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USB kills off SuperSpeed branding

theverge.com

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Re: USB kills off SuperSpeed branding

#101

Post by laundermaf »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #3

> “As we started to update our branding we did a lot of focus group studies with many different types of consumers,” he tells The Verge, “and none of those people understood the messaging and the branding, and they don’t understand revision control or spec names.” You didn't need a focus group to tell you this (though I'm glad they did one). Just look at every single comment thread on HN about USB branding, at this p…

Given the terrible product naming[1] most hardware companies[2] have, at this point I’ve just come to the conclusion that most people in command don’t have any idea of how other people behave and reason.

[1]: Sony WF-1000XM3 are AirPods competitors, but you’d never tell your friends about your Sony WF-1000XM3

[2]: Except Apple and a handful others

Re: USB kills off SuperSpeed branding

#103

Post by vore »

sixothree wrote: post #92
throwaway932489 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google did it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_KitKat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Oreo

That was a fairly repulsive move on Google's part. I still don't understand why they did that.

What's repulsive about it? It seems pretty innocuous to me in terms of promotion.

Re: USB kills off SuperSpeed branding

#104

Post by hericium »

sangnoir wrote: post #99
solarkraft wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just hit me that (of course) this was coordinated. I'm against many forms of advertising, but somehow I don't mind this. They needed a name for the letter and looked around. I can't imagine the brands having paid all that much to be the name of an Android version.

IIRC, no money changed hands - it was just cross-promotion (like TV cross-over episodes). I thought it was pretty harmless fun, YMMV.

Would be more harmless with non-shit food.

Re: USB kills off SuperSpeed branding

#105

Post by crote »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #73
gumby wrote: post #71

This part is so exciting: > it’ll now also have to list a charging speed like 60W or 240W. Ah, no more trying to do determine what dielectric the cable is using: they’ll label the cable with how fast the charge can propagate through the cable. A significant blow for consumer choice!

It's even worse. A 20W USB-PD charger might indeed put out 20W, but not at the voltage your device needs . It might put out 20W at one voltage, but only 10W at another. The whole thing is a goddamn mess, and it's a mess because the alliance is a cartel, not an actually useful technical standards group. They're a bunch of fat swine contributing little to nothing but extorting licensing fees from everyone.

This should never happen, provided everyone is actually following the specs.

If a charger outputs X W and a device needs Y W, for any X > Y it is guaranteed to output the voltage and current combination the device requires.

Every may offer a variable voltage, but this variable voltage may not exceed the highest fixed voltage it offers. With the right cable, it may offer currents above 3A for lower voltages.

Devices are required to be able to charge from any charger providing at least the device's power rating, and it should even provide a similar user experience. It is not allowed to depend on the optional variable voltage or higher current a charger may offer.

Really, the USB PD specifications are fine. There is nothing wrong with them - except perhaps the fact that they are over 650 pages long. If you run into issues with USB-C charging, it is almost always caused by either the device or the charger manufacturer simply not following the damn specs.

Re: USB kills off SuperSpeed branding

#106

Post by wereHamster »

userbinator wrote: post #47
0x457 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are irrelevant? Consumers only care about: speed and wattage. You're technically never supposed to care or even know about which USB standard it is, all of those Gen 3.2 2x2 aren't supposed to be consumer facing. USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 “consumer” name is^W was "SuperSpeed USB 20 Gbps" that is what USB-IF been suggesting since the beginning. However, to use that name, they have to submit to testing and compliance. Othe…

As long as there are no two different standards that are capable of the same wattage and speed There are. USB 3.2 Gen 1x2 and 3.2 Gen 2 are both nominally 10Gbps but use different signaling.

Does that affect device function?

Re: USB kills off SuperSpeed branding

#107

Post by crote »

userbinator wrote: post #47
0x457 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are irrelevant? Consumers only care about: speed and wattage. You're technically never supposed to care or even know about which USB standard it is, all of those Gen 3.2 2x2 aren't supposed to be consumer facing. USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 “consumer” name is^W was "SuperSpeed USB 20 Gbps" that is what USB-IF been suggesting since the beginning. However, to use that name, they have to submit to testing and compliance. Othe…

As long as there are no two different standards that are capable of the same wattage and speed There are. USB 3.2 Gen 1x2 and 3.2 Gen 2 are both nominally 10Gbps but use different signaling.

I am still not convinced that Gen 1x2 actually exists. Sure, it's in the specs, but can you actually buy chips which support 1x2 but not 2x1?

Sure, in theory it is easier to design because you are dealing with two 5Gbps signals instead of one 10Gbps signal so you have a bigger error margin, but 2x1 was introduced in 2013 whereas 1x2 came along in 2017, had a worse real-world data transfer rate, and required way more complicated chips due to the mandatory USB-C handling.

Did anyone bother to build chips for it?

Re: USB kills off SuperSpeed branding

#109

Post by lovich »

esskay wrote: post #108

I'd love for someone involved in the USB naming standard to come here and explain why being on coke when deciding on names is a good thing.

Do they need to explain why all of marketing operates the same way or just why they follow regular marketing standards /s

Re: USB kills off SuperSpeed branding

#110

Post by blkhawk »

sixothree wrote: post #93
panny wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really stupid comment and you should probably delete it. What they've done here is pretty close to what I've been wanting. They're now advertising the port speed, which is all anyone cares about. They're not advertising meaningless version numbers anymore. The only improvement I could offer now is to advertise the speed specifically. What they are labeling as 40gb 20gb 10gb 5gb is in actuality More like 2x…

> They're not advertising meaningless version numbers anymore USB IF is the only party responsible for making version numbers meaningless. They are _extremely_ useful for other hardware products - HDMI, DisplayPort, WiFi, etc. There are scenarios where they would be useful. But USB IF decided to make them meaningless on purpose. Everything about their history related to version numbers seems anti-consumer to me. Inte…

Yes, it pretty much started when they decided not to "confuse" consumers the first time with USB 2.0. Claiming said fear they made all the USB 1.1 Devices USB 2 just with a different speed name. That way you could have USB 2.0 Mice and Keyboards.

So you had USB-Low Speed for keyboards and mice and USB Full Speed for Full Speed and Hi Speed for High Speed (later Super speed for speed that was just super).

Not confusing at all and it resulted in a time when you had to actually be darn careful not to get a USB 2.0 "full speed USB Hub" or other device. Later the same thing happened with regards to USB 3 a few years later.

Manufacturers making these (for a time until the relevant usb3 parts become too cheap to bother with these near fakes) always pop up.

At this point it will be a long painful process to replace all the hardware that doesn't follow the new scheme and USB version numbers could have been the much simpler solution.

One thing missing from their specs is the glut of "Power only" cables on the market. By failing to giving recommendation there Chinese manufacturers will all just do whatever - Probably abusing the High-Speed based labeling and that will pollute those and again cause confusion.

How hard is it to give them a symbol to print on their shitty power cables so people don't have to buy a cable tester?

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