All my chargers do charge all my stuff. But then of course my stuff consists of Google's Nexus 6P and 2015 Pixel LS - both of them bought in 2015, both have USB Type-C chargers and both chargers can charge both devices. Google has pioneered USB Type-C charging for over 2 years now, too bad that other brands have done little to follow it's example. I do not like Apple at all and I hear the new macbook is a bit of a joke, but one thing I approve of is all USB Type-C ports. It's time to switch and ditch the old Type-A. Most of the people who bitch that they need to carry a bunch of dongles around for a period of time are the same people who change their phones every couple of years of so spending more money than all of their old USB devices combined would cost. How about not carrying around several different proprietary charging bricks instead?
I work with and know plenty of people who groan at the idea of an all USB-C primary MBP for getting work done that swap phones and other hardware quite frequently. Also, it's not just about being totally USB-C w/ the MBP:
- Loss of HDMI port. Big for me because I often need to plug in to a projector.
- Loss of SD card slot. I use this a few times a week for the 3D printer at least. Photographer friends live off the thing.
- Micro electronics work: You already have to run USB 3 through a USB 2 only hub to smooth things out with certain devices. USB C will be at best, equal to that.
- Not a lot of docking station/monitor support for USB-C yet. Between my two monitors it's a two wire connection for my laptop to connect to all my peripherals, none of which are USB-C.
I need four things to charge every device I have, all of which fit in my laptop bag and provide no confusion (unlike the myriad USB-C cables that look exactly the same but don't do what you expect): Lightning cable, micro-USB cable, USB-A charging block, laptop power brick. If I was desperate for space I could drop the small USB charging block and just plug in to the laptop to charge.
Now, I'm not arguing AGAINST USB-C, there's just not enough of an ecosystem to make the transition as easy as what I have today. I don't want new technology and to spend money on something that at best, breaks even. These are the tools of my craft, they should make it easier to do my job, solve an acute problem that I have, or just generally make the experience better in some way. So in 18-36 months when there's a monitor with the 4K (or better) resolution of mine and a USB-C hub built in that is cheap enough for me to buy two or three, then I'll be making the switch.
Additionally, if you look at the recent entrants to USB-C, if you've got a half decent laptop, they're not screaming for you to upgrade to them. For example, there's no reason for me to upgrade my 2015 MBP to a 2016 touch bar when they've got practically the same internals. The same goes for all the other brands out there, if your laptop is less than 18 months old, you're getting about the same hardware you already had PLUS an ecosystem challenge with USB-C.
What happens if you use a USB-C->USB-C cable to connect your Nexus and Pixel? Does one charge the other? Does nothing happen? What about charging a Bluetooth keyboard that's USB-C? Is that possible with either of them? (I'm not being snarky, these are genuine questions, but the answer probably depends on the devices, keyboard, and cables used.)
In general most (all?) USB-C phones support USB power delivery. This means when you plug in two phones to each other, they will prompt you on-screen asking if you want to charge the connected device.
I'm not sure what you mean about charging a USB-C Bluetooth keyboard? If you mean can your phone charge a random USB-C peripheral the answer is generally yes.
You can even use your phone to charge your laptop if you like, although I don't know why you'd do that :)
One awesome thing with USB-C I've found is I can simply use my phone charger for trickle charging. I rarely take my power brick out of my laptop bag these days, since that's more than plenty for most uses.
A charger made the right way would consist of a constant current generator fixed to an high voltage value, say 24V, leaving the circuit into the appliance to step down it and draw the required current until voltage drop is acceptable. This way one could have 100% short circuit protection and multiple appliances charging in parallel. A phone charger could even be used to recharge a laptop, it just would take more time to do so but it could be done.
The next question is who is going to pay for a charger that can charge an electric car but is only used to charge a phone. It is more expensive (and bulky) to provide more power safely.
isn't stressing cable actually healthier than leaving it without any movement long-term and then suddenly rolling it and breaking inside?
BTW why not just forget about connectors and cables and go with wireless charging? i am aware of issue for some case scenarios but for majority of scenarios wireless charging would be sufficient, the thing is it needs to be really widespread in furniture business so at least all night stands and desks will have it as standard feature
USB Type-C unfortunately isn't the panacea it first appeared. Because of all the alternate modes and range of power options, no end user can tell, just by looking at it, if a given cable will work. Worse, because of backwards-compatible fallbacks ("be liberal in what you accept..."), you may plug two thunderbolt devices together with a cable that only supports USB 2, and have them "work", just slowly.
I only realized this when I got my first Type C notebook. Until then, it all sounded marvelous. And on a technical basis I think the Type C standard is quite well thought out.
However the cables themselves are never marked in any way that describes what protocols they can support. I hope the USB consortium adds some sort of marking requirement, or I think we'll see a lot of unhappy users once Type C becomes widespread.
Labeling is hard (there are plenty of third parties who don't care) but
I agree with this. The USB consortium needs to come up with labeling/licensing standards for cables and do so ASAP. The utter travesty that is this space was entirely predictable, and they did nothing about it? This is exactly what happened with USB 1.1 -> USB 2.0 cables, and we're just making the same mistake twice.
It's so bad that Apple even ships a USB-C 2.0 cord with it's Macbook Pro chargers. What the heck?!
I've since replaced all the non-3.0 and non-thunderbolt USB-C cables I have so I have a universal set, but I shouldn't have had to do that and it was rather expensive (and difficult) to track them down.
15 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 40.0 ms ] thread- Loss of HDMI port. Big for me because I often need to plug in to a projector.
- Loss of SD card slot. I use this a few times a week for the 3D printer at least. Photographer friends live off the thing.
- Micro electronics work: You already have to run USB 3 through a USB 2 only hub to smooth things out with certain devices. USB C will be at best, equal to that.
- Not a lot of docking station/monitor support for USB-C yet. Between my two monitors it's a two wire connection for my laptop to connect to all my peripherals, none of which are USB-C.
I need four things to charge every device I have, all of which fit in my laptop bag and provide no confusion (unlike the myriad USB-C cables that look exactly the same but don't do what you expect): Lightning cable, micro-USB cable, USB-A charging block, laptop power brick. If I was desperate for space I could drop the small USB charging block and just plug in to the laptop to charge.
Now, I'm not arguing AGAINST USB-C, there's just not enough of an ecosystem to make the transition as easy as what I have today. I don't want new technology and to spend money on something that at best, breaks even. These are the tools of my craft, they should make it easier to do my job, solve an acute problem that I have, or just generally make the experience better in some way. So in 18-36 months when there's a monitor with the 4K (or better) resolution of mine and a USB-C hub built in that is cheap enough for me to buy two or three, then I'll be making the switch.
Additionally, if you look at the recent entrants to USB-C, if you've got a half decent laptop, they're not screaming for you to upgrade to them. For example, there's no reason for me to upgrade my 2015 MBP to a 2016 touch bar when they've got practically the same internals. The same goes for all the other brands out there, if your laptop is less than 18 months old, you're getting about the same hardware you already had PLUS an ecosystem challenge with USB-C.
Power delivery, HDMI, SD card reader, 3 USB 3.0 ports. I have one at home and one at my office, they work great.
I'm not sure what you mean about charging a USB-C Bluetooth keyboard? If you mean can your phone charge a random USB-C peripheral the answer is generally yes.
You can even use your phone to charge your laptop if you like, although I don't know why you'd do that :)
One awesome thing with USB-C I've found is I can simply use my phone charger for trickle charging. I rarely take my power brick out of my laptop bag these days, since that's more than plenty for most uses.
That's just a huge gap in physical requirements.
Phone charger and beefy laptop? Still different, though more similar.
BTW why not just forget about connectors and cables and go with wireless charging? i am aware of issue for some case scenarios but for majority of scenarios wireless charging would be sufficient, the thing is it needs to be really widespread in furniture business so at least all night stands and desks will have it as standard feature
I only realized this when I got my first Type C notebook. Until then, it all sounded marvelous. And on a technical basis I think the Type C standard is quite well thought out.
However the cables themselves are never marked in any way that describes what protocols they can support. I hope the USB consortium adds some sort of marking requirement, or I think we'll see a lot of unhappy users once Type C becomes widespread.
Labeling is hard (there are plenty of third parties who don't care) but
It's so bad that Apple even ships a USB-C 2.0 cord with it's Macbook Pro chargers. What the heck?!
I've since replaced all the non-3.0 and non-thunderbolt USB-C cables I have so I have a universal set, but I shouldn't have had to do that and it was rather expensive (and difficult) to track them down.