Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

USB 3.2 is going to make the current USB branding even worse

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 158 posts

Re: USB 3.2 is going to make the current USB branding even worse

#111

Post by protomyth »

jwr wrote: post #105
protomyth wrote: post #2

Who the heck came up with USB 3.2 Gen 2×2? That has got to be the dumbest idea. No one cares how it works, we just have to go through the utter crap of buying a cable. Does the low end manufactures pull the most weight in this org because that's the only way this makes any sense.

All of this naming doesn't matter anyway, because everybody will use USB-C cables. And, as we all know, these can support (or not) almost any combination of anything (thunderbolt, video, various power combinations, USB in all its incarnations, etc) and there is no way to tell what will work by looking at the cable or socket you are plugging into. In other words, it's a crapshoot anyway, so who cares? We'll just keep…

Thunderbolt compatible cables are their own pain in the butt. Apple loves their power only, and I had to order from Monoprice Thunderbolt 3 40Gbps 100W cable, and not get suckered with a 60W or a 20Gbps cable. To save others the trouble, here is the link https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=24722 because that seems like the easiest if you have to have a single cable type around.

To think, memory used to be the number soup......

Re: USB 3.2 is going to make the current USB branding even worse

#112

Post by zokier »

vatueil wrote: post #104
zokier wrote: post #93

Honestly, the USB-IF guidance is pretty sane here. The "USB 3.0" or "USB 3.1 gen 1" or whatever simply should not appear anywhere in the consumer space. Everything should be labeled and using "SuperSpeed USB X Gbps". I'd go as far to say that articles like this exactly help keep the confusion up because the way they keep bringing up the term "USB 3.2" etc as something that consumers should care about, when it is some…

That's really no excuse for USB-IF's terrible versioning scheme. "SuperSpeed" is useless in terms of branding because even technical users, much less your average consumer, have no idea what that means. Is "SuperSpeed" faster than "High Speed" or "Full Speed"? (Answer: "Full Speed" "20 Gbps USB" is better than "USB 3.2 Gen 2x2", sure, but that's not exactly a high bar. It just means USB has failed so badly with versi…

The USB versioning makes perfect sense when you think it as the version of the standard, literally the document itself, which encompasses all the modes. And it does make sense to have single standard instead of having the information scattered across dozen historical standards that have been partially superceded.

I would point out that this is not a new thing. The situation was exactly the same with USB 2.0, technically it was perfectly correct to call compliant full speed device "USB 2.0", because 2.0 did indeed include full speed mode (as does presumably all the USB 3.x standards)

Re: USB 3.2 is going to make the current USB branding even worse

#113

Post by KSS42 »

peterlk wrote: post #32
hsk0823 wrote: post #3

USB 3.X / USB-C / Thunderbolt 3, all of it together is confusing enough for those technical, add marketing speak to the mix and it's just going to end up with a mish mosh of different words that mean absolutely nothing and tell the end user very little. Add to the fact that everyone is skimping on the actual USB 3 standards and a large amount of shitty products on the market that don't do what they say they do (due t…

For real. Why not just call it USB 4.0 and divorce the branding from the technical specification? You can put a thing on the back of the box that says "implements USB specification 3.2.16a-rfc#4619" or whatever.

Maybe be USB4 is already taken/planned?

Re: USB 3.2 is going to make the current USB branding even worse

#114

Post by dwaite »

Where the USB-IF messed up - they should have used their trademark to standardize these cables.

They should have visibly differentiated charging and data cables, and required all cables with USB connectors at both ends to be rated 100W, and this new 20 gbps (2x2) speed if also supporting data.

Cables with USB-C and another USB port at the end should be required to meet both the power and data requirements of that connector. (so no charging compatibility connectors). USB-C to USB-A should have been restricted to 3.0 only.

Alt modes can use a plain USB-C cable (like Thunderbolt 3 does), but cannot place additional restrictions on the cable if they want USB connectors on both ends.

If the cable has any other connector on the end (such as DisplayPort), it would be up to the creator of the DisplayPort alt mode to indicate if there are any differing requirements.

Likewise if the cable is integrated into a device, it can meet its needs - be charging only, only use USB 2,etc.

This imho would solve nearly all the problems - the problem is that I can pick up a USB-C to USB-C cable and it could literally be one of (at least) six things internally - with no markings to differentiate.

Re: USB 3.2 is going to make the current USB branding even worse

#115

Post by ksec »

jwr wrote: post #105
protomyth wrote: post #2

Who the heck came up with USB 3.2 Gen 2×2? That has got to be the dumbest idea. No one cares how it works, we just have to go through the utter crap of buying a cable. Does the low end manufactures pull the most weight in this org because that's the only way this makes any sense.

All of this naming doesn't matter anyway, because everybody will use USB-C cables. And, as we all know, these can support (or not) almost any combination of anything (thunderbolt, video, various power combinations, USB in all its incarnations, etc) and there is no way to tell what will work by looking at the cable or socket you are plugging into. In other words, it's a crapshoot anyway, so who cares? We'll just keep…

>because everybody will use USB-C cables

That is assuming all USB-C Cable will support all power combinations ( They don't ) All USB 3.2 Speed ( They Don't ), and All Thunderbolt Spec ( They Don't ).

And it is precisely this comment that makes me thick why USB-C has won. Until the problem becomes so wide spread you have to test each cable whether it is working as intended before people will call for changes.

Re: USB 3.2 is going to make the current USB branding even worse

#116

Post by lioeters »

ken wrote: post #73
squarefoot wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Would love to see "USB 4" ." I'd rather go for a (possibly faster) Ethernet with a redesigned smaller connector supporting POE. Smaller devices such as mice and keyboards could talk at PHY level while smarter ones with beefier microcontrollers could employ more and more layers of the network stack so that routing/tunneling data over the network when needed would become trivial. Security wise, there would be no physi…

That was one of the original goals of Zeroconf. In 2002, Stuart Cheshire said [1]: > My hope is that in the future — distant future perhaps — your computer will only need one wired communication technology. It will provide power on the connector like USB and FireWire, so it can power small peripheral devices. It will use IP packets like Ethernet, so it provides your wide-area communications for things like email and…

Aah, that's a beautiful dream of a unified, wired communication technology standard.

That's what we need more of, a coherent vision to guide design and development. Early Apple had that, it feels like, then lost the coherence in the 2010's. The phrase "design by committee" is often used to characterize what not to do, so it seems design by a small focused group or individual tends to go in the right direction. But there must be real-world examples of successful "design committees" or "standards bodies", who avoided the gravity/entropy towards producing monsters of complexity and compromise..

Re: USB 3.2 is going to make the current USB branding even worse

#117

Post by dwaite »

flukus wrote: post #91
Gibbon1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just had a thought USB is now more of a clusterf^H^H^H^H^H^H^H complicated than the mess of cables interfaces it was meant to replace back in the mid 90's.

It's amazing how much that mess of cables either wasn't solved or wasn't solved by USB. My power, network, sound and display cables weren't replaced by USB, my printer was replaced by a phone/tablet. It replaced the PS2 ports for keyboard and mouse, saving about 2 seconds of setup time at the cost of more latency. It his (or has been) handy for connecting gadgets and drives over the years, but maybe we should go back…

Counterpoint: A mix of USB-C, Bluetooth and Wifi have replaced my power, network, sound, microphone, printer, keyboard, mouse, phone charging, and display cables.

Re: USB 3.2 is going to make the current USB branding even worse

#118

Post by ksec »

So they decided to put some maths behind the new Spec to simplifies the branding.

USB 3.2 Gen 1 = (3 + 2) x Gen 1 = 5Gbps

USB 3.2 Gen 2 = (3 + 2) x Gen 2 = 10Gbps

USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 = (3 + 2) x Gen 2 x 2 = 20Gbps

Pretty Clever ( Or Dumb ).

To make matter worst they still have not make USB-C mandatory for USB 3.2. So you could have a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Host with a USB-A Cable that didn't not support the previous USB 3.0 SuperSpeed ( 5Gbps ) so it will fall back to USB 2.0 Speed ( 480Mbps ) , Or a USB-A Cable that did not support the USB 3.1 SuperSeed+ ( 10Gbps ) which is also called USB 3.1 Gen 2 and is now called USB 3.2 Gen 2 so it will fall back to USB 3.0 SuperSpeed ( 5Gbps ) and was called USB 3.1 Gen 1 and now called USB 3.2 Gen 1.

You also have crappy USB-C cables that does not confirm to the USB-C spec. And the consequences depends on the quality of the cable. [1] And in some extreme cases, you could have a USB-C cable that do not support USB 3.2 Gen 2 x 2, because some how only pins on one side are working as intended.

Although things has gotten better since his post and Google has been putting some pressure into fixing it. USB-C is still a bloody bag of hurt. So in case anyone is still rooting for iPhone using USB-C without MFi. I seriously hope people will reconsider. Using MFi will defeat the purpose of USB-C since you will need a MFi Cable, which is one way to say current lightning to USB-C cable spec and cable are fine. And in case you are wondering about iPad Pro, you should take a look at the controller size, it is roughly 5 times bigger.

Or we make USB 4.0 that standardise on USB-C and force a much more stringent specification on Power Delivery, Speed and Quality. But as we all should be able to tell this isn't a technical problem, more like political, design by committees, marketing problem.

[1] https://bensonapprovedcom.wordpress.com

Re: USB 3.2 is going to make the current USB branding even worse

#119

Post by close04 »

ken wrote: post #74
yssrn wrote: post #5

USB-IF has to be doing this to deliberately confuse end users, right? I get that it's a specification number, not a product name, but they have to know that this will only cause problems for customers trying to find the appropriate cable. Incredibly, their language usage specifications doc https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb_3_2_language_pro... begins with this: > USB-IF emphasizes the importance and value of…

If I were being cynical, I'd say their motivation is to get people to throw up their hands and say "I don't understand USB any more! Just give me the latest version of Thunderbolt. I know it supports the highest speeds and highest power, including displays and eGPUs, and all USB devices, and works on any new Mac."

It allows manufacturers (yes, many of the same ones on the USB-IF board) to "upgrade" their products by printing another label. USB-IF doing this repeatedly while being fully aware of the consequences can't have any other explanation.

This is just like the 4G-5G-5Ge debacle. Both being motivated solely by financial gain.

Re: USB 3.2 is going to make the current USB branding even worse

#120

Post by mjevans »

Tsiklon wrote: post #41
isostatic wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

socket format?

you've got A, B, C, Micro, and Mini connectors all that conform to 3.0 and 3.1 spec... Alas the standard needs standardised....

Returning to this topic, maybe...

USB-C-3 for the new connector format.

USB-C-2 for some (many) cellphones.

USB-Micro-2 (for many phones).

USB-Mini-2 (older phones)

- Edit -

I changed my mind, the connector is more important than the wire version.

Post reply on HN