life much easier. I can just sprinkle a few of them throughout the house and never be without power. Before it was always a hunt to find a cable, or I had to be in [x] room to charge [y] device because that's where the charger lived. Plus, I can charge my MacBook on either…

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.

> 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.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#192

Post by leetcrew »

ethbr0 wrote: post #106
jeremymcanally wrote: post #4

Really? I find it to be a game changer for me. The fact that my laptop, Switch, iPad, and several other devices can all share a charge has made my life much easier. I can just sprinkle a few of them throughout the house and never be without power. Before it was always a hunt to find a cable, or I had to be in [x] room to charge [y] device because that's where the charger lived. Plus, I can charge my MacBook on either…

This is a simple problem, and there's a simple solution. Problem: Physical connectors previous encoded information about data/power transfer mode support. When USB C unified the physical connector, that information was lost. Solution: Mandate visually encoded supported standards on the USB cable in colored ring form, a la resistors. Make them plastic, so you can snip them off if the aesthetic bothers. But I should be…

> Physical connectors previous encoded information about data/power transfer mode support. When USB C unified the physical connector, that information was lost.

this is not strictly true, at least for USB. you can use a USB 1.x to connect USB2/3 endpoints, but you will only get 1.x speeds. there were power-only cables that didn't transfer data at all. they are all physically compatible. unless you're familiar with the pin layout, there's no way to distinguish the different flavors of A ports.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#193

Post by tristor »

josho wrote: post #98
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #37

It's honestly such a complete joke it's not even funny anymore. My USB-C MacBook Pro with it's pathetic two ports that my work bought for me is now old enough that the battery is starting to fail and we're still in a world where this single cable for power, screen and ports just doesn't seem to really exist. I'm starting to be convinced the port is fundamentally flawed, dongles with multiple ports are never reliable…

A good (read expensive) dongle will work fine. I have one that reliably powers 2 monitors (a 5k and a 4k), 1gb network and powers my macbook. I think the real problem is we get a lot of cheap products coming from China with very little quality control. QC is poor because they have no incentive to build in quality. E.g. you likely don't realize how flaky the dongle is until after the 30 day return policy, the branding…

This is exactly it. If you want anything that actually works and is reliable, you pretty much cannot buy it on Amazon, you need to buy it directly from the company that makes it. I have a Henge Dock for my older 13" MBP and it's worked perfectly for years over USB-C, and on my newer Touchbar 13" I havea a 2-port USB-C microdock from HyperDrive. I use Anker PD/IQ3 chargers and cables, and I have no issues whatsoever.

There are companies making good products, but you have to be willing to pay for them and you have to buy them directly from that company usually. Even if you find that product on Amazon, due to SKU commingling you can assume most of the inventory is counterfeit.

Too many people go to Amazon, type some generic keywords in, and pick "Amazon's Choice", which is some "brand" off AliExpress with no QC. It's not just electronics, this is true for things like car parts and tools as well. It's somewhat shocking how much Chinesium-grade products have infected every aspect of American life due to the ubiquity of people buying through Amazon and Amazon's complete lack of inventory QC.

Friends are amazed that so much of my stuff works, and it seems the only way people find out about good stuff now is via word of mouth because you can't trust online review sites which are mostly just reformatting Amazon star rankings with affiliate links. The state of ecommerce in 2020 is appalling.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#194

Post by edoceo »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #166

There's a simpler but similar problem with HDMI cables now. Over the years new versions of HDMI keep coming out with higher bandwidth to support higher resolutions. But there's no way to look at a cable and tell what HDMI version it supports. These days HDMI 2.0 is minimal but you want HDMI 2.1 if you want to support HDR10 or anything over 4K@60. There's also a bunch of side features in HDMI (like CEC) that are not r…

I've got some HDMI cable that only works in one direction. Fortunately the ends are labeled Source and Display.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#196

Post by sq_ »

billpg wrote: post #178
sq_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree with you on how convenient USB-C can make things. Being able to carry one 60-90w brick with multiple USB-C PD outputs and charge pretty much all of my devices off of it is amazing. On the other hand, I would say that all of us here on HN probably aren't the target audience for this article. Collectively, I'd say HN readers are likely to understand that different USB-C bricks, cables, and devices are going…

Are those people who buy cheap cables in the wrong? Maybe I do need to buy those gold-plated cables.

I wouldn't say that they're in the wrong, but I would expect people to have some expectations about the quality, durability, and capabilities of a super cheap cable.

Overall, I don't think it's entirely unfair to expect people to pay $10-15 for a quality cable, especially since these modern cables are often expected to carry significant amounts of power.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#197

Post by ben7799 »

All I know is my 2018 15" MBP is flaky as heck plugging in docks, monitors, keyboards, etc.. through the various USB-C dongles & docks. It almost never just plugs in and everything works. Sometimes you have to plug/unplug more than once, sometimes you have to wake/sleep the laptop, sometimes the Mac kernel panics.

I have 2 docks at home and have gone through 2 at work that cost as much as $300-400 (OWC and similar) and it's just flaky no matter what.

How do you blame the adapters, docks, whatever when some of them cost as much as a chromebook or a cheap windows laptop? All these dongles and adapters used to not even be required, something's really wrong when they cost as much as another machine and you still can't get things working as well as they worked in the past. Realistically I had less trouble docking my Windows laptop in the late 90s than I do with this MBP. That would have been with 1 monitor instead of 2 but otherwise all the same peripherals.

The only other USB-C device we have is a switch.. we've never tried to use it with anything but the nintendo chargers/devices so I guess we've just been lucky.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#198

Post by can16358p »

I didn't have any problems with USB-C other than trying to charge my Momentum 3 with MacBook Pro's charger (which simply doesn't work as apparently Momentum doesn't support PD), which isn't a real annoyance in daily life.

Sure, it's not perfect, but for most of the use cases it "just works", and I honestly believe it solves more problems than it creates even with its flaws.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#199

Post by warmwaffles »

crazygringo wrote: post #162

I'm just surprised there are still a lot of mainstream accessories that aren't available in USB-C. I bought a Logitech C920 webcam the other day (the most pouplar model)... and it's still only available in USB-A. If you want a Logitech webcam with USB-C, you've got to pay over twice as much for a model like their StreamCam. I'm happy to use dongles for HDMI or Ethernet when I have to. But the fact that I still have t…

> it's still only available in USB-A

That's because it is still the most common type of port out there and it doesn't require a huge bandwidth that USB-C provides. If anything it would be overkill and over priced for what you get.

I think logitech is waiting for USB-C to become more prevalent and the cost to manufacture to drop.

Re: USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

#200

Post by texasbigdata »

CogentHedgehog wrote: post #187
jeremymcanally wrote: post #4

Really? I find it to be a game changer for me. The fact that my laptop, Switch, iPad, and several other devices can all share a charge has made my life much easier. I can just sprinkle a few of them throughout the house and never be without power. Before it was always a hunt to find a cable, or I had to be in [x] room to charge [y] device because that's where the charger lived. Plus, I can charge my MacBook on either…

Same, USB-C is one of those things that for me just works. I buy USB-PD chargers and cables from reputable brands, and everything just charges. When I use the cables for data transfer, it just works -- no muss or fuss like there were with some of the charge-only converter cables for charging micro-USB devices. Now if I were using Thunderbolt 3, yeah, you need a higher-end cable and there are restrictions on cable len…

Ah so that’s why the thunderbolt cables are 1.5 feet :)
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