Some basic info about USB

Courage!

How brave!

If they etched the symbol they could have reduced the weight of the laptop by 0.003g making it even better

You know it’s a thunderbolt connection on a MacBook. They stopped using the USB symbol when they used the usb for thunderbolt and stopped using the mini display port.

It could be, but combine the color looking very much like Apple's space grey, the slimness of it, particularly how slim the lid is versus the body, and what looks like the MacBook's classic black, rounded rubber stoppers on the bottom, I think it's safe to say that's meant to be an MacBook.

Also certain MacBook models tried to go to a single USB C port about a decade ago, and it was on the corner like that.

I discovered that my Thinkpad apparently supports charging from all of the (unlabeled) USB-C ports after I inadvertently started it charging from my cell phone's (unlabeled) USB-C port.

Tbf my work Dell Latitude 5440 has a USB A with a SS5, an A with a SS5 and charging indicator, a C with a thunderbolt indicator, and a C with a battery and a thunderbolt indicator.

So at least some of their laptops do in fact have the indicators similar-ish enough to what the infographic shows.

No they aren't. Only some are.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/109523

One of those cables that don't work is rated for like 120W, with gigabit transfer speed... But it refuses to transmit display.... Like bruh

It basically gets longer every few years. At this rate, it'll turn into an Amazon listing.

USB 3.5 Gen 3 2x2 20 Gbit Two-Sided DP PD USB 3 USB 2 USB 1 Compatible

We could have gone for already proven and tested conventions like the resistor color codes and have a unique distinguishable icon for each features to attach when needed (like thunder icon for high power). But nope, we got this USB 3.2 Gen 4 2x2 Hyper Turbocharged World Champions and Knuckles Platinum Edition bs instead.

The bench is called "Bench" (legacy name, it's actually more like a concrete slab, but at the time it was more benchy that the previous bench which was just a pile of sand).

the whole USB 3.2 Gen 2 2x2 (hands of blue) bullshit

If you're not trying to wire your own USB port you can just use the recommended names "USB SuperSpeed 20 Gbps" or "USB 20 Gbps". You don't have to be confused by technical names if you don't want to be.

The real bullshit is between your ears--you and only you can fix it.

They are not bad at this. You are bad at understanding it.

I work with this stuff, and I do understand it. Some of my colleagues are actively participating in USB-IF workgroups, although not the ones responsible for naming end user facing things. They come to me for advice when those other workgroups changed some names retroactively again and we need to make sure we are still backwards compatible with things that rely on those names and that we are not confusing our customers more than necessary.

That is why I am very confident in claiming those naming schemes are bad.

"don’t even bother learning it" is my advice for normal end users, and I do stand by it.

But the names are not hard if you bother to learn them.

Never said it is hard.

It is more complex than it needs to be.

It is internally inconsistent.

Names get changed retroactively with new spec releases.

None of that is hard to learn, just not worth the effort.

There is some stuff to be learned, but especially with USB-C I'd say the vast majority are not labeled. There's even some devices charged with USB C that can't be charged with a PD charger and need an A to C cable. Phones are a great example where you have to look up the specs to know data transfer capabilities. Additionally they renamed the USB 3.0 standard which has been established for over a decade to USB 3.1 Gen 1 which is completely unnecessary and just serves to confuse. The standard was largely understandable with USB 3.0 generally being blue or at least a color other than black and on decently modern devices USB 2.0 would be black. With USB-C indication has just about gone out the window and what used to be a very simple to understand standard has now become nearly impossible to understand without having researched every device and cable you interact with.

And that's the real issue with the USB spec, almost everything is optional. This would be fine if cables were largely interchangeable, but they're not.

What they should have are a handful of very well-defined tiers. Cables should maybe have three (basic, mid-range, high end), and ports can have a couple more.

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.

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.

I remember having a FireWire in one of the family desktops when I was a kid. Can't remember what we might have used it for, though.

It resides in the same vague memory hole as the Zip drive that we had.

Now that was a peripheral protocol standard.

sigh

Reddit was the same exact way. I don't know how people are messing it up here too.

Don't confuse a CE mark with a CE mark

For the people don't know.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_(number)#In_neo-Nazism

That's for USB 14.

Duplicated message

Not in Germany, they renamed it to MS Anne.

🌎👨‍🚀🔫👨‍🚀

You mean the MS Anne

This has already been fixed by the forum FYI, the new spec is to just put clear text labels that denote the capability of the port. I can't find the article I read but this one has an example of the new user-facing branding.

https://tidbits.com/2022/09/29/usb-simplifies-branding/

Why can't I tether my phone to my laptop with two out of three of my cables?

I have an Android phone with a USB-C port and a laptop with (several) USB-C ports.

I have three cables that I carry with me: a USB-C-to-USB-C cable, a second USB-C-to-USB-C cable, and a USB-A-to-USB-C cable. None of these are charging-only power cables, and I've used them for data connections.

One of the USB-C-to-USB-C -- an unmarked cable -- permits for USB tethering to be used.

The other two do not.

The other USB-C-to-USB-C cable even has USB 3.1 symbol.

I don't know why.

Looking more-closely, it looks like the other two don't have a data connection established between the Android phone and the laptop from the laptop's perspective. They've let me do so with other devices.

Checking what data transfer rates a given cable supports electrically

As far as I can tell, there isn't a way to query the "e-marker" on a USB cable from Linux today; I found a comment from someone saying that kernel support is still being worked on. You can use lsusb -t to show the negotiated speed between two devices, so can use them to infer the speed, as long as you have fast-enough devices at both ends of the cable.

https://lemmy.world/post/18014298

What USB PD rates does a USB cable or power consumer or charger support?

I don't know of a good way to determine this from a user standpoint. Note that this is a matrix of voltages and currents, so it isn't just "I support up to rate X". Also, not all devices display the rate of power that they are providing or consuming -- in fact, most don't. My Android phone, a reasonably-sophisticated device and one with a display and capable of both providing or consuming power, doesn't show the rate of power consumption or provision, just "slow" or "fast", without additional software. I understand that that software doesn't work on all Android hardware.

I have -- had -- a laptop that just won't charge if a charger doesn't support a certain USB PD profile, which its provided charger did but not all charging devices did.

When I plug in two devices that both support USB PD, which is the consumer and which the provider?

When I'm in my car, I typically I have three devices that have USB PD ports and can either provide or consume power -- a large powerstation, a laptop, and a phone. I eventually learned a few facts:

First, the direction in which power is being provided via USB PD is independent of which device is operating as a USB host or device using USB OTG ports; it's possible for the direction to be different from the direction of power provision.

Second, apparently the direction of host/device order is random, and devices just remember the host/device direction for a certain amount of time, so that if you plug two USB OTG devices into each other and the direction is not what you want, the idea is that you can figure it out from one or more of the devices indicating this and then unplug them and plug them in again to get transfer in the other direction.

Third, as best I can tell empirically, USB PD does the same random thing.

This creates all kinds of fun if one device powers off and then on again or something; my laptop can start draining its power to my powerstation (generally not what I want), or my phone to my laptop, since all the USB PD ports in question support USB PD in both directions.

Which end is which on an active USB cable?

I have an active optical USB cable, which I obtained so that I could put my computer in a closet, a long way from the rest of my devices; USB on copper has very limited range at present-day speeds without a repeater. It functions in only one direction in terms of data transfer (and obviously can't move power). That particular manufacturer labeled it, though there's no standard for labeling that.

In sum

USB does have reasonably good fallback, so most cables and most devices tend to sort of do something to some degree -- they move some amount of power and some rate of data, though some devices have hard demands on what they need and there isn't a great way to assess what a cable or device supports in most cases from an end user standpoint. But it definitely could be a lot better from my standpoint.

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.

the colors are just for aesthetics.

Blue is a convention to indicate USB 3. Of course, not everyone actually implements that, and USB-C ports don't, as far as I know, do that at all, just USB-A.

My current desktop does both -- the case has USB ports on the top that come off a USB header from the motherboard, which have a simple number "3.0" pointing at its USB-A ports in front, but uses black plastic for them. The motherboard's USB connectors in back use the "blue plastic" convention on its USB-A 3 ports, and black plastic on its USB-A 2 ports. The motherboard also labels the USB 3 ports by having a text label reading "USB 3.2", which isn't listed on OP's set of symbols, and puts symbols on them.

Not on all vendors tho - coloring was an optional part of the standard. Dell often uses grey for USB3

and Orange or Yellow are usually “always on” and/or 2.4 amp or some other kind of thing like that.

It's the variety and surprise here that adds novelty and excitement to life.

https://www.usbmemorydirect.com/blog/usb-port-colors/

The blue USB port is also known as USB 3.0 or SuperSpeed (SS) USB. It was introduced in 2008 and offers a data transfer speed of up to 5 Gbps, which is more than 10 times faster than USB 2.0. In addition, it can transfer data in both directions simultaneously.

I definitely have a number of devices that use newer-than-USB 3.0 and use blue.

The teal USB port is also known as the USB 3.1 Gen 1 or SuperSpeed+ (SS+) USB. Released in 2013, it supports up to 10 Gbps data transfer speed, which is twice as fast as USB 3.0. The color is similar to USB 3.0, but it will appear as slightly more green-toned than the classic blue of 3.0. This is the easiest way to differentiate USB 3.0 vs 3.1 ports.

I don't think any of my devices actually use teal, regardless of what they support. Oh...hmm. Wait, I think my last desktop motherboard did that.

goes to investigate

Yeah, it has teal and blue ports.

My current motherboard uses blue or red for everything USB-A, so clearly isn't using blue to indicate "USB 3.0", and labels every port, blue or red, in English as "USB 3.2". So it clearly isn't using the port color to indicate purely speed.

The red USB port is generally classified as USB 3.2, which was released in 2017. However, it can also be used to indicate a USB 3.1 Gen 2 port.

Another source of novelty and excitement.

Yellow USB Port Meaning

The yellow USB port is another color that can indicate either USB 3.2 or USB 3.1 Gen 2.

So much excitement.

The yellow USB port is more commonly found on laptops while the red USB port is more commonly found on desktop computers. This is because the yellow USB port indicates that it is always on, meaning it will continue to draw power even when the computer is turned off or in sleep mode. As a result, you can generally use it to charge other devices, such as smartphones.

Hennimore!!!

DisplayPort not to be confused with display port, when someone asks you for a "display port cable" and you start going to pick one of VGA/HDMI/DVI cables instead.

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.

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

Dungeon Party

Like that guarantees quality.

If you're ok with some bulk, go for an nvme enclosure. I have a sabrent one with a 256 GB crucial gen 3 drive in it, it's a slow cheap drive, still substantially better than any usb key and you can put one together for under $100 cad including a longer high speed cable.

I just did a fresh install off of my usb key and wow, super slow compared to any time I've done off my enclosure

But will that be better or worse than USB 3.3 gen 2 extra super speed?

Was that the first one that had M Bison as a playable character?

We're not calling it that anymore. It's been rebranded to "SuperDuper Speed USB ]|[" now. Note that this is a different standard than the previous "SuperDuper Speed USB 3," and under no circumstances should you call it "SuperDuper Speed USB 3.0," because there was never any such spec and pedantic nerds will climb up your nose in the comments if you ever utter it.

And Knuckles

They also change existing terms for no good reason.

I find it hilarious that Apple did that with the iPhone 15. Gave the current technology to only the pro models 😂

They are such grimy bastards I swear, probably saved $1 just to make you pic the pro

My headphones (Sennheiser Momentum 4) have Bluetooth, USB, and phone jack support. When using Bluetooth mode with the latest firmware update, they sporadically shut down while using in Bluetooth Multipoint mode.

I used headphones for decades very happily with a 1/8th inch jack.

They weren't perfect.

• Some devices used a 1/4 inch jack. This at least was electrically-compatible, so one just needed a cheap, appropriately-shaped piece of metal to adapt them.
• The 1/8th inch jack connector took up enough space that the smartphone guys eventually mostly banished it from phones, to try to get a bit more space in the device.
• There wasn't a standard impedance. While most consumer devices used more-or-less the same impedance (and if you had to, you could just adjust the volume up or down slightly with different headphones) some higher-end headphones required a headphones amplifier that could push more power.
• When you plugged a device in, it briefly shorted the connector, and made a lot of noise.
• It wasn't wireless (which could be seen as a minus or plus, depending upon whether you wanted ability to walk away from a computer in exchange for a set of other complexities and issues).
• It couldn't transmit power (well, not much; there was a convention for doing so that didn't become widespread). That became more significant with the rise of headphones with active noise cancellation, which would need at least some way to get power to the headphones.

But honestly, those were mostly pretty minor problems. Headphones just worked in virtually all cases.

I didn't have to worry about whether-or-not my headphones supported a given sampling rate, the number of devices that could connect to my headphones, wireless interference, or physical plug compatibility aside from the 1/8th inch and 1/4 inch issue (well, and occasionally 2.5mm headset connectors on phones). USB audio didn't resolve the calibrated volume issue, one of the few annoyances I had with the analog connector. I have one set of Bluetooth headphones that start breaking up when I leave the room with the transceiver and another that work flawlessly across the house. I have charging rates to worry about, and whether the device is smart enough to have a battery management system capable of prolonging battery life by shutting off charging at appropriate points. The protocol and physical connector for telephone jacks has changed twice over the past hundred+ years, once to add a ring (for stereo) and once to move from 1/4 inch to 1/8th inch. The Bluetooth and USB standards, while providing for some level of backwards compatibility, have changed like some people change socks. There are different audio protocols (and in some cases competing audio codecs, like LDAC vs aptX). Lossy compression becomes an issue with Bluetooth. Some devices don't support some sampling rates; analog headphones don't care. Having (effectively) zero-latency pass-through mixing is guaranteed doable with any analog headphones with the appropriate mixer, so that one can hear some other audio source live; that's not an option with Bluetooth or USB headphones.

I do like active noise cancellation, and the wireless functionality can occasionally be handy (though in general, it isn't a game-changer for me). But I feel like the user experience has gotten a lot more problematic, in general.

Same with my keyboard, and I appreciate the compatibility. If it doesn't need anything faster than 2.0 speeds, there's no reason to include more expensive parts.

It's also important to permit use of adapters for backwards compatibility. Like, if we stop having computers with A ports, there are still gonna be some very expensive devices out there that have A ports. You aren't going to throw out your electron microscope with a USB A port because the USB guys have decided that USB-C being reversible is cool.

Seriously, as an IT person, I still never know what most of my USB ports are capable of, but I'm glad they are backwards compatible. If something is slow, then I try a different cable and port.