I had one of these and quite liked it. Then one day I plugged my phone in before bed as a million times before and the cable display popped and started emitting smoke.
Bummer, guess it was only rated for 1 million plug-ins. (:
They make USB-C cables with displays now
61–70 of 164 posts
Re: They make USB-C cables with displays now
#62Re: They make USB-C cables with displays now
#63I had one of these and quite liked it. Then one day I plugged my phone in before bed as a million times before and the cable display popped and started emitting smoke.
You're not alone, this is the only type of USB cable i've had that has smoked out. Loud noise, little plume.
Re: They make USB-C cables with displays now
#64The original USB-C spec called for cables to have optional displays to show why the cable had problems connecting. Did anyone every see one of those?
Could just print 'the spec is too complex' on all cables. And save the expense of a display.
Re: They make USB-C cables with displays now
#65What I like for USB-C cables is not only a tester that tests how much power it can transmit but also what data rates. I wish I could get a device where I could plug in all my cables and it would rate them for me. Such a device probably exists and it probably costs thousands of dollars.
Re: They make USB-C cables with displays now
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
USB testers are cheaper now, I'd advise anyone to buy one preemptively. It's nice to one-off check a new cable to know what it can be used for, with the additional benefit of seeing the power curves for the higher models (e.g. see a charger's power output drastically drop down as it overheats)
Do you have any recommendations?
I'm using a super cheap Ali-express one I checked against well know and stable brands of cable/chargers (e.g. Apple and Anker's power bricks and cables).
Otherwise AVHzY is I think the recommended brand, with two levels or pricing depending if you want external output.
Re: They make USB-C cables with displays now
#67Re: They make USB-C cables with displays now
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
The USB-IF publishes a list of member companies[1]; purchase products from these qualified manufacturers, and perhaps more importantly, from authorized distributors. This is a good enough "policy control" for the average consumer. [1] https://www.usb.org/members
Erm. I fail to see how this moves the needle unless usb-if is doing extreme firmware level source analysis and deterministic compiles and checking them against shipped firmware. Which I doubt is happening, with every atom in my body.
It's a policy control suggestion that's both low effort and immediately actionable by the typical tech-literate types sleuthing these channels.
When baseline consumer behavior is sort-by-price-low-to-high and select the cheapest item from random pop-up white label chinesium third-party vendor on Amazon, exercising an ounce of supply chain due diligence where none previously existed can go a long way.
To be sure, if you think you can economically defend against a coordinated supply chain attack by a speculative adversary willing to pony up real capital operating an otherwise legitimate facade for years building market goodwill only to burn it all down in one shot against a single worthwhile target...well, I've got a bridge to sell you.
Re: They make USB-C cables with displays now
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess you can exfiltrate any data to nearby security cameras by randomly flashing sensitive bits every once in a while :)
Why would you do that with a display and visible light instead of a tiny antenna using basically any other part of the spectrum
Good thing the FCC doesn't regulate the visible spectrum. (We are assuming these malicious people also face the wrath of the FCC but somehow not the CFAA... right? :P)
Re: They make USB-C cables with displays now
#70What I like for USB-C cables is not only a tester that tests how much power it can transmit but also what data rates. I wish I could get a device where I could plug in all my cables and it would rate them for me. Such a device probably exists and it probably costs thousands of dollars.
You might be able to get partway there by setting up thunderbolt networking between two endpoints. The caveat is that USB 4.x is still new enough it may require a significant time sink to get working at ~40Gbps et al, so your testing wouldn't be able to scale that high. But you can go to 10Gbps without too much effort: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39003469
USB is quite the rabbithole, with a lot of functionality often hidden: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39470381 - my takeaway from this is that "the PHY in the controller is 99% of the SERDES you wish you had, you just have to figure out how to make it cooperate"
The chipsets found attached to ARM devices and SoCs etc may be easier to poke around at, but they are likely to either be expensive or just USB 3.0. :)
Then there are devices like the FNB58 and the Power-Z KM003C that interrogate the controller chip in the cable and tell what charging protocols the cable supports, and also measure practical charging voltage and current (and you can acid test chargers using USB charger dummy loads). These devices don't test the cable's speed though. (On that note, https://old.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/1b5wgc6/how_t... - that subreddit may also be interesting)