You must log in or register to comment.
It gets even better, each function of the port also needs proper support from the cable. Often cables do not support the full spec of usb to cut costs.
While the symbols in the post are often put on computers, for usb cables this is seldom done (only a few brands do).
Source: had to find a cable that supports both DP and PD to connect a portable external monitor after I lost the original cable. (1/9 cables worked)
Yeah, it’s gotten so bad I eventually ordered a USB cable checker to figure out what any given USB cable is capable of (and to see if the cable has gone flaky, which seems to happen a lot). I haven’t received it yet so I don’t know if I can recommend this item, but … gosh darn you sure need something like this.
For that portable monitor, you should just need a cable with USB-C plugs on both ends which supports USB 3.0+ (could be branded as SuperSpeed, 5Gbps, etc). Nothing more complicated than that.
The baseline for a cable with USB-C on both ends should be PD up to 60W (3A) and data transfers at USB 2.0 (480Mbps) speeds.
Most cables stick with that baseline because it’s enough to charge phones and most people won’t use USB-C cables for anything else. Omitting the extra capabilities lets cables be not only cheaper but also longer and thinner.
DisplayPort support uses the same extra data pins that are needed for USB 3.0 data transfers, so in terms of cable support they should be equivalent. There also exist higher-power cables rated for 100W or 240W but there’s no way a portable monitor would need that.
Luckily, all new PC seem to choose Thunderbolt over only alt mode, which makes stuff more easy, since they have the flash on the cable (but are also more extensive, I gear
Sometimes people want to charge their phone in an outlet 10 feet from their airport seat.
Sometimes people want to transmit 8k video.
It’s not physically possible to do both tasks with the same cable.
But because USB is a flexible standard, we don’t have two incompatible specs to do the same thing. So when you get out of the airport and to your meeting, you can actually plug your phone into the meeting room projector for your business presentation. That’s a win.
What is the difference between USA and USB?
One connects to all your devices and accesses your data, the other is a hardware standard.
One gives you power, the other does everything it can to make sure you never do.
OIL
LOL, yeah, manufacturers don’t follow this at all.
Thank God there’s a standard for USB. And another one. And another one. And another one. And another one. And another one. And another one. And another one. And another one. And another one. And another one. And another one…
The USB-C standard and particularly the USB PD (power delivery) is so complex it almost feels comical.
The PD standard document (freely available on usb.org) is over 800 pages long and features a lengthy part about the role of the cable alone which is mostly hidden from the user. Here’s a short video about this issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bZ0y9G-4Pc
Do you regularly read highly technical whitepapers? I don’t see how an 800 page document is comical for something that works so well.
The USB standards are just… Comically overcomplicated. And almost everything about it is optional. They need a full revamp, making it simpler and mandatory on all future ports, devices and cables.
But they won’t do that, will they.
Almost everything about it needs to be optional because sometimes USB is used to charge some cheap battery powered thing and sometimes it’s used to make a backup of a harddrive and sometimes it’s charging my laptop with enough power for it to be rendering video but still have a net charge increase to the battery while also providing Ethernet, video output, and keyboard/mouse input over the same one port.
EDIT to make it more clear why the variability of USB standards is what it is, compare a modern laptop to one from 10 years ago.
The older laptop has:
- for video, an HDMI port (or the less common mini HDMI port), and perhaps a mini DP port
- an Ethernet port
- a charging plug
- possibly some FireWire ports (may or may not be the same as the mini DP port)
- USB A ports for keyboard/mouse and other random devices
The newer laptop has:
- USBC ports that can do all of the above
The perhiperals, however, don’t support all of the features. They only support the features they actually use. As long as the laptop supports all of the optional features, you don’t need to worry about it.
The is especially helpful for less technical users who may not want to know what the difference between HDMI and DisplayPort is. With a fully USBC based laptop and USBC perhipals you can just plug it in and it will work.
Of course this is all dependent on the laptop implementing all of the extra features, which is still only really true of more expensive laptops.
There should be a way to make it simpler.
Idk, something like “for USB 4 you NEED all of these”.
Or maybe USB 4 with levels like bronze, silver, etc.
Or make displaying data rate, display and charging capabilities all mandatory on all ports…
I’m not sure what, but “it’s a USB port; look in the manual and if you’re lucky you might learn what it does exactly” ain’t it.
People do not want to be limited to 1m long cords or only have thick and stiff Thunderbolt3 cords with 20 different conductors for a wired mouse.
Minimum specs like you are proposing just make the standard less useful and would lead to more competing specs that aren’t compatible at all (a la lightning cables).
To be a truly “universal” spec, flexibility is king.
Maybe optional opt out? Like to say you are usb-4 you have to have this format and support all of these features. Other you are USB 4 W/O x,y,z,PD,Video,etc. I also think PD levels should be labeled on power sources and sinks.
except its bot competing standards, its just one consortium who has the holy grail universal standard making things needlessly convoluted on purpose.
USB = Unintelligible Symbols of Bewilderment
My laptop has two USBC ports. No logos of any kind. They are Thunderbolt 4. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Here, you’ve lost an arm: \
If you’re trying to get Lemmy to print the backslash, you need to make it a double backslash since backslash is an “escape” character that means “ignore any special formatting meaning of the next character” (among other meanings)
Reddit was the same exact way. I don’t know how people are messing it up here too.
Also don’t forget the dubious AliExpress devices that have all these symbols, no data lines, Vcc at 12V and ground attached to a loose M8 nut.
I have never seen one with SS, but maybe they removed that part in Germany.
For those that don’t know
Thank god that no one made a transfer speed standard of 88 Gb/s
I see them on the back of full size computer cases and on docks. They will often be one SS port on the top. I had no idea what it meant before now.
Most devices don’t have theese symbols and basically say fuck you unless you know how to find the specs
Every device I have just has a couple of blue ones and a couple of black ones, perhaps some orange ones and some USB-C ports, and good luck figuring out what they all can do. No symbols anywhere.
It’s cool, the colors are just for aesthetics. Internally they’re all connected to the same USB controller chip anyway.
/s probably
Edit: it was a joke. I know blue means 3.
If they’re following the standard, which they often do but sometimes don’t, white indicates 2.0 and blue indicates 3.0+. I think there are more but I don’t remember the other colours.
I believe yellow or orange ports always deliver charging power regardless of device’s power state.
Black is USB 2, blue is USB 3, and Orange or Yellow are usually “always on” and/or 2.4 amp or some other kind of thing like that.
Not on all vendors tho - coloring was an optional part of the standard. Dell often uses grey for USB3
I just love that in a world with Power Delivery (PD) they decided that the best way to indicate Display Port (DP) was to have an ambiguous symbol involving a P and a D.
The P and D symbol is the DisplayPort logo. I’m not sure when it was first used, but the DisplayPort standard itself is quite a bit older than USB Power Delivery.
It’s still confusing though regardless of which can lay the best claim to the letters P and D. I would have suggested Power Delivery could use some sort of lightning bolt symbol, but then I realised that would probably conflict with Thunderbolt, which also uses USB-C.
It’s almost as if having all these different features would be easier to differentiate if they had different physical shapes.
Yeah, Display Port is old, but I’ve never seen that P and D symbol before, or at least never noticed it. And, even if it existed before Display Port over USB, you’d think that that potential confusion was a good opportunity to come up with a new logo for something that would be put next to a USB port.
It’s almost as if having all these different features would be easier to differentiate if they had different physical shapes.
I think the goal was always that you’d only ever need one type of port and one type of cable and that that port and cable could do anything. Unfortunately, because there are so many revisions and so many features are optional, you’ve now got a situation where the port is the right shape, the cable fits into the port, but you can’t get the thing to work without reading the fine print, or without decoding obscure logos.
How about a monitor/TV for display.
I like that battery for power, though a vertical battery would be clearer.
I like how they (seem to) try to get away from Latin alphabet, just to go with DP for display port.
Also, giving anything the initials “DP” is weird and creepy as fuck, given that “DP” was already a well-established acronym in the porn industry years before DisplayPort was even conceptualized.If you’re going to forbid any 2-letter initialism because it might have naughty connotations, you’re not going to be left with many options.
Given that there are engineers involved I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that was deliberate. Trying to get potentially offensive or otherwise NSFW acronyms past marketing without them noticing is practically an industry-wide joke at this point, which is why they are so prevalent in the FOSS space. (no marketing staff to complain)
If that’s true in this case, though, hats off to whoever managed to get it though to official commercial standards
person with the initials DP has left the chat crying
SuperSpeed is not a “legacy” name.
It’s the name of a transfer rate.
I do not trust the maker of this infographic if they cannot understand some basic facts.
A small correction on USB PD…
It’s not just USB PD that supports power delivery: Standard USB from way back in 1.0 also supports power delivery to devices as standard, but it’s only up to 100mA in USB 1.0, 500mA in USB 2.0 and 900mA in USB 3.0, all at 5V.
USB PD is a dedicated power delivery USB protocol that supports much higher currents (up to 5A) as well as dynamically configured voltages (so, not fixed as 5V anymore) though it’s all negotiated so your 5V-only phones isn’t going to just get burned with 20V from a USB PD charger.
Since Power = Current * Voltage USB PD can put out quite a lot of power for supporting devices (the maximum depending on what both sides support), which means much faster transmission of power via USB which for example means faster charging of chargeable devices via USB with USB PD.
Anyways, the point being that even really old USB 1.0 can charge your device (just really really slow, though you’ll be hard pressed to find anything that doesn’t support at least USB 2.0 which can send 5x the current of 1.0 hence charge 5x faster than it), and that standard charging speed goes up with each new Standard USB generation since each has a higher maximum current than the previous one, so for example a standard USB 3.1 charger without USB PD support can still push a nice amount of power down the line to charge devices. It’s just that with USB PD things really take off (though only up to a shared maximum that both sides support) and it can push enough power to support larger devices such as full-blown monitors or even charging notebooks.
Also PD extended range or something goes up to 48V 5A
