thejml , 5 months ago

Even if you use a data cable, it might not have the pins/wires for usb 1.1 fallback meaning a keyboard or mouse won’t work with it. Or it might support low power only. I had to buy a usbc cable tester to validate which ones might actually work with what.

My favorite is that not all chargers support all voltages. I have a few that do 5v, 9v, and 20v, but if your device asks for 12v, you’re out of luck, you either don’t get anything, or it fails back to 9v which isn’t enough to accomplish what the device wants to do (like charge). Still, it’s standards compliant!

The standard explicitly allows but doesn’t require support of any subset of standards so you never REALLY know what that cable or charger in your hand or the devices you’re holding can actually do without finding specs in docs… It’s really infuriating. The idea of USB-C is better than the reality, which makes the push to standardize on the connector not nearly as cool as it could be.