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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

#151

Post by 542354234235 »

josho wrote: post #60

The solution, I believe, is rather simple. The standards group should require any cable/device with USB 3 support to include a label on its packaging detailing which capabilities of USB 3 are supported. Think of the nutrition labels on food packaging, instead showing what the device does and does not support, something like this: Power Delivery——–30w max Thunderbolt————No support Bandwidth————–800Mbps max Video——————…

Agreed. Pick a set of standards all cables/monitors/chargers/etc. must have and a set of optional standards they can have. So any and all devices you get, all will be at least able to do A, B, and C, and if you need something to do X, Y, or Z, you can clearly see which devices and cables support those more niche needs.

Deciding what is a must have is the more tricky part. I personally think power is a must have. I think every charger and every cable should be able to charge every device. I think having a USB C charger, cable, and device, that it should not even be possible to plug it in and have it not charge because one of those three things does not support the other two.

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

#152

Post by dafoex »

FatalLogic wrote: post #64

Would it be possible for our existing USB-C interfaces (software and hardware) to provide more information to the user? I mean, could the UI tell us: (1) Your external device is and it requests power at 12V, minimum 15W, up to 40W, and it requests data at up to 100Mbps down/5Mbps up (2) Your cable promises to accept power at up to 25W, and data at up to 40Mbps bidirectional (3) I can offer power up to 60W, and data u…

And for manufacturers to accurately label what their devices can do, so there's no surprises when you read one thing only to find out its false and you can't get HDMI out of your phone

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

#154

Post by sandworm101 »

shawnz wrote: post #112
sandworm101 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I'm planning on keeping the stuff I have and leapfrogging the current pile of USB-C standards. Once they settle down, probably the week before the USB-D connector comes out, then I'll consider buying all new devices.

Wouldn't it be even smarter to wait for USB-E, or USB-F? People need connectivity today, not some arbitrary time in the future. If you don't need the performance of USB 3/4, then why don't you just continue using your USB 2 equipment that still works perfectly fine? You seem to be implying that eliminating backwards compatibility from USB would make things easier for you, but it sounds like it would actually just mak…

Not really. My phone is work a few hundred. My laptops say a few thousand. And all the other devices at least a thousand more. Getting rid of all that ever few years for something as minor as charging time is wasteful. So I don't chase latest standards.

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

#155

Post by thrower123 »

izacus wrote: post #119
thrower123 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Micro-USB was better. Especially since there are still so many existing devices that used micro-USB ports.

Only if you forget that there were at least 10 differente incompatible standards on how the device told the charger to pull more power.

What is different about that with USB-C?

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

#156

Post by maerF0x0 »

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…

+1 to this.

I had bought a "top reviewed" HDMI / USBC cable on Amazon. It seemed to have issues overheating and dying. Bought the Insignia version of the same from BestBuy and it works like a champ (even when it's 100f outside and my house has no AC).

It's not about where you buy it, but the quality matters.

It was an eye opening experience when I left the 1 star review, the vendor keeps pinging me with bribe offers to take it down. So when you see even a little bump of 1 star reviews, you have to know that those are the people who have some integrity and there likely is a proportion missing.

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

#157

Post by billpg »

derefr wrote: post #108
reader_mode wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why ? You have the same plug but it's not actually compatible - this to me is a good example of confusion - I would be the first to assume you can charge it with whatever USB-C power cable available and not bother checking the docs.

Because it could have happened just as well with any other plug. It could have been a non-conforming micro-USB charging port. Either way, it would have nothing to do with “the mess that is USB-C” (i.e. the inability to identify which of the various wire protocols that work over USB-C cables that a USB-C port follows/supports), because such a port isn’t following any of the USB-C-cable compatible standards. It’d be li…

Back in the 80s, I had a device that was powered by a 3.5 connector. This same device had another two 3.5 connectors for the headphones and microphones.

Somehow, I got through that time without ever having plugged the power into the microphone socket. I am not that careful.

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

#158

Post by ahmedalsudani »

pen2l wrote: post #84
ahmedalsudani wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I've just learned this lesson with a $60 bill from Nintendo repair after the port went pop and couldn't charge the device. GP is giving you their first-hand experience with this issue. It’s a little disrespectful to call it an urban myth replying to a first-hand account. FWIW, the Switch charger outputs a higher voltage, IIRC.

Don’t think it’s necessarily « disrespectful « to doubt another’s account. This reminds me of the « bend gate » problem with iPhones. There were some here who reported the problem... but somehow it was not a problem in the grand scheme of things. We have a lot of skeptical folks here (a good thing!) so we should be respectfully skeptical of the skeptics at times, without an exchange of ill feelings. :)

Honestly it’s mostly about the tone. Skepticism is welcome.

What was bend-gate?

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

#159

Post by freeone3000 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #131
freeone3000 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now we're in a world where the cables have different functionality, but you can't tell them apart. So you have to keep the cable with the device it came with and you lose the benefit of having the single connnector format entirely!

Key thing is in all three cases, the same cables work. The end nodes vary in capability, but it's nice I don't have to fish out my crescent-ended connector to differentiate from my flat-ended connector because I needed a higher transfer rate. One stack of USB-C cables lets me connect all my devices together. Whether they make sense connected together is up to me.

Except the same cables do not work. Cables frequently lack PD capabilities. Cables often lack video pass-through capabilities, especially for alt-modes. The data rate is completely unpredictable. It may or may not support hub passthrough. All of this is dependent on the cable, so if you solely buy TB3 USB3.2 PD cables you're fine, but if you try to actually use a cable included with one device with another device, it might not work due to lack of any of the above, with no obvious indication as to why.
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