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USB Type-C is still a mess

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Re: USB Type-C is still a mess

#101

Post by digi_owl »

thfuran wrote: post #74
mikeash wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t make that assumption at the end. These cables are as thin as they can possibly be to carry the maximum current they’re rated for. That maximum current could be 0.5A or it could be 5A. Try to pull 5A through a cable rated for 0.5A and you’re likely to burn the customer’s house down. You can’t really measure the resistance of the cable from one end. You can try to guess by watching for a voltage drop as you p…

Wait, so a USB-C cable cannot be a completely passive component?

Yes and no. There is no IC in there, but there are small segment in the cable spec that talks about resistors on one of the lines that signal the type of cable available.

So you put one resistor in for a low rated C to C cable, another for a higher C to C rated, and yet another for an A to C converter (indicating that the C end should fall back to the older battery charging spec).

Guess how many fly by night cable manufacturers get those wrong...

the C to C spec charging, or Power Delivery, spec is a whole different barrel of stinking fish. Where you can have everything from 0.5A at 5V to multiple As at 20V running over the same C to C cable.

This is akin to the Qualcomm quickcharge scheme that run 9V over existing micro-USB cables and ports (thus allowing higher wattage without cranking up the amps).

Re: USB Type-C is still a mess

#102

Post by pdpi »

MBCook wrote: post #80
pdpi wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine for a moment that you had a magical morphing port That's mostly the case with Apple's devices where all ports support all functionality, but there's products in the market where some but not all USB-C ports are Thunderbolt- or USBPD-enabled. This becomes a royal pain in the arse, where you have a bunch of ports that all look like they should support the peripheral you're trying to plug in, but don't, for so…

So put a USB-C hub (because that’s the connector, what else would you buy?) into your Mac. And you plug your display into that. And it has some USB-C and Thunderbolt stuff plugged in. It used to all work, but now with the hub in-line your Thunderbolt drive doesn’t work and your display doesn’t get a signal. The hub must be broken, right? So you buy a new one. Same problem. How is any normal person supposed to figure…

> So put a USB-C hub (because that’s the connector, what else would you buy?) into your Mac.

This will eventually become a problem, definitely. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be much of a problem right now because USB-C hubs are as common as hen's teeth (they're usually C to A, or C to a bazillion things)

Re: USB Type-C is still a mess

#103

Post by paulmd »

vertexFarm wrote: post #57
andrei_says_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the last couple of years, I’d say “very Apple-y.” So unfortunate given they are the only large company in the space which prioritizes privacy.

Yeah, unfortunately that is quintessentially apple-y. Even the charging cable has seen endless unnecessary permutation, all proprietary and all expensive as hell. And mostly pointless. It's two wires. Two wires that carry a constant DC charge. Why so complicated? I use my computer in a metal shop and my magsafe gathers iron filings, shorts itself and catches fire. I've gone through so many chargers. I've vowed that t…

> Even the charging cable has seen endless unnecessary permutation, all proprietary and all expensive as hell. And mostly pointless. It's two wires. Two wires that carry a constant DC charge. Why so complicated?

Which voltage, and how much current? Put 20V down the wire and you'd blow up a device expecting 5V. Pull 100W through a cable rated for 5W and you'd burn your house down.

As soon as USB-C became the catch-all standard to do all of the things, the complexity was inevitable. It could have been communicated better to the user (proper symbology, color-coded ports, etc) but unless all the devices support all the modes, you are mostly going to be dealing with the minimum standard. And making every device capable of dealing with the full extent of Type-C capabilities (DisplayPort, PCIe channels, etc) is going to get expensive.

Re: USB Type-C is still a mess

#104

Post by digi_owl »

theatrus2 wrote: post #55
vertexFarm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive me for sounding extremely ignorant. I know this is not my area of specialty and I admit I'm about to sound stupid. I want to admit this right off the bat. Can't you just hook up the VCC and ground from any USB charging IC to a type-c socket? It's all +5v right? I don't understand why the type of connector dictates how fast a cable should be useful for charging. That seems like it should be up to the simple ga…

Type-C offers charge rates up to 100W, which means the voltage is ramped to 20V. There is an entire protocol to negotiate power delivery (including who charges who) http://www.usb.org/developers/powerdelivery/

And the latter part have caught some people unaware, where a battery pack and a phone will ping pong who is charging who until both are dead.

Re: USB Type-C is still a mess

#105

Post by icebraining »

reaperducer wrote: post #29
matthewmacleod wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple with their stupid single port is just idiotic This is on a single specific device. The best port selection with usb-c is on the 2015 chrome pixel laptop. 2 usb-c, 2 usb-b You mean USB-A. Just having a single usb-c has caused endless pain, all so apple could sell stupid dongles. Nobody I know using MacBooks has a particular problem with this. A dongle would be required in most cases to connect to an external dis…

Nobody I know using MacBooks has a particular problem with this. A dongle would be required in most cases to connect to an external display in any case; it's not like Apple are selling more dongles. Agreed. My wife has a MacBook with a single USB-C port. Having only one port has exactly zero impact on her. The only thing she uses it for is for charging, and very occasionally plugging in a tiny hard drive to look at h…

What does she do when she has low battery and needs to look at her iPhoto library?

Re: USB Type-C is still a mess

#106

Post by microtonal »

bluedino wrote: post #46
Latteland wrote: post #14

Not putting enough ports on devices is a crucial problem. Apple with their stupid single port is just idiotic. The best port selection with usb-c is on the 2015 chrome pixel laptop. 2 usb-c, 2 usb-a. Just having a single usb-c has caused endless pain, all so apple could sell stupid dongles. The new google pixelbook 2018 is a great form factor, except they only have 2 usb-c, they dropped usb-a. The reason was probably…

This would be fine if there were good USB-C port expanders. They're all terrible, even the Apple one. If you just want power or video, you're fine. But nobody can build a working, stable USB 3.0 hub into one. So while you can charge your 12" MacBook at the same time that you're plugged into a 4k or 2560x1440 monitor, you can't use any damn external drives. They either run at turtle speeds or they randomly unmount or…

This would be fine if there were good USB-C port expanders. They're all terrible, even the Apple one. If you just want power or video, you're fine. But nobody can build a working, stable USB 3.0 hub into one.

Don't get me started on the Apple one. I bought one early (for the MacBook 2015) and the earlier series have a USB 2.0 hub. They touted the USB-C connector and how it would carry USB 3.0 (now 3.1). And their adapters, which set me back 80 Euro each (needed both HDMI and VGA) were only USB 2.0. To add to the confusion, they apparently also started selling variants with a USB 3.0 hub, without any clear indication on the packaging.

I still feel incredibly sour about buying a 1400 Euro MacBook with two 80 Euro cables, resulting in poor USB 2.0 speeds. And at the time there wasn't really any choice in adapters. Oh, and it doesn't support HDMI 2.0. So when I got a MacBook Pro later and a 4k screen, the cable was worthless and I had to get an USB-C DisplayPort cable.

I liked Apple computers and I would recommend them to family, friends, colleagues. But their USB-C debacle is one of the reasons (besides the keyboard) why I stopped recommending Apple. If they'd just added two USB-A ports... (I don't care about the few extra millimeters.)

Re: USB Type-C is still a mess

#107

Post by blacksmith_tb »

imran3740 wrote: post #27

> Port shortages Would it hurt anyone to put two USB-C ports on a smartphone? Thank goodness my phone still has a 3.5mm jack, but some people would like to charge their phone and listen to (wired) audio without having to buy an adapter. And it's not like this is an uncommon use case either, anecdotally some of my friends with iPhones face this issue.

I agree - I'd like to have one on either end, that way you should never have to fish around to plug things in.

Re: USB Type-C is still a mess

#108

Post by bsimpson »

phito wrote: post #6

The Nintendo Switch probably has the worst implementation of USB-C I've ever seen.

As power delivery, it's great though. I love that I can charge my Switch with the same power adaptor as a phone/laptop/router. I can usually find or pack a generic USB-C charger and not have to think about carrying a proprietary brick to charge it.

I understand that people who have USB-C video cables are upset that they can't use them; but as somebody who uses the Switch as a travel device, I really appreciate the charging flexibility.

Re: USB Type-C is still a mess

#109

Post by jrockway »

MBCook wrote: post #79
jrockway wrote: post #54

I remember arguing with people when Type-C was new; they told me it would change the world, I told them it would never work. The problem is... they made everything optional, and thus when a user sees a Type-C port, they have no idea what to expect. Will it work with a device that requires Thunderbolt? Will it drive a DisplayPort monitor? Will this charger charge their laptop? Will this charger charge their phone? The…

I’m not sure optionality is the problem so much as they didn’t NEED to combine three things into one. If USB-C has video and USB it would be pretty great. Video could be optional but that’s easy enough. But Thunderbolt is a HUGE complication. It should have used some other connector and then this stuff would be easy enough to figure out but you’d still get plenty of benefit. Of course TB already used the Mini-DP conn…

A more aggressive re-imagining of how peripherals interoperate is probably what needs to happen. Having a cable and connectors just be some differential pairs is perfect for pretty much everything, that's how PCIE, DisplayPort, USB 3.0, Ethernet, etc. all work with their own special details. The problem is how computers are built. PCIE is expected to be contained inside the computer, and fully trusted. Video data for monitors is just binary data flowing along the differential pairs, but the only place on the computer that can produce that data is the video card, which has no way to send that data anywhere but a physical port on the video card. Thunderbolt 3 is just some PCIE lanes with some security/authentication on it.

So in the end, it's perfectly reasonable to have One True cable/port that delivers power and data over some differential pairs.

The problem is cost and legacy. If we have one power delivery spec that can power a giant TV, it will be too expensive to make a cell phone charger with the same port type just to charge a phone. Similarly, nobody is going to buy a new monitor that uses our new interconnection method when HDMI and DisplayPort are good enough. (People should be alarmed that most monitors come with both HDMI and DisplayPort ports... they do the same thing, but society could not decide on just one, so we pay for two protocols every time we buy a monitor or video card.)

USB Type-C tried to fix both of these problems by just reusing the old protocols and being flexible about power... but it's too confusing for users. The old system of one port doing one thing was much easier to understand. Nobody ever tried to connect their hard drive to their monitor... until Thunderbolt came out and made that physically (but not logically) possible.

For that reason, I don't see a solution.

Re: USB Type-C is still a mess

#110

Post by usaphp »

Latteland wrote: post #14

Not putting enough ports on devices is a crucial problem. Apple with their stupid single port is just idiotic. The best port selection with usb-c is on the 2015 chrome pixel laptop. 2 usb-c, 2 usb-a. Just having a single usb-c has caused endless pain, all so apple could sell stupid dongles. The new google pixelbook 2018 is a great form factor, except they only have 2 usb-c, they dropped usb-a. The reason was probably…

> all so apple could sell stupid dongles

Do people really think that Apple is making any significant money on dongle sales, and that it was a main reason they decided to go with single type c ports? Most people who own new MacBooks I know purchase non Apple branded dongles anyway. And even those that apple sells are not really bringing that much money to Apple imo

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