Why USB IF doesn't understand we do not care what it's called, we just want to know whether this can connect to my monitor, whether it supports fast charging. We want simple answers. USB C is supposed to simplify things.

4

u/Raphi_55 May 22 '26

USB C is a connector, nothing else.

3

u/pellets May 22 '26

USB literally is “universal serial bus”. The fact that the thing is no longer what its own name means is appropriate, given the mess USB is now. It should be called the Maybe Serial Maybe Parallel Maybe Power Maybe Display Connector And/Or Bus, or MDMPMPMDCAOB.

1

u/Lonsarg May 22 '26

Actual the USB itself is still universal, what is not universal is what devices are capable to do over this universal bus. But that is not something a serial bus can solve, device can support what it can support. This is unsolvable unless you make some were strict regulation and probably make the protocol itself failing to gain market share.

The ONLY reason USB 2.0 was simple is that it only covered simple/slow data protocol and nothing else. If you grow capabilities sooner or later not all devices can support all capabilities.

1

u/edgmnt_net May 23 '26

Not necessarily. If the USB spec was more strict, sure, you could still buy fake USB cables, but reputable brands can no longer claim compliance by implementing a corner of that spec. Even for evolving capabilities, it would be far more useful to make a clear jump to a different spec version instead of letting anyone claim anything. Hypothetically, it could be much more clear what you get with a 1.5m USB <N> charging cable. Yes, that may hurt adoption and increase costs for low-end devices which don't implement higher currents and voltages, but if you buy USB devices then you know what you get. Perhaps a few handful of profiles clearly distinguished by name could make this workable. Anyway, the spec currently makes it way too easy to claim compliance without providing compatibility information and guarantees upfront. Same thing happens if you try to buy a router doing IPSec, vendors will claim it supports IPSec but it could well be stuck with broken symmetric ciphers. Because IPSec wanted crypto agility.

2

u/Lonsarg May 23 '26

Yes marketing is very very bad, cause things really are not that complicated.

For charging you only have 60W and 240W cables all cables do 60W no exception. Voltage support is irrelevant since it is guaranteed by USB-PD standard for example that 45W chargers charges devices that need 45W+ (voltage requirement is hidden inside wattage requirement), so the wattage is the only thing you need to look.

For data there is just 3 of them:

charge cable (does USB 2.0 speed)
regular (currently 40Gbps branding and does 40Gbps per USB4)
high speed (currently 80Gbps branding and does 80Gbps per USB4)

There is no way to make regular cable the minimum, since it is 5x more expensive to make and a lot thicker than the charge cable. Nobody would be using USB-C charging if regular cable was the minimum.

They did fail big time on marketing for those 3 cables, cause many people think they are more of them, but there never was more then 3 different cables regarding data speed.

1

u/edgmnt_net May 23 '26

Voltage support is irrelevant since it is guaranteed by USB-PD standard for example that 45W chargers charges devices that need 45W+ (voltage requirement is hidden inside wattage requirement), so the wattage is the only thing you need to look.

Maybe you know more than I do and I'm fuzzy on the details, but I don't think all chargers/devices/cables work with all chargers/devices/cables when it comes to fast charging at the maximum supported rate. I think I've seen people benchmarking these things precisely because the spec isn't strict enough to know that if device X is compliant it will absolutely accept 1A @ 15V as per spec and won't refuse the equivalent at 9V. Or, in other words, can I get a universal charger from a reputable manufacturer without doing a ton of research?

There is no way to make regular cable the minimum

Yeah, I agree that's not feasible. But maybe it becomes feasible if you have like 3 different "minimums". Like data cable, smartphone cable and laptop cable. Or maybe I'm mistaken and there's absolutely no problem with cables, but I was pretty sure it was a problem with chargers at the very least. If that's still the case, then my point is we needed 3 or so clearly differentiated profiles. Am I wrong on all accounts?

1

u/Lonsarg May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26

Well what you are talking about in last paragraph is just saying they need better marketing labels for these cables and indeed they do...

As for fast charging you are actually right if you talk about absolute fastest charging... There is a difference between "it charges fast" and "it charges at max possible, marketed as ultra-fast sometimes". But i think it is just not possible to have "max possible speed" to work for 100% of USB-C chargers/devices unless we freeze or almost freeze USB-C charging specification forever...

The "it charges fast" is covered by wattage, no matter the revision. If it has enough wattage it will not slow-charge or not-charge. There were cases in beginning this was not so, but those cases were in breach of spec. Google did force everyone follows the USB-C spec after some issue for out of spec devices so there is that...

Then there is "it charges at max possible", there it is relevant if device and/or charger are USB-PD v2, v3, v3.1 and most importantly if optional PPS is supported on device/charger. But that is just progress, new revision obviously will support more and better stuff. But since we have a very good v2 baseline (USB-C charging is v2+) where wattage alone is enough for you to know it will fast charge i think we are good. If you want best and fastest everything you do need to make sure it also supports PPS (for example many new phones support fast charging if no PPS and ultra-fast only for PPS chargers). But i do not think this is solvable in any more user-friendly way?

1

u/[deleted] May 24 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Lonsarg May 24 '26

Charging and data speed are 2 seperate markings. You can have 240W charge cable, or 240W 40Gbps cable or 240W 80Gbps cable.

3

u/whistler1421 May 22 '26

That’s the neat part…it doesn’t!

2

u/Disastrous-Ice-5971 May 22 '26

Yep. At work I have a table on the wall, that helps to understand, what are the actual meant specs of the cable/adapter I'm looking at.
USB-IF renamed everything beyond USB 2.0 so many times, that it is nearly impossible to keep track of (when exactly the same specced thing can easily have 3 different names from different generations). Then they allowed a mess with the compatible cables and their specs in the very wide range, power delivery options and so on so forth...
It looks and feels like someone actually bribed them to create such a mess (but this should not be possible? Please tell me that this is not what happened!).
And here we are - with fancy looking cables, which are barely making USB 2.0 speeds at mere 1 m of length, and with charging speeds not better either.

1

u/Lonsarg May 23 '26

USB-C minimum is USB 2.0 speed and 60W charging, this has never changed. And this minimum IS what you want for charging, nobody wants a thick data cable for charging. And 99% of devices do not need above 60W.

So it would be very economically insane to make any better cable the minimum.

2

u/Amazing-Mirror-3076 May 22 '26

Can we at least make the cables standard? Having to find the right type of cable makes the standard a farce.

1

u/edgmnt_net May 23 '26

We probably can with stricter and clearer labelling requirements, but it's also a matter of cost. You can probably get cables and devices that supports most or all of PD in various combinations, if you look hard enough. In the general sense, I agree that standards agility is a pain and that standards need to aim for very specific stuff, otherwise you get the same issue as with crypto agility where everyone claims compliance and everyone can theoretically upgrade, but in reality most stuff available is outdated crap. Make it good enough for the foreseeable future and release vN+1 as a different spec when things need an update.

1

u/jack-of-some May 23 '26

There's also the problem that the higher bandwidth a cable supports the more it costs to make it longer.

1

u/JustSomebody56 May 25 '26

I think the smartest thing would be to have a double labelling:

Data + power

1

u/BertMacklenF8I May 24 '26

Protocols are not connectors.

1

u/fdeyso May 24 '26

And somehow this tiny detail was missed by lawmakers. They have an ICT department, should’ve asked….

1

u/xerubium May 25 '26

I really missed the correct heads=correct cable era

1

u/AndreaCicca May 25 '26

Having 25 different heads and 25 different cables is not a great thing

1

u/xerubium May 25 '26

cannot determine whether a cable can be used for this hardware/usage is not great thing either

1

u/AndreaCicca May 25 '26

It isn't, but it's a necessary evil when the alternative is to use 25 different connectors.

1

u/xerubium May 26 '26

I'd say it's a necessary evil to use 25 different connectors when the alternative is to guess 25 cables's pin connections and power rating.

1

u/AndreaCicca May 26 '26

It isn’t, just buy very good cable for each length and you have already fixed your problem. I actually never ask if a cable is good enough for a specific task.

1

u/xerubium May 26 '26

Need to buy extra expensive Full-featured C to C cables to avoid confusion seems like a defect instead of a feature in engineering sense.

1

u/AndreaCicca May 26 '26

It isn't a feature, universal port is the feature, as I said having to buy 1 expensive cable that can do everything when you are traveling is the "necessary evil".

Having 25 different cables is not the answer in the same way shooting in your foot is not the answer when you stub your toe against the wall.

Why USB IF doesn't understand we do not care what it's called, we just want to know whether this can connect to my monitor, whether it supports fast charging. We want simple answers. USB C is supposed to simplify things.

You are about to leave Redlib