Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Dries007 532 days ago
The same thing existed for micro USB before but Apple could not agree to that or a new standard, so the EU said "USB-C". The law provides for upgrades and mandates compliance with the spec, including PD. If the spec upgrades, the law does so automatically.

This is a good thing.
1 comments
fiddlerwoaroof 532 days ago
USB-C is a horrible standard to consolidate on because of all the confusion about various sorts of USB-C cables (with exactly the same physical connectors) and thunderbolt cables.

Similarly, I’m glad Tesla convinced all the other American manufacturers to go with NACS for the American market because the CCS plugs are monstrosities.

link
Dries007 532 days ago
CCS is great in Europe. You can plug in your normal 3 phase 400V EVSE and charge at 22kW at home, and twice a year when you need it, you can uncover the little extra flap for 350kW DC charging for on route to your holiday.

USB-C suffers from unclear naming problems sure, but in my experience most of the problems are actually caused by shady marketing pages. If they just clearly marked cables and ports with their capabilities, using the same physical connector would only be a benefit.

link
ThatPlayer 532 days ago
Those aren't really going to have an effect on the charging though. This standardization is only concerned about charging.

So no one is going to pick a theoretical "USB-D" that requires every cable to be able to carry 40 gb/s to be a standard. I don't need a 40 gb/s cable to charge a battery pack.

link
alistairSH 532 days ago
I have at least two devices that are “USB-C” for charging but will only work with USB-A to USB-C cables. USB-C wall warts seem to need a handshake the device doesn’t do. So I still can’t throw out my old wall warts and cables. It’s terrible.
link
ThatPlayer 532 days ago
It can be done with 2 resistors. It's kinda required because of the same port on both ends. If I plug a battery into a phone, should the phone charge the battery or should the battery charge the phone?
link
alistairSH 532 days ago
Ok, but manufacturers are cheaping out and leaving out resistors in devices. As a consumer, I don’t know this until I get home.
link
toast0 532 days ago
USB-C is great for 5V charging. And probably not awful for PD either.

All the weird data transport, seems like a big pile of maybe it will work, maybe it won't. I think most cables will do usb 2.0 data and probably usb 3.0 data, which covers a lot. I've managed not to need any of the other things, so avoidance seems to be pretty good. The one exception being the nintendo switch that does hdmi over usb-c, but sticking with their dock works enough for me.

link