[chaosharmonic]

I too am a USB-C maximalist, but with 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.

[hokkos]

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.

[BoppreH]

Generally true, but don't forget that some people are disabled and absolutely need the electric functions. "Escalator temporarily stairs" is funny until your foot is in a cast.

Same goes for those seemingly-useless, single-purpose kitchen devices. You're just probably not in the target audience.

[encrypted_bird]

RIP Mitch Hedburg

[herodoturtle]

Love this comment <3

For those of you that are wondering, Mitch Hedburg was a relatively famous stand-up comedian whose special went viral.

In said special was this classic:

“I like an escalator because an escalator can never break; it can only become stairs. There would never be an 'escalator temporarily out of order' sign, only 'escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience.’”

RIP indeed.

[rogerrogerr]

Re. toothbrush, I have to take the opportunity to give Philips credit for the Sonicare electric toothbrushes they made ~15 years ago. That thing just keeps trucking, it’s incredible. I go on 2 week trips and don’t even bring the charger, and have no worries about it dying.

It must have been crazy overspecced, I expected it to be a 5-year disposable piece of non-serviceable tech.

[rootusrootus]

Yeah I was going to say, I'm at 20 years on a Sonicare (pushing 25 now that I remember it is 2026, damn...) and it still works fine. Holds a charge long enough that I've never run out on vacation.

[xp84]

They are good! Although my wife manages to kill hers every few years, I don't think I've ever actually had one die myself. I also have my original UV sanitizing charger unit that I purchased new circa 2009!

I've found that one can buy just new handles on ebay though, without the head and chargers, for only like half the super high retail prices or less, even for the "higher end" models, so I do that every 5-8 years or so if one gets too bad.

[dzhiurgis]

I saw this posted somewhere too, but my first Sonicare lasted 10 years, next one 5 and last one 2 which also mirrors my experience.

[wwalexander]

If only Philips would support USB-C for their OneBlade electric razors, instead of a USB-A to proprietary figure 8 barrel plug cable.

[renata]

I got a no-name USB adapter for mine and it hasn't killed it in the couple of years I've had it, that's the one I take for travel. You can search for "USB QP2520" to find one.

[morsch]

I know, right. And the other manufacturers are the same, razors/grooming tools that just have a USB C plug are rare to nonexistent. My assumption is that it's down to some regulation regarding waterproofing somewhere. Though of course USB C plugs can be waterproof.

[kurthr]

Part of the reason is that they used NiMH for the batteries in those (I have 3 that are 20-30 years old some predating the Phillips logo). All of mine still work. The NiMH is good for 1000s of deep cycles. The one from the mid 90s is only good for about 15x 2min brushings. Luckily, you can still get new heads for them!

[moffkalast]

Ha I thought mine was on the verge of dying after a good few years of use (amazon reviews were all like, yeah it only lasted a two years), so I ordered a new one, but the old one keeps going so I keep the new one in reserve looming over it menacingly, and it just refuses to kick it lol.

[sudobash1]

Also, it looses functionality gracefully in that it is still a perfectly serviceable toothbrush even if it is out of battery.

That said, I have never had a Sonicare run out of battery either.

[m463]

I have a sonicare. great. The travel case it came with is actually an inductive charging case with a USB-A hidden inside ready to be unfurled.

[wwalexander]

The pricier ones have a case with just a USB-C port.

[m463]

it's possible current models have moved on. My toothbrush is a couple years old now (which is a good thing!)

EDIT: just looked. current ones have bluetooth and an app. sigh.

[kevin_thibedeau]

My first Sonicare eventually died of a battery failure 20 years ago. My second would not die and I was stuck buying the old style heads that were hard to clean. I finally gave in and replaced it just recently. Modern lithium cells last forever in low drain, low duty cycle applications like a toothbrush.

[DiogenesKynikos]

I bought a cheap electric toothbrush from a no-name Chinese company. The battery lasts 6 months on one charge with daily use. It cost about $20. I wouldn't be surprised if it's manufactured by the same factories that make Philips' toothbrushes.

And of course, it charges with USB-C.

[stavros]

Counterpoint, mine died after a few years to the point where it would only go a few days between charges. Maybe the BMS wasn't good, because this started happening after it completely died on me on a trip once.

[interloxia]

Philips knows how to penny pinch. Don't buy the more recent low end models.

Their kid's app has been great.

[BizarroLand]

Same. I was given one as a gift for graduation college in 2012 and it's still going strong

[ak217]

Both Philips and the similarly sturdy Oral-B. You know they are good because they have a sealed design that uses induction to charge. By contrast the toothbrush mentioned by the OP won't last long with that flimsy door and the USB port in a wet environment.

[pupppet]

Another vote for the Sonicare.

[JoshTriplett]

> I'd much rather keep rechargeable AA(A)s on hand for that kind of stuff.

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.

[cogman10]

> 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).

[JoshTriplett]

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.)

[Someone]

> Nothing would prevent a device from accurately detecting battery levels of NiMH batteries

Wouldn’t the NiMH batteries have to be smarter in that case, keeping track of their own historical behavior? That changes over time, and devices with integrated batteries can take that into account to indicate charge levels. If you can swap batteries, you lose that information.

[chaosharmonic]

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.)

[JoshTriplett]

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.

[sjs382]

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.

[coffeebeqn]

A electric toothbrush does a much better job at cleaning your teeth though. I have a basic oral B one that I can get new heads for cheaply and easily and it has a usb-c charger. It’s great honestly. I’m sure it’ll die one day but so do normal toothbrushes. I’ll crack the shell open and recycle the battery it’s not a big deal. I had a random Amazon one before that broke after a few months but the very basic “old” style electric brushes seem to last some years. The more “UI” and features it has the less it’ll last

[sdh9]

Unless something has changed, it's pretty difficult to replace the battery in Oral B toothbrushes. Which is a shame, because they die pretty much like clockwork after about 3 years.

[nemomarx]

Why haven't phones just moved to have two USB ports?

A slight convenience when you want to charge it in that you don't have to turn it around, you can have USB headphones and also charge, you could use more accessories...

[jitl]

I've needed 2 USB-C ports on one-port devices (phone, Steam Deck) a few times so I got this tiny 2-port hub with micro SD card reader (also has option for 3.5mm audio port instead of card reader): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKV7JSHC?th=1 "Satechi USB C Mobile Hub, 4-in-1 USB C Multiport Adapter, 4K HDMI, 100W Pass-Through Charging, 10Gbps Data"

[penultimatename]

Because the use case and demand versus the cost of engineering and manufacturing isn’t there. The market for USB headphones is minuscule compared to Bluetooth headphones.

[Gigachad]

Because space inside a phone is at an extreme premium. And this problem is solved by either using magsafe to charge or using an external hub for more ports.

[chaosharmonic]

See, I agree with this too. You wouldn't have to worry nearly as much about the random little things that are specific to just one device or another (IR blasters, the DAC on old LG phones, etc) if you could just plug in a second USB peripheral.

But what I'm more getting at is the other way around: that wireless headphones will already have USB-C for charging anyway. And that, particularly for larger ones (that have that port directly on the device, and not in a separate charging cradle), it really seems like a waste that more of them don't leverage that -- so that, again, you could use the headphones while you charge them.

[alterom]

>so that, again, you could use the headphones while you charge them.

Yes! And you could charge them off your phone!

If I could dream: wouldn't it be nice if you had headphones with charging cables attached to them so that you never had to worry about losing them.

And phones could have a convenient extra port for plugging such headphones into.

Ah, one could only dream.

[rootusrootus]

There are still wired options, though, right? I don't really miss them, the nostalgia is not strong enough to forget how often the damn cable would catch on something and try to rip the headphones off my head. Or the cord noise. I get that people do not like having to eventually replace a battery, but high quality wireless headphones are a nice upgrade IMO.

[plagiarist]

Heh. I hate having any attached cables, they're too easy to fray. But otherwise I am with you, I only buy wired headphones.

[chaosharmonic]

See, you also lose me at non-removable cables as a point of failure, for the same reason OP loses me at "toothbrush"

[alterom]

Oh, a great new idea then!

What if the same port could be on both headphones and phone?

For convenience, we could make it, like, round so it could go in which every way.

Then you could use whatever male-to-male cable you want if and when the one you have goes bad.

[dzhiurgis]

Wha wha whaat? You'll more likely to see no ports soon than two lol.

I don't remember when I actually plugged my phone for anything other than charging. Must be nearly a decade. And wireless charging is becoming good, albeit not ubiquitous quite yet.

[imtringued]

You shouldn't use your phone while charging, that's bad for the battery.

[palata]

Because physics sucks! USB ports take space, a phone is not Mary Poppins' bag :-).

[alterom]

My XReal Beam Pro¹ has two USB-C ports: one for charging, one for Thunderbolt video output (both support data transfer IIRC).

My other phones (Samsung Galaxy A23 etc) have a USB-C and a 3.5mm headphone jack as Lord intended, so I don't have the idiotic problem of choosing between charging or using headphones / aux cable / etc.

There's no reason to not have two USB-C ports and a 3.5mmm headphone jack too in a device that already costs hundreds of dollars and is, on average, brick-sized, other than fuck you, that's why (aka being "brave").

I.e., same reason that some phones (not mine) don't have a microSD card slot. Particularly those shipped with atrociously little internal memory at a time when a 1TB memory card costs a few dozen dollars.

Anyways, unless the EU rolls out new legislation (like the one that forced Apple to include USB-C on their phones), looks like it's not going to change any time soon.

Apple has enough money to bravely get away with whatever anti-consumer BS they want, paving the way for others to copy them for fashion and profit.

Sure there are exceptions (which is what I buy). But they're not the norm, as evidenced by comments here. Voting with one's wallet buys very little in terms of impact.

People still decry the loss of the 3.5mm TRRS headphone jack, which didn't really go away and never had to.

____

¹ It's an "AR processor", i.e. an Android phone without the phone plus 3D camera and special sauce

[chaosharmonic]

> My XReal Beam Pro¹ has two USB-C ports: one for charging, one for Thunderbolt video output (both support data transfer IIRC).

I know what you're saying, but to be a little pedantic about it it's actually only USB 3.

(I wish there were mobile devices supporting USB4; it would bring them significantly closer to feature parity with larger devices.)

[mplewis]

It's better to use a dongle for that.

[jonhohle]

For the vast majority of things I need to power or charge, dumb USB charging is fine, and I have a 10-port Anker “IQ” charger that works great for most of those things. Why doesn’t the equivalent USB-C charger exist? I don’t need 65W on each port. I just needs lots of ports for gadgets that can trickle charge for hours at night (4 kids, lots of devices). I mostly want to standardize on USB-C host cables, but no one makes a cheap device for doing that more than a decade after USB-C became a thing.

[tempest_]

The reason is because while you want to use the low end the general public does not understand that USB-C is the connector only and that various levels of power and data depend on the cable and the device at both ends.

If you sell a 10 port USB-C charged someone is going to plug 10 MacBooks into it and complain it doesnt work.

The best I have seen for what you want is

https://ca.ugreen.com/products/ugreen-500w-desktop-charger

but is not cheap at all or something like

https://www.amazon.ca/Powered-Aluminum-Adapter-Computer-Prin...

[xp84]

Macbooks aren't the absolute best example anymore, since 20W is plenty to charge ARM-based MacBooks in a few hours, so a 200W 10-port charger could do a fine job with 10 MacBooks.

But your point is still valid. As a nerd I really appreciate being able to use say, my 100W laptop charger or the car jumpstarter pack I have to charge up my earbuds or an electric toothbrush, since it reduces the number of weird little cables or chargers I have to keep track of, but it sure does baffle the non-technical majority that their toothbrush charger fits their laptop 'for some reason' but of course does nothing - plus the confusion when they realize they could physically plug the toothbrush into a pair of headphones, or plug two portable batteries together.

[rootusrootus]

I've seen 1000W (or so they claim) 10 port USB-C chargers on Amazon. Not Anker, just a no name Chinese brand I am not going to trust. But they do seem to exist. Like the sibling comment says, I assume it's because people expect USB-C charging capabilities to be a lot higher.

[zamadatix]

Do you believe the 16 TB uSD cards from no name Chinese brands on Amazon as well? If so, I have a bridge to sell - limited time offer!

500W (with 1 port being true 240 W) is the highest legitimate one I've run across - and I search often for real alternatives to buy. Even bulky GaN PC PSUs selling for $500 can't exceed 700W without assisted cooling due to efficiency->heat reasons.

[rootusrootus]

> Do you believe

I will just quote myself to answer that.

> or so they claim

> a no name Chinese brand I am not going to trust

[zamadatix]

Yet if seeing fakes on Amazon convinces you:

> But they do seem to exist

I still have my bridge to sell. Quoting the parts which lead to a reply isn't really a response as it's guaranteed to lead to the same place.

[benoau]

> Why doesn’t the equivalent USB-C charger exist?

Isn't this just a USB 3.x hub?

[jonhohle]

You know of a 10-port USB-C hub that can negotiate power (old USB style, not PD) without a host device?

[TulliusCicero]

I'm guessing it's because people expect USB-C ports to at least handle 18w.

[subarctic]

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

[Grombobulous]

I've never experienced them breaking that quickly, but it's worth pointing out that the cheap models are far inferior. The motors are weaker and they even come with a worse charger that doesn't come with a normal wall outlet plug.

I don't like USB-C for toothbrushes to charge because there's water in the bathroom. The proprietary inductive charger/stand that comes with Sonicare/Oral-B electric toothbrushes are ideal.

Sucks that they are proprietary but they have been trivially easy to clone by third party manufacturers. $7 on Amazon.

[jbverschoor]

I've had the topline ones fail on me three times after a couple of years. Now on a base model, and works just as fine.

The old charging glass isn't compatible with newer ones, so I have a couple of those laying around as junk. All the travel cases used micro usb-a, which is super inconvenient.

So no "ecosystem" buy-in into any Philips line from me anymore. They have a very bad product lines anyway.. Super complex, tons of SKUs with minimal differences. But they do have some good products.

[Grombobulous]

The way I think about these is that, yeah, it's unfortunate that these are not the best products on the market as a product category, and they cost more than they really should.

Of course, another way to think about it is that the most expensive preventative care is better than the cheapest corrective care.

I don't really consider these an "ecosystem" like tech. An ecosystem implies there's a big cost in both time and money to switching to something else.

In my case, I'm either going to buy Sonicare or Oral-B because those are the options with bulk refills Costco. There are brands out there that are cheaper, but not by much. If they break, I buy another one. Such is life.

Of course, you can clean your teeth just as well with a cheap toothbrush and a much less expensive budget if you are diligent and thorough with your brushing. Flossing is also more important, anyway.

But I'm not messing around with my teeth: if my dentist recommends an electric toothbrush, I'm buying one.

This subject also reminds me of the razor blade market. A whole lot of "disruption" has taken place over the years with online shaver brands supposedly offering "the same" product as incumbents like Gillette.

But if you shave your head bald you'll know that a Harry's razor is really inferior compared to a Gillette razor. Sometimes the overpriced brand names are simply the best options on the market, even if they have been cost-cut or are otherwise "not what they used to be," and I feel similarly about Sonicare. I could buy some off-brand electric toothbrush and maybe it's 70-90% as good, but that juice isn't worth the squeeze.

[theshrike79]

How hard do you brush if you can _mechanically_ break an electric toothbrush?

[subarctic]

Not sure I get your point, they're more fragile than manual toothbrushes not less. The metal connector part starts getting loose and it becomes loud and ineffective

[hereme888]

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.

[ChoGGi]

Yea, first time I used an electric was great, haven't used a manual since.

[bigfishrunning]

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

[bsammon]

> 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.

[ValentineC]

> 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 thought the same, but that'll happen with devices that use AA batteries too.

I was using a cheap Panasonic EW-DJ10 water flosser that 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 its life since it'll cut off randomly now. I also used to worry 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.

[imp0cat]

Inductive charging, like the often-mentioned-here Sonicare toothbrushes have.

[ValentineC]

Inductive charging doesn't help with non-replaceable lithium batteries that will eventually degrade past usable in maybe 1-3 years.

[imp0cat]

Right, but it solves the other problem that you mentioned - charging ports or contacts exposed to the elements.

[NoPicklez]

> - 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.

[xp84]

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!

[jmhammond]

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.

[BeetleB]

My Sonicare worked for almost 15 years. I don't worry about the reliable brands dying on me.

[qurren]

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.

[Aurornis]

> 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.

[qurren]

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.

[vel0city]

I've destroyed lots of barrel jacks over the years. I wouldn't normally consider them that rugged.

[mjevans]

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.

[Aurornis]

> Fully ruggedized is in fact what I want and what I consider truly consumer grade.

I put fully ruggedized connectors on several shipping products. You would not like the cost nor space requirements.

> I've dropped several-kilogram objects onto VGA connectors, SCSI connectors, and DC barrel jacks and nothing ever happened.

VGA and SCSI connectors are rarely exposed like a phone connector and they're in a completely different class anyway. Nobody wants a phone with a giant SCSI size connector on the bottom.

I hate to say it, but the fact that you have this many anecdotes of dropping "several-kilogram objects" on to connectors is a clue that you're an outlier in how hard you treat connectors, if breaking 50 USB connectors a year wasn't already an indicator.

Expecting consumer connectors to stand up to this outlier level of abuse is unrealistic.

[qu4z-2]

I had the physical DC barrel jack port fall out the back of a monitor the other day. Granted that's not the connector per se.

[gumby]

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.

[timc3]

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.

[Aurornis]

The GP comment is one of those HN comments where I can't tell if someone is making up a ridiculously high number to tell a story online, or if there really are people out there breaking 52 USB-C plugs per year going about their normal lives.

[brookst]

I mean I don't know how people avoid breaking them. Prying paint cans open, rappelling from height, driving nails into roofs... don't you find them fragile for these daily operations?

[doubled112]

I’ve definitely had them wear out and stop working, but I’ve never broken one.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

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.

[mbonnet]

> I break about 1 USB-C plug a week.

That's a you problem. I have never done this, and neither have any of the dozen people I just asked in my office.

[hbn]

Is IEC really the gold standard for connectors to you? I always thought they feel terrible to plug in. There's no snap or solid bottom-out indication to when it's "connected." And it just sits in the socket from friction that doesn't feel particularly solid. It's the kind of connection where if it gets yanked a little bit and the connection fails, it's not obvious because it's half-seated in the socket.

[timc3]

IEC isn’t great, hence you get a cage around them to hold them in for critical use.

[qurren]

That cage is for stress relief, and should be federally mandated on all external connectors of all devices.

Stress relief is a thing, people in the 2020s have somehow forgetten about it.

[nightpool]

good luck miniaturizing that! :D

[comradesmith]

> I break about 1 USB-C plug a week

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

[stephen_g]

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!

[itishappy]

> I break about 1 USB-C plug a week.

Wild. How often do you break the phone itself?

[imtringued]

I'm not sure this is the brag you think it is... You should be happy you're breaking the plug.

Also "phone with typical inadequate battery". Just get a battery replacement and make sure you only use it between 60% and 80%. If you don't do that you're degrading the battery.

You might think "but now I only have 1/5 of the capacity" yeah and it will now last much longer than if you degraded the battery.

[wongarsu]

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

[kalleboo]

You can also get ones that swivel

[qurren]

> There are cables with 90° plugs (cable to the side)

This should be federal law and written into the constitution

[kalleboo]

> shoved in together in pocket

MagSafe/Qi2 is ideal for this.

I can't think of any connector that would work well shoved in a pocket moving around. Had to re-solder too many headphone jacks back in the day, and anything that screws in would cause way too much leverage, probably ruining the small slim device.

[rockostrich]

> 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.