So many kids toys use custom brick chargers, especially remote control cars. I refuse to buy anything that isn't USB-C, I'm not keeping track of all of those.
I think that's changing too, my son got some cheap radio controlled boat a few weeks ago, the remote uses AA and the boat has USB-C as input (interestingly enough, it has a weird USB-C cable with a built in light to signal when charging is done).
Trimmer: I purchased this from Amazon USA for $70 on sale, now listed at $96. I am happy with it, but haven't had it long enough to comment on durability: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQ1GZY7H "Manscaped Beard Hedger Men's Premium Beard Trimmer, 20 Length Adjustable Blade Wheel, Stainless Steel T-Blade for Precision Facial Hair Trimming, Cordless Waterproof Wet/Dry Clipper"
Keep in mind that you can buy cables that are USB-C on one end and whatever on the other end. I have multiple USB-C to 12V barrel jack cables for this reason specifically. No idea because you still need a special cable, but better than nothing.
I don't like USB-C because they all look the same on the outside, but they're not all the same on the inside. Especially my cheap consumer electronics. Sometimes they will charge, sometimes they won't charge, but all the cables look the same, and you don't tend to know in advance.
Yeah I have some devices that expect the manufacturer charger (I guess it's pre-negotiated to 19V or something) and I'm not even sure what was the point in giving it a USB C connector.
I have a couple of devices that are 12V over usb-c. The devices themselves are fine, but the wallwarts the mffr provided are just that - 12v over usb-c. No PD. If a device is expecting 5V, there's a healthy chance it'll .. stop expecting 5V.
We blame usb-c for all this, but it does feel like some mffrs are going out of their way to screw it up.
This kind of defect is extremely rare since this would basically be a USB killer frying every other device you plug it in to. 99% of the time it's the device is missing some resistors on the cc pins which signal to the charger to send 5v. Since usb-c it defaults to 0v until you request something. But USB-A has no CC pins so it just puts 5v out at all times.
If switching to a type-A charger fixes it, it’s probably the device manufacturer’s fault, not the cable. Many manufacturers that need the 5v standard you’d normally get from an old type-A charger screw this up.
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…
I don't think it's cost reasons these are being omitted. The customer refunds would easily exceed the savings. It's most likely designers just swapping a micro usb port with a usb c one in an old design while making no other changes and seeing it works with the A to C cable they have.
I share your theory about micro usb, yeah. I know it’s not cost savings, it’s just lazy/ignorant. If they’re changing the footprint on the board for a type-c port, they can add some smd resistors.
> I don't like USB-C because they all look the same on the outside, but they're not all the same on the inside.
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 poorly the USB Implementers Forum has handled these kinds of basic issues over the years.
USB-IF actually does have pretty clear labeling and standards that address most of the issues being posted in this thread. But most USB devices and cables are not certified and not compliant with the specs.
Short of making USB proprietary and behind a licensing and certification scheme there is no way to solve this. People need to stop buying cheap junk.
The thickness / durability of the cable is a pretty good indicator, if it's thin and flexible it'll only do basic charging if it's thick and durable it's because it's packing enough wiring to do power delivery, video etc, everything except probably Thunderbolt.
Yeah maybe USB-D will get it right. But probably not. I had such high hopes for USB-C. Now I keep a couple USB-C to USB-A adapters lying around to force the charger (which is just a normal home outlet with a couple built-in USB-C ports) to speak old school USB-A charging instead of trying to negotiate PD with a shitty device that did not implement USB-C correctly.
Yes that's the fault of the manufacturer. But the wildly flexible spec for USB-C let it happen.
Unfortunately the EU has written USB-C into law, so there will never be a USB-D. I guess we should be glad they didn’t do this 30 years ago, or we’d still be using PS/2 connectors.
The EU originally had the phone manufacturers sign a MoU to adopt an industry standard connector (leading to the end of all those proprietary Nokia/Samsung/Sony Ericsson 30-pin style "pop-port" connectors).
Everyone went along, at the time it meant microUSB, but since it was just an agreement and it just stated they would use an industry standard, they could seamlessly move to USB-C.
Apple kept refusing to adopt an industry standard so the EU had to legislate, and the legislation needed a level of precision.
Buy yourself a handful of good cable for charging. (I quite like the silicone anker 643) And throw everything else away in a box.
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.
This is an acceptable failure mode. I'd be nice if there was a standardized LED flash or color that you could get so if your relative said something isn't working, you could ask, "Is it flashing three times?" or whatever.
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.
And then you go someplace, realize you left your charger at home, and find out despite your friend having dozens of barrel type power connector power adapters not a single one match the size/voltage/amperage/polarity of your device.
Or you just borrow their USB-C adapter and don't have any worries.
Usually they won't charge because they're not actually USB-C devices but are just broken and only pretend to be one (mostly due to missing resistors on CC lines, but there are other ways a device can be non-compliant too).
I read about this so often, yet it's a problem I just never encountered. If I need super high bandwidth like connecting a display, I pick one of those annoyingly unlflexible fat cables. Easy. They even tend to feature the TB4 flash icon. Surely I would not expect any of the light and nimble ones to do that trick. When I need strong PD, it's also either one of those or one of the far more flexible but still quite thick braided ones. Often they have some hinge gimmick connector to prevent any hope for bandwidth one might be tempted to have. All other cables, I expect nothing but legacy USB. Yeah, and some of those won't do data at all (curiosly those are never the lightest cables in my stable, the lightest ones tend to do the legacy USB "gear not, some bits will eventually get through!" just fine)
This is really only a problem if you buy cheap cables. Pick the baseline spec you want your USB cables to meet, and throw out all the ones that don’t. Problem solved.
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.
Sometimes it's not the cable. Sometimes it's the sodding device. I have some IP60-something speakers for the shower. Write up says USB-C power. Brilliant says I, I've got plenty of good ones I use for charging laptops and other USB-C form factor accepting devices.
Sodding things only charge with their special USB-A to USB-C cable. They're in the bag labeled "cursed usb-c charge cables".
It's because they are straight up defective. The USB-C spec is pretty clear in that the power pins have 0v until you signal for a voltage. This isn't a failure of USB-C, you should just return defective devices to the OEM.
Thankfully this defect is becoming less common outside of temu junk.
That's because they didn't implement USB C correctly. Maybe it was to save less than a penny on the BOM, maybe it was arrogance ("it works for me! send it!"), or maybe it was something else. Whatever the reason, they didn't do it right.
By standard, USB C provides no power at all unless the device being powered follows the rules. They're easy rules to follow. The minimum viable way of doing it right requires just two tiny resistors inside of the device.
I do electronics professionally. This is likely because in order to save a bit on BOM costs, the device itself doesn't have the necessary pulldown resistors to signal to turn on VBUS.
USB-A has always-on VBUS while USB-C doesn't. Because the spec allows for always-on VBUS in a USB-A to USB-C cable, some devices just assume that they're always being powered by one of those cables.
I doubt it’s even saving cost, it’s just incompetence. It works with the USB A to C cable, so job done. They’ve probably never plugged it into a PD charger, and probably just copied the schematic from the last (defective) product and will copy and paste it into the next one too.
> 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.
Device makers need to stop including these garbage 4 cm A to C cables. I have enough USB cables and bricks to last my whole life. I don't need to collect a million more spec violating ones in a drawer I will never use.
Things are shifting though. Ikea ships their USB-C stuff without cables now.
Sure there is. Buy reputable brands from reputable marketplaces that clearly state the specs, and if you get products from them that don't comply stop buying from them.
I'm the same. Though I still think they could have made USB much neater as a protocol, USB-C now does everything I need for goto-connectivity.
I recently looked at the connector and reflected on how insanely small it is. It's no wonder it took decades to get to this point, and it's a very neat physical design at a great price. 16 pins and 10A in that little thing. Amazing.
It took that long because nothing it does now was ever a requirement. It was created as serial/parallel port replacement (fun fact - max speed parallel port is faster than USB 1.1, at ~2.5MB/s).
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.
USB-C being "one standard" is a bit of a stretch. It is the Unintuitive Serial Bus, after all. Most will charge. Some faster than others. Some will supply data with 2.0 speeds, others 3.0, yet others will do more. Some will only work with the other devices they came with.
There were two major flaws with the rollout of USB-C, none of them technical:
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.
I would like the USB-C connector was more durable. I've literally never killed a USB-A connector, but enough lateral force and USB-C just breaks. I suppose it was made so small due to mobile devices, which is understandable, but came with tradeoffs.
Try the relatively recent Anker Prime cables, the ones that are both braided and soft. I haven't managed to break one yet, despite breaking several past Anker cables that also claimed to be durable.
I don't have a problem with USB C cables, and even if I did it wouldn't be a big deal. The cables are cheap compared to the devices they charge. It is broken USB-C ports that frustrate me about them, or ones with worn out clips.
What way are you breaking them? The two failure modes I've seen are the port getting full of pocket lint for phones (easy to fix) and the port ripping off the PCB. The second one is a design issue where some ports are entirely surface mount rather than having the grounding pins go through the pcb to anchor it on.
Yep, I will say it’s not as bad a old USB-mini connectors but I’ve soured on USB-C after too many of them have broken on me (among other issues this thread covers well)
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.
I agree. Lightning is such a better connector and one of the main reasons I still haven't replaced my phone. If lightning could've just been updated for higher bitrates it would have been so much better.
I went through lightning cables fast. Unsure why, maybe I sweat a lot, or keep my phone in humid places.
But every so many months I had to replace the cable because the 4th pin would be burned.
I don't have that issue with USB-C. But I do feel that the lightning receiver is less fragile over the USB-C one. Removing lint from a USB-C receiver is harder.
There was also a separate issue. Apple until recently had always used this type of plastic that easily degrades and certain peoples skin oil (mine included) causes the plastic to just dissolve. Turns yellow then brittle and then just comes apart. But that's not really related to lightning.
I too am a USB-C maximalist, but I have a handful of differences from OP:
- You lose me at "toothbrush." I don't want personal care items that have internal batteries at all, because they'll eventually die on me while the device itself (brush heads notwithstanding) is otherwise perfectly functional. I'd much rather keep rechargeable AA(A)s on hand for that kind of stuff. (I still haven't found a good electric razor for this purpose, though, and have actually just gone back to manual for the foreseeable future.)
- I don't think I could live off just one charging port, but would rather just ditch USB-A entirely.
- I'm using wired earbuds, with a standard headphone jack, but with the number of full-sized cans that are using USB-C in some way it baffles me that there aren't more or them (or any, that I've been able to find) that also support using it for audio input, so you you can play them while charging.
I had a pair of sennheiser urbanite headphones that used USB (micro :( ) for digital audio input, and you could use them while charging. Was shocked and disappointed when i eventually replaced them with Audio Technica ones that could only charge via USB but didn't do audio via USB, only bluetooth or analog.
I agree (and am sad) that it's not a ubiquitous feature, but headphones with a built-in dac do exist
I break about 1 USB-C plug a week. They are simply not designed well for real people who do real things in the world, including physical work, exercise, hiking, woodworking, biking, and the like. They are designed by someone in a corporate office who just never gets out to see the real world.
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.
Perhaps you are just not careful with things, I’ve been an early adopter and never broken one ( I probably have at least 40 different ones, some of which get plugged/unplugged multiple times a day).
My kids haven’t broken a single one either and they destroyed plenty of lightning cables.
> They are designed by someone in a corporate office who just never gets out to see the real world.
> 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.
> I break about 1 USB-C plug a week. They are simply not designed well for real people who do real things in the world, including physical work, exercise, hiking, woodworking, biking, and the like. They are designed by someone in a corporate office who just never gets out to see the real world.
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.
Fully ruggedized is in fact what I want and what I consider truly consumer grade.
> which is not something you're going to get on affordable consumer devices
Not true. 1990s connectors hardly ever broke for me. They were all super rugged. I've dropped several-kilogram objects onto VGA connectors, SCSI connectors, and DC barrel jacks and nothing ever happened.
> Not true. 1990s connectors hardly ever broke for me.
RJ11, RJ45, USB-A, PS/2, SCART all seemed to break for me in similar frequency as I have encountered with modern USB variants.
> VGA connectors, SCSI connectors
Neither were designed for easy or frequent plug-in/plug-out and would not work for the use-cases USB-C are made for. Many VGA cables/devices would probably only get plugged in/out <5 times, whereas a USB-C device might get that in a single day. Also, I have phones with USB-C smaller than a SCSI connector in width/height.
> DC barrel jacks
I've broken multiple, but my first guess would be that the cables and electronics that you used DC barrels for was of much higher quality and cost than what USB-C stuff you are using.
I buy the DC barrel jacks, those I've had inordinate problems on the inside of devices as they wear out but never on the power plug itself.
VGA connectors? I've bent the shield on more than one VGA or DVI cable, and it's a nightmare to get a pin straight enough if you happen to bend one... but possible sometimes.
There are cables with 90° plugs (cable to the side). Those are pretty robust, get the cable out of the way more reliably, and provide a much smaller lever for physical forces on the connector. They aren't the solution for everything, but they solve a lot of issues
For everything else there are magnetic USB-C connectors
This is a success! USB-C was designed so that the part most likely to fail is the inexpensive plug, not the socket.
One of the problems with USB mini-A was that the socket would fail, meaning the device had to be repaired or discarded. Combined with the short lifetime (about 300 insertions) it was a disaster which is why you almost never see it.
You’d be more unhappy of those failures had happened in your expensive device rather than your cheap cables.
That’s impressive, I have managed to break a lot of micro connectors (not even from proper stress, just from prolonged normal use) but I have never managed to break a USB-C cable or connector!
Tangentially related anecdote: I used to break tons of stuff all the time (my whole family growing up did), and I just assumed that all things just have finite lifespans, until I started dating someone who's tremendously careful and called me out on it. Then for a long time I just assumed I was a clumsier than average person.
Then eventually I finally was forced to admit that I'd just been choosing to move about the world as a bit of a careless brute who treats my things with disrespect, and by being more intentional with the way I move about the world, all my stuff suddenly lasts 10x longer.
Interestingly, I'm not sure it's worth the trade-off, but it's been kind of wild to experience.
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.
I'm aware these aren't mutually exclusive. To me, the bigger benefit of not integrating them is that I can just rotate in freshly charged batteries anytime they die, and don't have to care about being within proximity of a charger.
(I also find this important for gamepads, to the extent that I don't just opt to play wired.)
I do wish more devices supported hot-swappable rechargeable battery packs. My headset does that.
But in the absence of that, I'll take USB-C and the ability to charge while actively using. I find that useful even for wireless gamepads, because then I can attach them to a generic charger on one side of the room, and not run a cable across the room to the console/TV area, because the communication is still wireless and only the power isn't.
> 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.
That has less to do with the battery being integrated and more to do with different battery chemistries having different voltage curves.
Nothing would prevent a device from accurately detecting battery levels of NiMH batteries. The problem is all these devices are tuned to an Alkaline battery voltage curve which is much more slanted than NiMH. NiMH has a nearly flat curve with a sudden drop off while Alkaline have a pretty steady decent (with a sudden drop off).
I'm aware of why it happens, but the net effect is the same. No device powered by AA/AAA is in practice going to be able to detect battery charge level correctly. Combine that with the annoyance of separate chargers versus integrated USB-C, and the result is that I never want to use non-integrated rechargeable batteries. (In practice, I also prefer to avoid devices that use AA/AAA/etc at all, for some of the same reasons.)
I use these USB-C rechargeable batteries in my travel kit, too. I love the flexibility of being able to pickup some AA/AAAs, charge the ones that just died, or swap in the 2 spares I travel with.
Just recently acquired a set from "Philips" that is an 8-pack of lithium-ion AAs with a charging-case that connects to USB-C (Note: the case itself doesn't have its own battery, like an earbuds case would -- it's just a normal charger that doubles as a case). Sounds like this would be great for your toothbrushes and such!
> I don't want personal care items that have internal batteries at all, because they'll eventually die on me while the device itself (brush heads notwithstanding) is otherwise perfectly functional. I'd much rather keep rechargeable AA(A)s on hand for that kind of stuff.*
I was using the Panasonic EW-DJ10-A water flosser which uses AA batteries, but the battery compartment contacts would corrode after some time.
I then switched to one of those China USB-C water flossers, but I think the built-in lithium battery's nearing the end of life since it'll cut off randomly now, and I used to worry a bit about charging it, since the USB-C port would need to be dried out before I plugged the charging cable in.
No idea what's a happy medium for electronics that need to work near water.
An electric toothbrush can never break: it can only become a toothbrush. You should never see an “Electric Toothbrush Temporarily Out of Order” sign, just “Electric Toothbrush Temporarily Manual.” Sorry for the exercise.
You're probably missing out on the feeling of really, really clean teeth. Regular brushing never gave me the feeling of ALL biofilm getting stripped from the enamels.
> - You lose me at "toothbrush." I don't want personal care items that have internal batteries at all, because they'll eventually die on me while the device itself (brush heads notwithstanding) is otherwise perfectly functional. I'd much rather keep rechargeable AA(A)s on hand for that kind of stuff. (I still haven't found a good electric razor for this purpose, though, and have actually just gone back to manual for the foreseeable future.)
I've had an Oral B electric brush for around 3 years now and it hasn't skipped a beat. I'd hate to have to change batteries when I can just pop it on a inductive charging dock every night.
I find Philips Sonicare toothbrushes break after about a year, long before the battery gives up. Which i guess is another reason not having integrated batteries would be nice. But then they might not make as much money whenever I buy a new one so they probably wouldn't do that
> I don't want personal care items that have internal batteries at all, because they'll eventually die on me while the device itself (brush heads notwithstanding) is otherwise perfectly functional. I'd much rather keep rechargeable AA(A)s on hand for that kind of stuff. (I still haven't found a good electric razor for this purpose, though, and have actually just gone back to manual for the foreseeable future.)
My solution to this was to get an electric razor that doesn't use batteries. My 20-year-old no-battery electric Norelco razor was bought in a chain pharmacy. I've looked in recent years, and I don't see them any more in brick-and-mortar stores, but they're still made, and available online.
The (minor, IME) downside is that electric razors without batteries are generally on the low-end of the spectrum, rarely including the fancy (even non-battery-related) features found on the high end electric razors.
For what an anecdote’s worth, I have the same rechargeable Norelco razor that I’ve had going on 17 years. Same nicd battery it came with; gets recharged about once every three weeks. I think it’ll relive me.
> Tracker What if someone steals my bag? Hopefully the PebbleBee "Find My" device will help me recover it.
In your review (from last year) of the tracker, you wrote it doesn't work with Graphene. [1] From the linked issue, looks like there's partial support now. [2] What's the experience like now on Graphene? Is it good enough for tracking a checked bag or similar?
I agree with using a single ubiquitous power standard for small electronics and electrics. That’s almost what USB-C is these days. We need better labelling of cable capacities when there are 20w and 120w cables that at a glance look the same.
I was afraid this article was going to say one connector for everything when it said maximalist. If it had said to kill eSATA, SPF+, RJ-45, DisplayPort, HDMI, 3.5mm audio, and a bunch of other ports it would have been far more controversial. I’ve seen people saying we don’t need card formats anymore because everything can just be an external USB-C flash drive. I’m glad this article wasn’t that maximalist.
The USB spec does have labeling standards that are pretty clear. But uncertified temu junk obviously doesn't use them. There shouldn't even be such a thing as a 20w cable, the minimum with no emarker chip is 60w.
For video input or power supply? I doubt we would ever see it for power supply.
For video input it seems almost deliberate since the TV brands all benefit from licensing out HDMI and forcing it to be the only way to connect to a TV.
I agree. I'm looking at replacing my braun series 7 shaver, and I'd love if the replacement product had usb-c.
what really gets me though is products that support usb-c and then don't support PD, so you end up charging at a glacial pace. The most upsetting incidence of this I've seen is a powerbank charging via usb-c but not supporting PD. So slow!
I think one thing that we have come to think as electronic consumers, or just consumers in general, is to expect the absolute best modern version of everything (plug, AI model, car...). I think it is pure conditioning and we forgot the simplicity and convenience of things just working even with apparent downsides relative to acme version. Could USB-C be better? Probably. Is just settling on a standard so you don't have to think about it preferable? I think so. Consider USB-C standardization as an expression of a specific system of values.
I draw the line at cheap unbranded rechargeable toothbrush. I’d be too worried about fires with cheap cells. I’m happy to pay the premium for top brands for anything with lithium-ion batteries.
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.)
This year I grudgingly switched from an iPhone 13 Mini to a Pixel 10, largely to get the full integrated Pebble experience, but having USB-C has been a surprising and delightful upgrade to my home/travel experience.
For sources, I basically have an INUI battery bank and a 100W wall adapter, then everything is a USB-C sink: Lenovo X1, Pixel 10, Nintendo Switch, Sennheiser headphones
I'm still driven absolutely mad by how many devices are being released in 2026 that refuse to charge if they're connected to a port that negotiates USB Power Delivery. They don't fall back to 5V, they just don't charge at all.
Devices like this usually come with an A-to-C cable in the box and that's a warning sign, but an even more twisted version of this is when they come with a C-to-C cable and a Type C charger that does not support PD. That's the only combination they tested, and that's your problem now.
I now carry enough adapter cables that I can deliberately take PD out of the equation just to work around these devices.
I would happily be a USB-C enjoyer if manufactures stopped forgetting the stupid CC resistors meaning that you device will not charge with a C-to-C cable.
It should be considered a defective design and recalled, I have been burned several times by this.
Please, please, please: we NEED a magsafe version of USB C
Yes, you can buy adapters, but you end up w/device warts that don't work w/normal USB-C cords and my understanding that they are for the most part pretty dangerously out of spec
Magnetic coupling is an incredibly underutilized user experience tool
> What are the chances that I could find the exact charger needed for a GameBoy Colour?
Fairly high. Nitpick time: The Gameboy Color[0] took a standard-size battery that you can still buy today. It did not need to be charged, but you did have to turn the system off to swap batteries unless you had a barrel-jack adapter.
Barrel-jack DC wasn't quite standard, but you might be able to find something compatible if you went to an electronics supply store and paid careful attention to the listed input voltage and polarity on the device. Regardless, most people didn't bother tethering their Gameboy and just fed it batteries since it ran forever on them.
The real proprietary hellhole started with the Gameboy Advance SP, and didn't end until the Switch used Type-C. Hell, the SP is basically a modern smartphone:
1. Proprietary form-fitting battery pack
2. Custom power input connector
3. No separate headphone output
Bonus points: the headphone adapter Nintendo sold for the SP didn't have a power pass-through, so you had to choose between headphones or charging. Though there are third-party ones now that do both headphone output and USB-C power input.
To add insult to the injury, the charging port of Nintendo DS Lite was almost mini-USB, but not quite - with enough force and some metal bending it was apparently possible to make it work with regular mini-USB cable. Absolutely idiotic design, especially since that port was just 5V input anyway, anyone with soldering iron could tweak USB-A cable to work with the proprietary charging connector.
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.
211 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 87.9 ms ] threadmore 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
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"
We blame usb-c for all this, but it does feel like some mffrs are going out of their way to screw it up.
This kind of defect is extremely rare since this would basically be a USB killer frying every other device you plug it in to. 99% of the time it's the device is missing some resistors on the cc pins which signal to the charger to send 5v. Since usb-c it defaults to 0v until you request something. But USB-A has no CC pins so it just puts 5v out at all times.
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…
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 poorly the USB Implementers Forum has handled these kinds of basic issues over the years.
Short of making USB proprietary and behind a licensing and certification scheme there is no way to solve this. People need to stop buying cheap junk.
This has nothing to do with feels.
Yes that's the fault of the manufacturer. But the wildly flexible spec for USB-C let it happen.
The EU originally had the phone manufacturers sign a MoU to adopt an industry standard connector (leading to the end of all those proprietary Nokia/Samsung/Sony Ericsson 30-pin style "pop-port" connectors).
Everyone went along, at the time it meant microUSB, but since it was just an agreement and it just stated they would use an industry standard, they could seamlessly move to USB-C.
Apple kept refusing to adopt an industry standard so the EU had to legislate, and the legislation needed a level of precision.
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.
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.
Or you just borrow their USB-C adapter and don't have any worries.
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.
that's what i've been paying for cables, and it seems reasonable to me.
Sodding things only charge with their special USB-A to USB-C cable. They're in the bag labeled "cursed usb-c charge cables".
Thankfully this defect is becoming less common outside of temu junk.
By standard, USB C provides no power at all unless the device being powered follows the rules. They're easy rules to follow. The minimum viable way of doing it right requires just two tiny resistors inside of the device.
USB-A has always-on VBUS while USB-C doesn't. Because the spec allows for always-on VBUS in a USB-A to USB-C cable, some devices just assume that they're always being powered by one of those cables.
> 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.
Things are shifting though. Ikea ships their USB-C stuff without cables now.
The irresponsibility lies with the companies making the non-compliant trash in the first place.
You can fix that by buying USB-C adapters with 5.1 kiloohm resistors.
I recently looked at the connector and reflected on how insanely small it is. It's no wonder it took decades to get to this point, and it's a very neat physical design at a great price. 16 pins and 10A in that little thing. Amazing.
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.
USB-C being "one standard" is a bit of a stretch. It is the Unintuitive Serial Bus, after all. Most will charge. Some faster than others. Some will supply data with 2.0 speeds, others 3.0, yet others will do more. Some will only work with the other devices they came with.
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.
Your chance is 100% because the charger for GBC is 2 AA batteries ;)
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.
But every so many months I had to replace the cable because the 4th pin would be burned.
I don't have that issue with USB-C. But I do feel that the lightning receiver is less fragile over the USB-C one. Removing lint from a USB-C receiver is harder.
- You lose me at "toothbrush." I don't want personal care items that have internal batteries at all, because they'll eventually die on me while the device itself (brush heads notwithstanding) is otherwise perfectly functional. I'd much rather keep rechargeable AA(A)s on hand for that kind of stuff. (I still haven't found a good electric razor for this purpose, though, and have actually just gone back to manual for the foreseeable future.)
- I don't think I could live off just one charging port, but would rather just ditch USB-A entirely.
- I'm using wired earbuds, with a standard headphone jack, but with the number of full-sized cans that are using USB-C in some way it baffles me that there aren't more or them (or any, that I've been able to find) that also support using it for audio input, so you you can play them while charging.
I agree (and am sad) that it's not a ubiquitous feature, but headphones with a built-in dac do exist
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.
My kids haven’t broken a single one either and they destroyed plenty of lightning cables.
> 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.
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
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.
> which is not something you're going to get on affordable consumer devices
Not true. 1990s connectors hardly ever broke for me. They were all super rugged. I've dropped several-kilogram objects onto VGA connectors, SCSI connectors, and DC barrel jacks and nothing ever happened.
RJ11, RJ45, USB-A, PS/2, SCART all seemed to break for me in similar frequency as I have encountered with modern USB variants.
> VGA connectors, SCSI connectors
Neither were designed for easy or frequent plug-in/plug-out and would not work for the use-cases USB-C are made for. Many VGA cables/devices would probably only get plugged in/out <5 times, whereas a USB-C device might get that in a single day. Also, I have phones with USB-C smaller than a SCSI connector in width/height.
> DC barrel jacks
I've broken multiple, but my first guess would be that the cables and electronics that you used DC barrels for was of much higher quality and cost than what USB-C stuff you are using.
VGA connectors? I've bent the shield on more than one VGA or DVI cable, and it's a nightmare to get a pin straight enough if you happen to bend one... but possible sometimes.
That's a you problem. I have never done this, and neither have any of the dozen people I just asked in my office.
Wild. How often do you break the phone itself?
For everything else there are magnetic USB-C connectors
This should be federal law and written into the constitution
One of the problems with USB mini-A was that the socket would fail, meaning the device had to be repaired or discarded. Combined with the short lifetime (about 300 insertions) it was a disaster which is why you almost never see it.
You’d be more unhappy of those failures had happened in your expensive device rather than your cheap cables.
Then eventually I finally was forced to admit that I'd just been choosing to move about the world as a bit of a careless brute who treats my things with disrespect, and by being more intentional with the way I move about the world, all my stuff suddenly lasts 10x longer.
Interestingly, I'm not sure it's worth the trade-off, but it's been kind of wild to experience.
MagSafe/Qi2 is ideal for this. I can't think of any connector that would work well shoved in a pocket moving around.
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.
(I also find this important for gamepads, to the extent that I don't just opt to play wired.)
But in the absence of that, I'll take USB-C and the ability to charge while actively using. I find that useful even for wireless gamepads, because then I can attach them to a generic charger on one side of the room, and not run a cable across the room to the console/TV area, because the communication is still wireless and only the power isn't.
That has less to do with the battery being integrated and more to do with different battery chemistries having different voltage curves.
Nothing would prevent a device from accurately detecting battery levels of NiMH batteries. The problem is all these devices are tuned to an Alkaline battery voltage curve which is much more slanted than NiMH. NiMH has a nearly flat curve with a sudden drop off while Alkaline have a pretty steady decent (with a sudden drop off).
I was using the Panasonic EW-DJ10-A water flosser which uses AA batteries, but the battery compartment contacts would corrode after some time.
I then switched to one of those China USB-C water flossers, but I think the built-in lithium battery's nearing the end of life since it'll cut off randomly now, and I used to worry a bit about charging it, since the USB-C port would need to be dried out before I plugged the charging cable in.
No idea what's a happy medium for electronics that need to work near water.
I've had an Oral B electric brush for around 3 years now and it hasn't skipped a beat. I'd hate to have to change batteries when I can just pop it on a inductive charging dock every night.
My solution to this was to get an electric razor that doesn't use batteries. My 20-year-old no-battery electric Norelco razor was bought in a chain pharmacy. I've looked in recent years, and I don't see them any more in brick-and-mortar stores, but they're still made, and available online.
The (minor, IME) downside is that electric razors without batteries are generally on the low-end of the spectrum, rarely including the fancy (even non-battery-related) features found on the high end electric razors.
> Tracker What if someone steals my bag? Hopefully the PebbleBee "Find My" device will help me recover it.
In your review (from last year) of the tracker, you wrote it doesn't work with Graphene. [1] From the linked issue, looks like there's partial support now. [2] What's the experience like now on Graphene? Is it good enough for tracking a checked bag or similar?
[1] https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/01/review-pebblebee-clip-unive...
[2] https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/4079
I was afraid this article was going to say one connector for everything when it said maximalist. If it had said to kill eSATA, SPF+, RJ-45, DisplayPort, HDMI, 3.5mm audio, and a bunch of other ports it would have been far more controversial. I’ve seen people saying we don’t need card formats anymore because everything can just be an external USB-C flash drive. I’m glad this article wasn’t that maximalist.
Someone's trying to talk about stuff they never used, experienced or googled ever.
But yeah game boy advance cable is $2.5 one day delivery here in Poland
For video input it seems almost deliberate since the TV brands all benefit from licensing out HDMI and forcing it to be the only way to connect to a TV.
what really gets me though is products that support usb-c and then don't support PD, so you end up charging at a glacial pace. The most upsetting incidence of this I've seen is a powerbank charging via usb-c but not supporting PD. So slow!
Wait until they discover off brand usb cable with incorrect e-marker.
http://oirase.annexia.org/tmp/IMG_20260709_123740.jpg
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.)
For sources, I basically have an INUI battery bank and a 100W wall adapter, then everything is a USB-C sink: Lenovo X1, Pixel 10, Nintendo Switch, Sennheiser headphones
Devices like this usually come with an A-to-C cable in the box and that's a warning sign, but an even more twisted version of this is when they come with a C-to-C cable and a Type C charger that does not support PD. That's the only combination they tested, and that's your problem now.
I now carry enough adapter cables that I can deliberately take PD out of the equation just to work around these devices.
It should be considered a defective design and recalled, I have been burned several times by this.
- Vacuum, $???, Xiaomi, okay (hard to clean filter): https://www.mi.com/global/product/xiaomi-vacuum-cleaner-p30/ (gift from friends)
- Beard trimmer, $90, Manscaped, great (but I just got it): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQ1GZY7H
- Shaver, $20, Xiaomi, great: https://www.mi.com/global/product/xiaomi-electric-shaver-s20... (purchased at Xiaomi store in Manila)
- Front door palm reader lock, $299, Eufy, good (slow charge speed mitigated by second built-in battery): https://www.amazon.com/eufy-FamiLock-Smart-Lock-Recognition/...
- Lighter, 10 for $66 after negotiating, Shenzhen Vasipor Technology Co, good but needs USB-A-to-USB-C cable: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-Powered-Recharge...
Yes, you can buy adapters, but you end up w/device warts that don't work w/normal USB-C cords and my understanding that they are for the most part pretty dangerously out of spec
Magnetic coupling is an incredibly underutilized user experience tool
Fairly high. Nitpick time: The Gameboy Color[0] took a standard-size battery that you can still buy today. It did not need to be charged, but you did have to turn the system off to swap batteries unless you had a barrel-jack adapter.
Barrel-jack DC wasn't quite standard, but you might be able to find something compatible if you went to an electronics supply store and paid careful attention to the listed input voltage and polarity on the device. Regardless, most people didn't bother tethering their Gameboy and just fed it batteries since it ran forever on them.
The real proprietary hellhole started with the Gameboy Advance SP, and didn't end until the Switch used Type-C. Hell, the SP is basically a modern smartphone:
1. Proprietary form-fitting battery pack
2. Custom power input connector
3. No separate headphone output
Bonus points: the headphone adapter Nintendo sold for the SP didn't have a power pass-through, so you had to choose between headphones or charging. Though there are third-party ones now that do both headphone output and USB-C power input.
[0] No "u", not even in the UK
0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3Z1U3AYo1I
- 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.