[philplckthun]

I think it's fine to point out the Thunderbolt mess, or the PD vs non-PD devices (although non-PD is becoming exceedingly rare as far as I can tell at least for "larger" devices), but using the Nintendo Switch seems like a bad example in my opinion, since it explicitly does not follow all USB standards, especially in fact on charging.

[reader_mode]

Why ? You have the same plug but it's not actually compatible - this to me is a good example of confusion - I would be the first to assume you can charge it with whatever USB-C power cable available and not bother checking the docs.

[zenexer]

It seems like a deliberate effort on Nintendo's part to cause chaos. They could've done the same thing with any other standard, including micro USB. They made it just different enough that it's dangerous to use third-party peripherals.

[dathinab]

No it looks honestly like a mistake and then not caring for standard compatibility.

Else we wouldn't be in a situation where most (all?) Laptop USB-C PD chargers work without problems with the switch.

[vr46]

Indeed, and then when you check the specs, it says USB-C!

https://www.nintendo.com/switch/tech-specs/

I was not pleased with it being an outside warranty issue, but I paid up just to get the thing fixed and back.

[paulmd]

File a small-claims court suit, they probably won't even bother showing up and will just pay it.

[sellyme]

If there's any company that's going to take absolutely every opportunity to continue with legal proceedings against the general populace even when they're clearly in the wrong... well, it's Disney, but Nintendo's probably a close second.

[vr46]

Fair point, lot of hassle for fifty quid, though.

[derefr]

Because it could have happened just as well with any other plug. It could have been a non-conforming micro-USB charging port.

Either way, it would have nothing to do with “the mess that is USB-C” (i.e. the inability to identify which of the various wire protocols that work over USB-C cables that a USB-C port follows/supports), because such a port isn’t following any of the USB-C-cable compatible standards.

It’d be like saying Nintendo hurt the mini-DVD format when they used non-compatible mini-DVDs in the GameCube. Those discs have nothing to do with the mini-DVD standard; they just happen to share a physical substrate and so a physical appearance. They’re not claiming to be mini-DVDs.

And nor does Nintendo claim the Switch’s charging port to be a USB-C port. In all the docs, it specifically says that it’s just a port for the Dock or the Switch AC charger to plug into. It just happens to share a form-factor.

Do you remember the days when every connector looked like a DB9 connector with only some of the pins populated? (E.g. the various game-controller ports on the Atari, Commodore, Amiga, etc.) Or later, when every connector looked like a PS/2 port, with only some of the pins populated (e.g. Apple Desktop Bus)? None of these were claiming to be the same type of cable or jack or socket. None of them were claiming cross-compatibility. They all just happened to share the same physical connector—because it was a cheap and plentiful, easy-to-source part to build your own proprietary cables and jacks and sockets in terms of.

Heck, do you know how many random different types of cables are terminated with TRS or RCA connectors? Would you blame your hairdryer for “destroying the audio ecosystem” because its wall-charger is terminated in an RCA jack, and you could theoretically plug said RCA jack into an iPod (probably frying it in the process)?

The outlier in all this isn’t USB-C, but rather the previous USB physical-connector standards. Pretty much nobody used those for anything other than USB devices. Probably because the connectors were 1. expensive as parts, and therefore not really worth using in your own project unless you specifically were trying to be a part of the USB ecosystem; and 2. weren’t designed to be physically capable of meeting the current-draw requirements that proprietary cabling standards would want to place on them.

In being both cheap and capable of high current delivery, USB-C connectors are just bringing us back from the temporary reprieve of USB-A/B, to the world of the 100 years before that, where a physical connector tells you nothing about what type of cable you’ve got, because every fly-by-night company uses any random connector for whatever they like.

You know how USB jacks and sockets had the USB icon on them? That was because the USB Consortium assumed people would do random things with the USB connector standard; and so the icon was meant to distinguish the USB connector as applied to a USB use-case. It never really became relevant in USB-A/B, but it’s actually relevant now in USB-C. That icon is what tells; not the shape of the socket.

[billpg]

Back in the 80s, I had a device that was powered by a 3.5 connector. This same device had another two 3.5 connectors for the headphones and microphones.

Somehow, I got through that time without ever having plugged the power into the microphone socket. I am not that careful.

[pbhjpbhj]

We have a Lenovo Yoga laptop, the power and headphone sockets are about the same diameter and next to one another. Thankfully mis-plugging hasn't caused any negative hardware issues, just occasional bewilderment.

[reader_mode]

>Because it could have happened just as well with any other plug. It could have been a non-conforming micro-USB charging port.

But if you have a standard aren't you supposed to enforce stuff like this ? Precisely to avoid the confusion and protect your standard.

[derefr]

The USB Consortium’s licensing strategy is to restrict what people can label with the USB logo, by holding trademark over that logo. You then have to work out an arrangement with them, in order for your hardware to proclaim itself as USB-compatible by using the logo. This is their “in” to ensure you’re doing USB correctly.

The Nintendo charging port is not labelled with a USB logo. It’s fundamentally not a USB-C port. It doesn’t make any claim to obey any standard. The USB Consortium was not involved; nor do they have a legal right to get involved, if Nintendo has no interest in putting that USB logo on their product.

Interestingly (to me), this seems to be a central point in Nintendo’s business model: they don’t do licensing fees, if they can at-all help it. They’re willing to break compatibility with some standard, if that’s what it takes to avoid having to pay someone a fee for every unit sold. That’s not exactly why the GameCube’s discs aren’t mini-DVDs (that’s more a DRM thing); but it is why none of their peripherals so far have had a Bluetooth logo on them, despite being in essence Bluetooth peripherals (but ones that sit in a separate Bluetooth “namespace” such that you need a customized Bluetooth driver to talk to them; presumably because putting those devices into the regular Bluetooth namespace would involve doing something that infringes on the Bluetooth Special Interest Group’s IP.) It’s also, way back when, why Nintendo dropped the deal with Sony to make the Nintendo PlayStation — they didn’t want to have to pay the licensing fees for printing CD-ROMs!

[lambada]

Interestingly in the UK, Nintendo _explicitly_ label it as a USB-C port. I'm not sure if they do or not elsewhere, but they definitely claim it's a USB-C port 'for AC charging' over here.

https://imgur.com/a/fwTM699

[derefr]

Alright, I guess I was wrong above; it certain is a "USB-C connector port." In fact, I would even say that it is a "USB port" (although they can't say that for licensing reasons.) Nintendo seem to expect and encourage you to plug USB-C peripherals into said port (e.g. any random USB game controller.) Nintendo will support such configurations just fine. You're not voiding your warranty by doing that.

What the port isn't, is a USB certified port. USB certification guarantees that it'll be safe to plug any USB-certified thing into any other USB-certified thing. Without that certification, the device isn't guaranteeing its ability to handle weird things that other USB devices might do—like sending it lots of current without doing a specific proprietary negotiation first.

It's a bit like FCC certification for "accepting radio interference." Devices that have it, are guaranteed to not melt down/throw sparks if you bring them close to e.g. HV power lines, or a radio tower. Devices that don't have it, aren't guaranteed to not do that. They might or they might not; but they weren't required to be tested to find out if they would.

But unlike FCC certification, where it's illegal to sell something in the US containing an antenna if it's not FCC certified, it's entirely legal to produce and market a device that has USB connectors, but isn't USB certified. There's nothing stopping companies from doing it—other than the expectation that consumers might care about the USB logo being on the product. If a company thinks consumers won't care about that in their case, they have no reason to bother.

(That's not to say Nintendo shouldn't have made their product fail safe under out-of-tolerance conditions from other USB devices anyway. It would just be good engineering to do that, even if you don't want to pay the licensing fee. But they didn't think to test for those conditions—likely because the USB Consortium wasn't invited to come breathe down their necks reminding them about things like that.)

[teorema]

That to me, is the key boundary being crossed, like enough to merit a large-class action award for any damages sustained anywhere by anyone who plugged a USB-C device into the port.

I do think there's something to be said for liability for creating a port that is so similar to USB-C, but also causing damage, akin to copyright laws, based on consumer confusion. I.e., if a reasonable person might think it is a variant of USB-C, and USB devices seem to work for long periods of time without apparent damage, then Nintendo is liable by virtue of resulting damage to the consumer's property (not to the USB organization). There's a certain liability for negligence in that case. But I could also see reasonable arguments that if Nintendo were explicitly saying it is not a USB port, that they shouldn't be liable (I don't agree but see it as a reasonable argument).

But if Nintendo is advertising it in anyway like that, they should be held liable. I just don't see a reasonable argument for why that wouldn't be the case. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

[richrichardsson]

That seems like a bit of a grey area. I'm sure most people would assume that means it's a USB compatible port, but I'm also sure they would argue that they didn't explicitly state it to be a USB port, just a USB Type-C connector for use with the AC adapter or Switch dock.

[reader_mode]

Don't they have IP rights over port design ?

[derefr]

If they do, they don’t enforce them.

Which makes sense to me, because “licensing the port design” would involve trying to extract money from the wrong people — it would target the bulk parts manufacturers producing the USB-C connectors. Those parts manufacturers would have to pay per connector-part produced in such a scheme. Those businesses 1. operate on razor-thin margins such that there’s no margin to extract there, and 2. don’t have nearly the tight logistics pipelines that consumer-electronics companies do, so there’d likely be huge bins of USB-C connectors laying around awaiting an order, where they’d have to eat the licensing fees in advance of receiving payment for the parts (which puts a big hole in their cashflow.)

Much better to go after the high-margin device manufacturers and OEM integrators. But you can’t really pursue them for infringing on the part; they didn’t make it, they just bought it. They’d tell you to go chase the people they bought it from. (And, as said above, you don’t want to do that.) Instead, you have to pursue them for something they’re doing. Such as adding the USB logo to their product.

[jolux]

“Enforce” how?

[addicted]

I can’t imagine the headlines if the USB consortium tried to enforce a restriction on the shapes of products people are allowed to create.

Remember when people were mad about Apple patenting rounded corners? This would be as bad.

[bleepblorp]

There's a middle ground between Apple's rounded corner land grab and allowing non-compliant electrical devices that can cause property damage.

Consider the situation with standard NEMA 5-15R receptacles. As far as I'm aware, the design is not legally protected, but any manufacturer who made a '5-15R' receptacle that couldn't carry 15A--or any device manufacturer who decided to re-purpose the pins such that the ground conductor carried 240V--would have legal problems if they brought their product to market.

This is where USB-PD should be: in a situation where physical connector compatibility brings with it enough design assurances that any pairing of legally-available devices won't blow up, catch fire, or burn out. Ideally, any USB-PD device pairing should work, but at the moment the bare minimum needs to be that any device pairing is safe.

[Dylan16807]

Round corners happen by coincidence, and Apple wouldn't let you use round corners even if you met their spec.

Someone making a port the exact size and shape of a USB-C port (within tolerances) is doing it for the purpose of being compatible, and telling them to meet the (non-onerous) spec to be allowed would not get nasty headlines.

[reader_mode]

Same way they enforce licensing fees presumably.

[jolux]

Haphazardly, and with more concern towards adoption of the standard than profit?

[ticviking]

Their public tech specs for switch claim it is USB-C. https://www.nintendo.com/switch/tech-specs/

Seems to me like that claim is false advertising at the minimum, and specifically exempting other charges on top of that is very consumer unfriendly.

[paulmd]

> And nor does Nintendo claim the Switch’s charging port to be a USB-C port

this is not correct. Ctrl-f "USB Type-C", it's right there.

https://www.nintendo.com/switch/tech-specs/

[laumars]

Back then sockets were known to be dumb connectors and hardware wasn’t designed to be compatible with one another (in fact it was often designed specifically to be incompatible). However these days there is an expectation, particularly with USB, that anything which looks like a USB port is in fact a USB port. They’re sold as smart ports for that reason. And the fact that the Switch does work with some USB-C chargers is evidence that it is at its heart a USB port. So it’s not unreasonable for people to expect these sockets that look like universal smart ports to behave like a universal smart port.

[edoceo]

ADB and PS/2 didn't look the same. Yes, small circles but IIRC ADB is 4 pins, PS/2 is 6 - and neither could be plugged to the other.

[bshep]

IIRC the rectangular peg in the ADB vs PS2 cable were slightly different and hence incompatible.

[rvense]

And ADB predates PS/2 by about six months, so...

[dathinab]

It's like saying that because one concrete house collapsed because the architect didn't properly so it's job concrete house are bad in general.

Also most charger are fully compatible with the switch off I remember correctly the only way to fry your switch with a charger is by using a charger with high voltage/amper support with a cable which doesn't support any form of fast charging and even then it might not happen. But most chargers which support faster charging do have the cable fixed to the charger to prevent any user confusion.

As an effect of this most (all?) USB-C PD laptop chargers work with the switch. Only with chargers for phones and small tablets do you have to be careful but again most higher quality chargers from that area work just fine, too.

[Goronmon]

It's like saying that because one concrete house collapsed because the architect didn't properly so it's job concrete house are bad in general.

I'd actually say its more like building a failed structure out of something that looks like, but actually isn't, concrete, and then saying that concrete is a terrible material to use for buildings.

[samatman]

I'm quite sure someone, somewhere, made a charger and port in the USB-A format, which delivered 12 volts of power without asking.

This is a violation of the USB spec, not a flaw in it. Anyone could deliver mains AC voltage over a USB-C cable, and it would fry just about everything on the market.

[falcolas]

And yet it's a USB-C plug that, on the surface, appears to charge from USB-C chargers just fine. Nintendo is to blame, but it hurts the USB-C landscape.

Plus, Nintendo is far from the only offender in the USB-C space.

[SifJar]

> it explicitly does not follow all USB standards

I think that is very non-obvious though, especially for the typical consumer

[nieve]

Agreed, explicit is almost exactly opposite from the truth for owners. I guess if you're a hardware implementer and poke around you'll find people saying it's not USB-C, but that's not in any way Nintendo being explicit. Why they might have been explicit about would be to never use anything that wasn't Nintendo branded at a major markeup. After the last few decades of profiteering a lot of users have been trained to assume that the only reason is money.