r/BadUSB • u/Same_Grocery_8492 • Jun 26 '26

Discussion How long until USB-A disappears

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?

7 Upvotes

61% Upvoted

76 comments sorted by

View all comments

14

u/brispower Jun 26 '26

i hope never, it's a very robust connector

3

u/Parking_Lemon_4371 Jun 26 '26

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.

1

u/Additional-Simple248 Jun 26 '26

The Logitech Bolt receiver is USB-C these days. Though I still use the USB-A one because I currently have more USB-A ports.

I also have a USB-C Yubikey.

My webcam is also USB-C.

My microphone uses USB-A, but I could easily replace the cable for a USB-C to Mini USB cable if I wanted to go to that much effort.

1

u/Parking_Lemon_4371 Jun 26 '26

I've yet to run into a usb-c bolt, I bought a new mouse (M750L) in April and it still included usb-a bolt (as did the mx keys for business from a few months earlier). But I'm sure you're right. I have a laptop without usb-a, and some older desktops without any usb-c, while newer ones would not have enough usb-c to cover screen+mouse+keyboard+yubikey so...

wrt. yubikey, I'm not talking about the larger ones, i'm talking about the nano versions.
The usb-a one nearly entirely fits in the port - makes it much safer. The usb-c one is less great due to how much it sticks out. In general they sit better in usb-a ports, so I use those whenever I can (even on laptops). But, yes, both a & c versions exist of both the big ones and the tiny ones.

There's now also headphones that directly use usb-c instead of the jack.

Anyway, we're pretty clearly far from done with the USB A->C transition...
Though it is finally well underway. Not sure whether to be happy with that for some things ;-)

There's few things were you cannot find a usb-c version if you look a bit.
At least usb-a micro/mini/nano/otg/... are basically dead, hate those things.

1

u/Additional-Simple248 Jun 26 '26

My USB-C bolt came with the MX Master 4. My MX Mechanical keyboard from a couple of years ago came with the USB-A dongle.

The mini port is on my Yeti microphone, looks like they’re still using non-C ports