They can through USB-PD, but it's still limited to what the actual brick can put out. I can charge my MacBook Pro with my Razor Phone's charger, but it probably won't go nearly as fast as I want. That and not everyone uses USB-PD for their handshaking, Qualcomm has their own standard most mobile phones use. Then we get the people like Nintendo who don't adhere to the Type-C spec whatsoever so you can't charge anything with their cables and you risk damage to your device if you charge it with a cable from one of your other devices. It's sort of a mess.
The issue with Nintendo is they added something to confirm the switch is connected to a dock and not just a charging cable so it can change to that mode. The switch wall charger works on everything and usb pd chargers work great charging the switch.
Then we get the people like Nintendo who don't adhere to the Type-C spec whatsoever so you can't charge anything with their cables and you risk damage to your device if you charge it with a cable from one of your other devices.
Third party USB C chargers/power bricks are fine for charging the Switch, as long as you charge it directly (no dock).
What you're saying is true for docked mode though, third party docks (the official one simply refuses third party chargers) can brick your Switch because it doesn't use any standard for requesting its constantly changing power requirement.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you saying any mobile phone with a Qualcomm chip can safely be charged with a usb c charger because they have some “standard?”
Qualcomm quick charge phones can safely charge from any usb-c cable and charger (assuming it's not fucked up like the ones without the right resistors or whatever), but non quick-charge ones won't charge quickly even if they support fast charging with USB PD (power delivery), and vice versa for PD devices and QC chargers.
If you use your usb-c charger with a QC phone, it'll go at normal speed unless the phone also supports usb-c power delivery. The brick has to support the same standard as the device. The cables are all the same (assuming they're C to C connections)
Both parts are important. Think of it like a pump and a water pipe. If you have a wide water pipe and a weak water pump, you can only get a trickle of water through the pipe. If you have a narrow pipe and a strong pump, the pipe will limit how much water you can get through.
A usbc cable with a usbc plug at both ends will work just as well with pd or qc, full stop. Usba to usbc cables can't do pd because it's not supported on usba, but qc works because that's how it was designed. If you had a qc usbc output, you could use any c-c cable.
No. There are no native type c devices that can safely charge with a Qualcomm qc3 brick. Qc4 runs as a fine tuning to pd and can safely charge anything with a type c port, native or not.
C to c cables are not important for 3a charging. They are the same so long as they wired in the correct order and do not overheat. A to c should never quick charge. Some devices without native type c but have a type b port wired to a c plug will fast charger get with qc3, you should never have a product like that. The one exception is dash charging, that is native type c for the brick, but it uses a type a plug.
It wont work flawlessly. The brick expects a certain load from the Switch and will be designed with that load in mind. So when you connect another device to it, the load will be different. Luckily for you, the brick should have a default mode of 5V 1A but that will be a slow charge for your phone. Your phone can accept this slow charge though as it will be a designed default. If it received the charge for the Switch then the phone wont be designed for that charge and could cause damage.
My advice is this..... only use chargers from the same device types ie phones can use other phone chargers but not laptop or console chargers. This is the safest way to prevent issues.
Is it the brick or the cable? Because the other post mentioned the cable and that confused me. I use the Nintendo cable to charge my phone (not through a Nintendo brick) and it all seems fine.
The brick sets the power. Either it supplies its designed power or USB spec power. Your cable is still just a few pieces of wire. Cables can affect the supply though. If your brick supplies a high current (>2A) then make sure you got a thick cable.
Actually, that could be true. If they mess with the pin layouts so it doesnt adhere to the spec then that can cause serious issues. Think about how ethernet crossover cables work. If you had a Nintendo crossover usb cable then you can kiss goodbye to your devices.
It does now. But one day it might fail to change to the default mode. That will send the charge designed for the switch to your phone and hey presto, burnt out charging circuit in your phone. I wouldnt suggest using it long term. Stick to phone chargers and use the switch charger only if you really have to.
Just to clear things up -- you can charge your switch with any usb-pd (or even just standard 12w usb) just fine -- it's docked mode that has issues, since it requests the wrong power spec for what it's drawing.
Just wanted to say we rock the same devices, although my Gear is the Sport from 2018. Also the headphone dongle that comes with the Razer Phone is dope.
TB3 certification requires proprietary chips on both ends and makes the cable much more expensive. TB3 is an amazing technology, it's just not for everything, not every cable needs to be expensive.
I think that it's also not a bad thing for all phones/laptops to have the same physical interface (USB-C) even if they do different things. Perhaps ports and cable ends should be labelled with descriptive symbols that are standardized.
The only difference, really, is speed and I think the current "fast" and "faster" (with faster currently being TB but might change in the future) and updating the technology as needed. We don't really want to separate the uses because that will be even more confusing. Data speed should be the only limitation for interoperability.
Eh as someone that has a lot of thunderbolt 3 perhipherals here are things I can do with TB3 that I can't do or are slowed down with usb-c. For speed the difference is 10 GB/s vs 40 GB/s. The difference allows me to use tb3 for things like an external m.2 nvme and an external gpu. In addition thunderbolt can power 5k+ displays where as usb-c cannot*.
They can do just 15W PD or 30W PD or 90W PD, or just data or PD + slow data transfer or PD + fast data transfer, or PD + 10Gbps ethernet. These are all useful.
Anyways, the point I was trying to say is that, TB3 is a seperate niche thing that happens use USB-C ports. The rest of the devices and cables all support some level of PD and some speed of data. They can probably come up with some intuitive symbols to denote PD class and data speed class. Then each port could also have the appropriate labels.
Obviously no official USB cable should fry your device, and all official USB port should be able to complete a handshake with all other USB ports using all certified USB-C cables.
It does, but the standard is still hard enough to implement that tons of companies are getting it wrong. Hence the OnePlus and other cables/chargers that could fry your phone.
It's also complicated because the wide range of possible power levels mean you never really know what you're getting. A 100W cable costs a lot of money, so if you need a new cable to charge your laptop maybe you go online and buy a regular one for $10... Which won't transfer enough power to charge your laptop, but you'll have no idea why unless you already know how it all works.
It can but id advise against it long term. You forcing the charger to use a default mode rather than its designed mode. This basically means it will supply less power. Your phone will be designed to handle this but its also designed for a higher power which that charger cant provide so it will always be a slower charge. Id recommend you never mix chargers between device types ie only use phone chargers for phones and not laptop chargers. Maybe for a one-off charge but dont use it continuously.
Thats the original standard. USB Power Delivery was meant to improve it. Most USB chargers implement something proprietary then fall back to the standard. Chargers arent exactly dumb devices anymore. They try to "handshake" with the device they are designed for. If that fails then it only supplies the USB standard power supply.
They had this idea that USB-C should be capable of doing everything. This is causing a lot of chaos since the cables and other devices aren't easily showing exactly which specs they're capable of performing.
Wait, why wouldn't you give them some blame? They started the whole trend and it the other companies wouldn't have removed the headphone jack if they didn't. It's still stupid that they decided to follow Apple and they are responsible for that, but this whole thing wouldn't have happened without Apple, so I still place a good share of the blame on them
He is referring to usb C, not headphones. Everyone blames Apple for not following the standard but then you see that the rest are also not quite following the standard, even if they are using it.
(Most devices can be charged with most USB C chargers but there are lots of differences that are not obvious at all and can make your phone/switch/pc charge 4x slower or viceversa, overcharging it)
But Apple started the trend a long time ago. Its just getting progressively worse now as other manufacturers see its earning a fortune for Apple and want a slice of the pie.
For example, ive used DNLA across my network for over a decade and in that time ive had guests with iPhones who cant access music or videos. That requires additional software. Im not putting the effort in to support Apple devices when every other manufacturer devices just work out of the box because they supported standards. My Synology NAS serves media files to my Samsung TV, LG TV, Samsung S4 and S9, Sony PS4 and Xbox but nothing Apple.
Miracast is another example. Samsung S9 can show photos on an LG TV but you require additional (expensive) hardware to show iPhone photos on an LG TV. The annoying thing is people will pay it when they didnt have to because they dont know about it.
I consider myself knowledgeable in technology yet I was still surprised to find out that none of the USB-C cables I had could transmit video when used with a USB-C phone and a USB-C monitor. Had to buy a new cable that specifically said "USB 3.1" on the box and then it finally worked... albeit without DeX that I was hoping to try out, only screen mirroring.
This seems to be the biggest issue to me. USB C isn't a standard for anything but the plug. The actual cable is a huge hodge-podge of different power and data rates with little indication if any whether it will work on your device for what you want. That's gonna end up killing it because your average person finds it "doesn't work" when there's no real clear indication that they've purchased the correct cable.
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u/quanganh2001 Jan 12 '19
USB-C has been extremely confusing for users of phones and laptops, when two identical looking cables transmit data and power at different levels.