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Google Engineer Warns Against Perils of Buying Cheap, Third-Party USB-C Cables (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: A USB-C cable is just a cable. Or is it? Google engineer Benson Leung noted today that it's definitely not the case. Leung and his teammates at Google work inside of the Chromebook ecosystem, and as such, they've had lots of hands-on experience with USB-C cables. The Chromebook Pixel remains one of the very few notebooks on the market that directly supports USB-C. Nonetheless, in his experience, not all cables are built alike, and in some cases, cheap out-of-spec cables could potentially cause damage to your device. It's such a big problem, in fact, that Leung began buying cables off of Amazon and leaving his feedback on each one. Ultimately, what the problem boils down to is that some of the specifications in a cable may be not well controlled. He notes that in some bad cables, resistor values are incorrect, throwing off power specs wildly — 3A vs 2A in one example.
which is why i only buy Gold plated, oxygen free, twisted pair, sheathed Monster cables for $99.99 each. I can see the difference
I bought a few packs of USB-C male and female connectors from China (to use for a non-USB application) and they were really junk. Looked like USB-C but the tolerances were terrible. Too soon for competitive quality forces to have kicked in, I suppose, but they didn't just make these bad connectors to annoy me - they must be out there in the wild too.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
How am I sure they have not done that yet?
OMG, how am I sure the they != us, I mean us by proxy, the NSA ??
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
A long while back, when I was a systems integrator, we had problems with customers buying residential modems and low grade cables, and then getting voltage problems. Proper RFI grounded systems with commercial grade cables solved all of the issues.
Don't cut costs on things that are going to be in use for a decade, it almost always backfires.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The Chromebook Pixel remains one of the very few notebooks on the market that directly supports USB-C.
Much like how RC Cola remains one of the very few brand-name colas on the market...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Like health inspectors checking restaurants for bad food or procedures, isn't there an independent company that can randomly test and certify USB cables?
Whenever a USB cable is used for charging, it's very easy to see why cheap cables are cheap.
A quest for a cable that can support full 1.2A charging, not to mention current generation fast-charging, can be a long and frustrating one. I prefer my chargers to have 1.8m cables instead of manufacturer-standard 1m, and it took a lot of tries to find one that doesn't suck.
USB-C could have been such an awesome standard. But when I read about all the possible feature variations (http://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/anton-shilov/not-all-usb-type-c-ports-are-equal-nine-implementations-of-usb-c-incoming/), I can only shake my head. While it's very cool, especially with integrated thunderbolt support, the idea of splitting it into different versions is just gonna cause nightmares.
We're going to enter an age where people tear their hair out because everyone has the same port, but one person can do one thing with it but another person cannot. The whole HDMI versions confusion is gonna look tame compared to the confusion USB C will cause.
why is it that your libruls answer to everything is always more big government interference with jerb creators ?!!
If people don't like getting salmonella poisoning, they'll post bad reviews on Yelp. Another win for the invisibul holy ghost hand of the market !!!
But when talking about cheap, we (as consumers) kind of get what we pay for. Most consumers look for the cheapest they can find, sellers respond to that by buying from manufacturers that can make products the cheapest, and yes in that process, often some corners are cut. Surprise surprise.
Biggest problem there isn't that cheap crap on the market, after all: buyers can choose. But sometimes that cheap crap is so ubiquitous, that manufacturers who make better stuff get squeezed out of the market. Such that after a while, it becomes almost impossible to find better product even if you're willing to pay for it. That's apart from the problem of determining what's crap and what isn't - sometimes there's no relation with price at all.
With their own cheap cables that are in spec. Cables should really not be that expensive. Google charges $20 for a USB-C cable. Come on!
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
I took a picture of my USB cable and showed it to an expert and he just said "I'll show you later". I don't get it.
Benson is a pretty fantastic engineer. He dots the i's and crosses the t's, which is somewhat rare these days.
I hope Puneet (if Puneet is still his manager, as he was Benson's and mine, when I worked with Benson) is having Google pay for the cables he's buying, instead of Benson paying for them out of pocket.
In any case, definitely take his Amazon reviews to heart: he knows what the hell he is doing, and he knows which end is the probe and which end goes in the meter. If he says a cable sucks, it sucks, and if he says it's good, it's good.
Would you buy a usb cable if some Joe wrote on his blog it worked for him and he rates it five stars (would buy again)?
Seems to me that it would be a faulty design that requires a 'cable' to need any electronics at all.
Just like anything with a jack, you can't really trust anything that may get plugged into it.
Wires, wrapping, and shielding, sure. Electronics (caps, resistors, etc.) should be in the devices themselves, and devices when encountering bad cables should always fail 'safe'.
Anyone know how Monoprice USB cables rate? In the past, I felt their products were of decent quality while being budget friendly.
Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of my employer.
I worked on the first usb 3.0's for Apple. Same problem. We ended up buying nearly every different cable we could find and doing a tolerance study. Things varied so widely that the mouse i was using on my workstation was out of spec! The standards are CRAP. INTENTIONALLY. The mechanical tolerance standards read: for example the height of the internal spring contacts like 3mm max. no...minimum? pretty sure this thing ain't gonna work if the contacts don't...you know...touch anything. I had an internew w/ some asshat at Tyco - (they also make connectors) When i mentioned that the USB standards are crap, he said "oh yeah. we do that too. intentionally. We spend a lot of time developing the connectors to work properly and then because we HAVE to open source the standard, we'll obfuscate things such that we can gain a competitive advantage. Our cables and connectors work out of the box, or other companies are going to have to spend a couple months figuring things out w/ reliability testing before they can release a quality package. I about walked out of the interview at that point. Who signs their name to something that is intentionally a POS?? Speaking w/ the EE's at Apple, the signal integrity was written just as bad as the mechanical. Components of the signal integrity that would be controlled separately by the receptacle were lumped in with the cable. Just all junk. According to one guy Intel outsourced the design of the standard to india/china and just accepted the crap they gave them (because intel doesn't have like ... any mechanical engineers working there)
J
My phone's car dock comes with a cable that has resistors in it signal the dock is connected.
Purpose specific. Works. Your premise is invalid, for any reason. Resistors are sometimes signalling devices in USB, and why would USB-C make more sense?
This is the HDMI and Lightning debacle all over again, to soak us for $.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
In the Android world Cyanogen is merely the best known of the ROM makers. Buy a phone you can root.
Apple users, sit back and enjoy the movies,.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
What's the difference between Joe's blog and Amazon.com customer reviews?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Agree, which is why you're also support to support the USB Type-C negotiation protocol, which typically both ends do. There do exist some dumb chargers though, and lots of dumb implementations exist where the controller just gives whatever was asked for even if it can't supply it -- cheaper to build that way rather than spend time on pesky programming and engineering. But the big thing is that you also have to worry about the spec of the cable. Likes of USB 2.0 cables really do only support 500mA, or 1A or current. 3A would fry them, so you need something in the cable to identify that you can safely pass that much current across them. This resistor lets them know...
Gods no. The important thing is that the cable be capable of carrying the current the device requests. If the resistors were just in the device, then it would have no idea if the cable you've used to connect it to the hub is thick enough to carry the current it is about to draw.
well, we wouldnt have to buy third party cables if google actually gave us cables with the products we buy. i got myself a nexus 5x when it came out. it came with 1 3 ft usb-c to usb-c cable and no adapter to normal usb. i couldnt even plug the damned thing into my computer until the cables i ordered off amazon got here.
To measure resistance you need two pins. You can just connect those two pins directly - no resistor needed. Just think of the wire/jumper as being a 0 Ohm resistor and check for that.
so with apple using a non apple cable / adapters voids warranty.
And where did you read that?
Also the new mac pro will only have USB-C ports and X2 Ethernet. Ships with no adapters.
Why is it you always post factually incorrect things about Apple products, especially in a post that is not about Apple. First of all, the new Mac Pro has no USB-C ports. It has 4 USB 3.0 ports. Second, it does not have "only" USB and Ethernet. It has 4 USB 3.0, 6 Thunderbolt 2 ports, 1 HDMI port, 1 digital out/ analog line out port, 1 headphone port. Essentially half your list of adapters is not required.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Here's the list of cables that he tested, from the TFA. There are ten of them
http://amzn.to/1MlG3g3
Or you can just buy a brand name that you know certifies and tests their products instead of going generic. Kind of the point of the brand name.
I think he may have been confusing it with the macbook non-pro, which has been criticized for a severe lack of ports - a consequence of Apple's quest to make it as thin and light as possible.
A decade or so ago the company I worked at had to repeatedly advise customers to use FTDI or Silicon Labs based USB-serial converters with our products. It got to the point that it was the first question on the tech support script. The cheaper converters based on Prolific chipsets were incredibly unreliable but customers kept buying them because on ebay one converter appears much the same as another.
A decade or so ago the company I worked at had to repeatedly advise customers to use FTDI or Silicon Labs based USB-serial converters with our products. It got to the point that it was the first question on the tech support script. The cheaper converters based on Prolific chipsets were incredibly unreliable but customers kept buying them because on ebay one converter appears much the same as another.
There were a lot of counterfeit prolifics out there, so it isn't specifically a prolific problem. It's kind of like blaming Apple for the cheap fake iphone chargers.
But yeah, if you can get a USB-Serial converter for 3 bucks, it might not be too good.
I use FTDI mostly now, but have a few of the real prolifics setting around and in use. Including an ancient one that was used for a palm device, and still works in Linux even though Windows doesn't support it at all any more.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Was talking about the upcoming new mac pro and how bad it may be.
Name brands don't mean nearly as much as they used to.
I'd rather have CE where I could sue the crap out of said company and have the CEO arrested the moment he steps into Europe.
I've never had any problems with cheap USB A or B cables.
On the other hand, I bought a cheap iphone cable on ebay that completely destroyed my iphone5. Not good.
Moral of the story? It's probably best to stay away from cheap cables.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Gods no. The important thing is that the cable be capable of carrying the current the device requests. If the resistors were just in the device, then it would have no idea if the cable you've used to connect it to the hub is thick enough to carry the current it is about to draw.
Or you could just make all USB-C cables capable of carrying the max current that the USB-C standard supports.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
The "upcoming" Mac Pro which has no official specs from Apple and is based entirely on rumors that you cherry picked? But you're going to complaining about these specs based on unsubstantiated rumors you've read somewhere by someone? Do you have that much hate for Apple?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
No he's complaining about the next Mac Pro which Apple has not shown nor released. So everything that is wrong with it is entirely based on rumors of what Apple might release.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
There is some info in the one of files as part of a new mac os update pointing to a 10 usb-c port mac. With a name that is like the mac pro out now.
Again that is based on speculation of what Apple may or may not release. Apple might have tested El Capitan on a 10 USB port machine and didn't remove the file. Also by your own post you said Apple would have X2 Ethernet yet you claim you need an Ethernet adapter. Why in the world would you need one?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Well some of there other systems cut the Ethernet port to save room so we sell them for that system and the template add's it to all systems with usb-c.
Also what if you need more then 2 ports?
And we may even sell 10G Ethernet adapters or build them in.
Well some of there other systems cut the Ethernet port to save room so we sell them for that system and the template add's it to all systems with usb-c.
So you're complaining about other systems do when talking about a Mac Pro? Really?
Also what if you need more then 2 ports?
1) That's what TB is for. 2) A Mac Pro is not designed to be a router; it is designed to be a workstation. 3) If you need more than 2, you need a server or a switch not a workstation.
And we may even sell 10G Ethernet adapters or build them in.
For what purpose does a creative need 10G ethernet? Backbone routers and switches need it but a workstation? Bearing in mind most home and corporate networks support 1G Ethernet at best. Even those that have installed Cat6, the max length is 55m as opposed to 100m for 1G. For those networks that are based on Cat5, good luck trying to get 10G to work.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.