I've been soldering, crimping, and plugging things in for forty years, and I struggle to think of a connector for which there is exactly one configuration, pinout, cable specification, capability and equipment compatibility for all its use cases seen in the real world.
In my household, USB Type-C has in practice been a great simplifier. Less so at work, but still not more complicated than the multifarious uses of, say, the modular connector family, or the DIN series.
I am less experienced, but my USB C experience has been less positive. Both my partner and I have USB-C phones, from different manufacturers. Both use different "fast charging" standards, and neither of the fast charging standards appears to work as well as with their respective manufacturers chargers (which as a side note are incredibly difficult to find replacements for). I also have a Nintendo switch, which doesn't charge with my MacBook pro's charger, and my switch charger doesn't power my MacBook properly. My car has Android auto, however the cable I was using would cut out if I played audio and used navigation, so I had to buy another cable from a different manufacturer (that cost the same as he first one) for it to work.
I've gone from multiple chargers with different ports, to multiple chargers with the same port, and specific cables with tags on them, and having to explain to my partner that you can't plug x into y, even though they all have the same port.
* Devices are a 2015 MacBook pro, an external GPU, a Huawei phone, a pixel 3, a Nintendo switch, two sets of wireless earbud. For those, I have 4 specific chargers, and two specific cables (3 if you count the moulded plug to the Nintendo switch).
It's quite late here and the Huawei charging "standard" has really thrown me, but:
* Pixel - 9V/2A or 5V/3A by the looks of it. A decent USB C charger will do this
* Nintendo Switch - just don't use anything other than the Switch charger or a power bank for this. It's 15V/3A, but finicky.
* Macbook Pro - not familiar with this, didn't realise they went USB C all the way back in 2015, but it probably needs 60W+ and an e-marked cable.
* Huawei phone - if you give me the model number I can probably work this out. It's very hard to work out what that charging spec is, but it may also work with Qualcomm QuickCharge, which apparently makes the USB-IF very sad when delivered over the Type C cable.
I appreciate the response. It's a p20 pro. I realize that I could find a charger that's compatible with all of the devices, but the fact is that all of them claim to be USB-C, and I'm still not sure if I buy a third party charger from a trusted brand (e.g. Anker) if it will work with all devices.
Now imagine explaining your comment to a lay person!
> it probably needs 60W+ and an e-marked cable.
I wasn't even aware e marked cables were a thing. I guess I need something similar for correct Android auto support with my phone and my car?
Honestly, your comment, while incredibly helpful, explains how unclear and how much of a mess it is.
Half of the problem is the USB implementers forum seems to be disconnected from reality and the other half is manufacturers not wanting to use standards
P20 Pro: Uses "Huawei Supercharge" which is not Huawei Fastcharge or VOOC, nor is it compatible with USB PD or Qualcomm QuickCharge. Jesus. I'll cross that brand off my list completely
re: Android Auto - I have no idea, sorry. Double check the cable works correctly to transfer data to a PC (or for tethering etc) - the last time I looked, AA was VNC over IP over USB.
Agreed that the problem is the implementors, but unfortunately that's all that matters. At least when the cables didn't fit I could easily not buy the wrong cable, but now I'm left scouring reddit or asking for help on HN!
That's kind of the point though, right? You've got a dock which takes a standard port, same as the console, except _neither_ of them actually respect the standard. It would probably more convenient if they just used the wii u power brick instead
It's very confusing to say to a consumer - hey, the cable that fits your phone won't actually charge your switch, even though if you switch cables, it will work with both. Except of course, your phone won't fast charge.
Of course you can't blame USB, they didn't make the cable. But if you have a one plus phone, a Huawei phone and a Nintendo switch (3 very common devices) that all claim to use USB, and yet none of the devices chargers are compatible with each other, who do we blame?
At least when my 3ds, Nokia and razr phones had different connectors, I wasn't going to be under the impression they would work with each other
They already are incompatible. Just in a much more annoying fashion than ever before because the incompatibilities don't show themselves until you actually try it.
I much prefer to just look at the cable and go 'nope, that clearly doesn't work with that' instead of playing cable roulette.
Honesrly, yes. It would be easier to explain to my partner which cable/device/charger combo she can use, and would be easier to find a replacement that I know will work.
For all intents and purposes, they _are_ incompatible already, they're just pretending to be.
There has just never been a large enough variety of connectors for each application to have an ideally specialized standard.
Especially the greater number of pins, the wider variety of possible uses.
But USB is only 4 pins.
IIRC when USB first appeared on consumer devices, Radio Shack was still going, but USB was the first consumer connector that they did NOT have a do-it-yourself solderable or crimpable cable terminal for, nor any truly appropriate cable. And they never did appear as years went by.
You had to cut your cables in half and splice them to appropriate extensions if you wanted to take advantage of the full 92 foot cable-length maximum under USB 1.
In my household, USB Type-C has in practice been a great simplifier. Less so at work, but still not more complicated than the multifarious uses of, say, the modular connector family, or the DIN series.