For universal USB-C power support that works with modern power bricks, you need to tie 5k resistors to two pins of the port on the device. This tells the charger to use 5v. I can’t tell you how much cheap stuff out there omits these. They cost almost nothing but they still screw this up over and over, and people blame the standard or the cable…

You can fix that by buying USB-C adapters with 5.1 kiloohm resistors.

Many people don't realize that USB-C (USB Type-C) just refers to the physical connector. At minimum, speed and power ratings should have been required for any cable using USB-C at one or both ends. It's almost breathtaking to consider how the USB Implementers Forum has fumbled these kinds of basic issues over the years.

The alternative is barrel connectors. If you plug in the wrong one, there's a decent chance that it a) won't work, or b) never work again.

For data transfer you can just pick up one or two thunderbolt 5 rated cables, they will do max transfer for USB4, or any other spec in the near future. The LTT true spec cables are fairly priced but there are other big brands that sell the same thing.

Keep a shitty USB-A to C for those devices that do not have the correct pulldown resistor to support 5v 2a charging.

  Especially my cheap consumer electronics. Sometimes they will charge, sometimes they won't charge

I agree (and am sad) that it's not a ubiquitous feature, but headphones with a built-in dac do exist

If we designed it now it would be up to 48V from the get go, USB-PD only (there is zero reason for static modes aside from fallback 5V for simple gadgets) and be just a PCIe transport . USB to HDMI could just be a single chip that does PCIe framebuffer device.

It’s still a minor frustration if you have to borrow a cable, but that’s solved by packing a cable, and by encouraging as many other people as possible to also throw out their cheap cables.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=rechargeable+aa+batteries+usb+c

But in practice, I greatly prefer devices with integrated batteries, because they're more likely to be able to give me useful feedback about the battery level (e.g. a reliable low-battery indicator), rather than just winding down, or having a low-battery indicator with only a passing correlation to reality.

A slight convenience when you want to charge it in that you don't have to turn it around, you can have USB headphones and also charge, you could use more accessories...

Here's how the last few broke:

* Phone with typical inadequate battery + external portable battery pack plugged in, shoved in together in pocket running Google Maps navigation via bluetooth, and biking. My thigh bent the USB connector.

* USB-C got mangled by office chair. If I had been a USB designer in an office, this would have been the FIRST thing I would have stress tested for

* USB-C plugged into phone and sat on while on car seat. Another thing any half-competent design intern would have listed on their stress test scenario list but it seems the senior designers missed

* Laptop plugged in on the edge of standing desk, USB cable got jammed in gap between adjacent desks.

I much preferred real, sturdy mechanical connections. They should just miniatureize the IEC power connectors and put straight up 19VDC through them.

It must have been crazy overspecced, I expected it to be a 5-year disposable piece of non-serviceable tech.

Because the usecase of charging many (think 5 or more) devices at the same time for hours is pretty rare.

- 12 V × 5 A = 60 W

- 20 V × 5 A = 100 W

- 28 V × 5 A = 140 W

Meanwhile, that Xbox roughly needs 12 V at 7.5 A (let's say 90 W, but the internal supply is 165W) . So there is just no easy way to do it with USB-PD. Technically, you can make/buy some sort of USB-PD bench power supply to do this, but I'm unaware of anything on the market right now. One that I use (DPS-150) is limited to 5A output.

You're better off buying some chunky power bank (like Anker Solix) that has your regular wall plug outlets.

To have unmarked cables. This should have been explicitly forbidden by spec as non-compliant. Today unmarked is the norm, even with premium brands. And the few ones that actually mark their cables have their own markings (which I assume is because the official logos are so incredibly bad). So now instead of wondering if the charger will work, you’re wondering if the cable will work.

Secondly, the USB-C rollout was only successful on the sink (device) side. Almost all cheap gadgets come with an A-to-C cable, and chargers and PC ecosystems are very biased on the A ports for the host side. This created an awfully ugly side effect: devices are not always compliant with even basic charging. Since C-to-C should not have live 5V line active at all times, these devices don’t charge at all. I think they’re missing that resistor that tells a compliant charger to make it live. But in either case they only work with A-to-C.

We could have had a USB Type-M. (Or, alternatively, Type-F -- for "magnets, how do they work?")

Shaver: I purchased this in-person at a Xiaomi store in Manila, very happy with it especially for the price ($20-ish): https://www.mi.com/global/product/xiaomi-electric-shaver-s20...; Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Xiaomi-Electric-Skin-Touch-Waterproof... "Xiaomi Electric Shaver S200"

No end to the official Apple lighting cables that died on me over the years, and across iphones and ipads.

> encouraging as many other people as possible to also throw out their cheap cables

One of the main advantages of a single standardized plug is reducing e-waste. This just sounds irresponsible. Having a single tool that covers every possible use case is rarely a good solution.

Some years ago I may have cheered on the pushes to get iPhones to use USB-C, but at this point I think lightning is a superior connector in that sense. I’ve almost never had one break off.

more of a trimmer but this had an alright replaceable blade set up and has USB c. if you need the rotating heads I haven't seen one just yet though

Equivalent hanging mass:

  8 N is 0.82 kg  
  20 N is 2.04 kg  
  

As an aside, the specified extraction force for USB A is:

  10 N minimum when new  
  8 N minimum after durability cycling  
  

I don't have problems with USB-C connectors per se. I think HDMI is worse in terms of durability.

Sodding things only charge with their special USB-A to USB-C cable. They're in the bag labeled "cursed usb-c charge cables".

I do everything on your list. I also have young children who grab and play with things. Our household breaks 1 USB-C plug per year, if that.

I don't know if you were embellishing for effect, but anyone breaking 50 connectors a year probably isn't going to have success with anything short of a fully ruggedized connector solution, which is not something you're going to get on affordable consumer devices.

That's a you problem. I have never done this, and neither have any of the dozen people I just asked in my office.

I don’t believe you.

I haven’t broken a plug yet and I’ve used usb c on all my devices for years now

If you sell a 10 port USB-C charged someone is going to plug 10 MacBooks into it and complain it doesnt work.

The best I have seen for what you want is

https://ca.ugreen.com/products/ugreen-500w-desktop-charger

but is not cheap at all or something like

https://www.amazon.ca/Powered-Aluminum-Adapter-Computer-Prin...

> USB-C got mangled by office chair. If I had been a USB designer in an office, this would have been the FIRST thing I would have stress tested for

Seems like you managed to break one even though it was in the environment that you're saying they're designed for. Maybe you're the problem and USB-C, the technology that billions of people manage to use just fine without breaking on a daily basis, is perfectly fine.

Their kid's app has been great.

That said, I have never had a Sonicare run out of battery either.

And of course, it charges with USB-C.

But I would like having a table with a plethora of sockets and cables available.

Lots of times, I come in and want to charge a bunch of things. Charge a few drone batteries + the controller. laptop, camera + camera batteries. charge things for a long drive, or a longer trip.

As to cables, sometimes I need USB-C, but there are lots of things that require other connectors like micro-usb, or a garmin watch. And sometimes cables go to other devices like wireless chargers.

We blame usb-c for all this, but it does feel like some mffrs are going out of their way to screw it up.

As far as I could tell the cable is dumb. If you plug the cable into a regular USB-C socket (which I do not recommend) then the tip is +5V and the rest is ground.

In fact it's designed to plug into the plug marked "mobile" on the amp and the 3.5mm end goes into the line out of something else, providing AUX input, which is mixed straight through to the output of the amp (which is thankfully a regular 3.5mm headphone jack).

I guess they over-ordered USB-C sockets and decided to yolo it, or else for some reason only USB-C footprints fit into the space on the PCB. (But they still had to manufacture or were able to obtain these cursed cables ... it doesn't make a lot of sense.)

My other phones (Samsung Galaxy A23 etc) have a USB-C and a 3.5mm headphone jack as Lord intended, so I don't have the idiotic problem of choosing between charging or using headphones / aux cable / etc.

There's no reason to not have two USB-C ports and a 3.5mmm headphone jack too in a device that already costs hundreds of dollars and is, on average, brick-sized, other than fuck you, that's why (aka being "brave").

I.e., same reason that some phones (not mine) don't have a microSD card slot. Particularly those shipped with atrociously little internal memory at a time when a 1TB memory card costs a few dozen dollars.

Anyways, unless the EU rolls out new legislation (like the one that forced Apple to include USB-C on their phones), looks like it's not going to change any time soon.

Apple has enough money to bravely get away with whatever anti-consumer BS they want, paving the way for others to copy them for fashion and profit.

Sure there are exceptions (which is what I buy). But they're not the norm, as evidenced by comments here. Voting with one's wallet buys very little in terms of impact.

People still decry the loss of the 3.5mm TRRS headphone jack, which didn't really go away and never had to.

____

¹ It's an "AR processor", i.e. an Android phone without the phone plus 3D camera and special sauce

My kids haven’t broken a single one either and they destroyed plenty of lightning cables.

Isn't this just a USB 3.x hub?

Yes! And you could charge them off your phone!

If I could dream: wouldn't it be nice if you had headphones with charging cables attached to them so that you never had to worry about losing them.

And phones could have a convenient extra port for plugging such headphones into.

Ah, one could only dream.

that's what i've been paying for cables, and it seems reasonable to me.

I know what you're saying, but to be a little pedantic about it it's actually only USB 3.

(I wish there were mobile devices supporting USB4; it would bring them significantly closer to feature parity with larger devices.)

(I used Thunderbolt so that touch and pen inputs could go over the one cable. These days though I just use a MacBook Pro, and hook up a capture card when I need to access the Windows)