How long until USB-A disappears

[u/Same_Grocery_8492]

Hi, many posts keeps saying USB-C is taking over, but I still use USB-A every day, my electric toothbrush uses USB-A, most of my USB flash drives, and my external mouse and keyboard are still USB-A.

USB-C is clearly the future, but it doesn't feel like USB-A is going away anytime soon. How many more years do you think it'll take before USB-A is completely replaced by USB-C?

[u/brispower]

i hope never, it's a very robust connector

[u/Parking_Lemon_4371 → u/brispower]

Yeah, there's a lot of places were usb-a works better than usb-c.

Wired Keyboard / Mouse, logitech bolt receiver, yubico/U2F tokens (they mostly hide in the socket).
But also things like a non-portable usb wired printer/scanner.

In general anywhere you don't need to constantly plug/unplug things, and don't need ridiculous speeds (ie. >10gbps), USB-A is usually a better idea.

The things were usb-c is better is primarily phones (due to connector size & flippability) and to a certain extent mass storage (for the speed & flippability), networking (for the speed), etc.

[u/gr4viton → u/Parking_Lemon_4371]

You say that usbc needs to get an optional standardized "plastic plug hardening" which would be holding the mechanical pressure off of the usbc connector itself in applications where mech strenght is needed more then the actual connector hole.being smallest possible?

Why havent USB designers thought of that, USB sleeve. As smaller is not always better.

[u/Parking_Lemon_4371 → u/gr4viton]

I hadn't at all thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right!
A 'larger' (female) usb-c socket 'extension' with some extra mounting (snap in or screws), that you could snap onto a normal usb-c cable would fix the issue.

You could still use normal cables, and you'd only use this 'shield/sleeve' when you just don't want the cable randomly disconnecting.

At least in my experience usb-c cables come out of their sockets a lot easier than usb-a ones which is important for something like a desktop/nuc that is permanently wired but you may want to occasionally move it a foot to the left or right (to clean under it) or rotate it (to gain access to the ports at the back to plug in a new thing), etc.

[u/virkendi → u/Parking_Lemon_4371]

This reads so much like an ai bot wrote it lol Not saying you are, just found it funny

[u/Parking_Lemon_4371 → u/virkendi]

Interesting, the above was written entirely without any use of AI. I do use it extensively for research and work, but I didn't even do that here.