<story><title>USB-C is about to go from 100W to 240W, enough to power beefier laptops</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2021/5/25/22453936/usb-c-power-delivery-extended-power-range-epr</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>madsbuch</author><text>Or! We could go one step further, and change the connector to make sure that people use them correctly. Wouldn&amp;#x27;t that be clever!?</text></item><item><author>grlass</author><text>I wonder if the the committee have looked at integrating colour or some other indicator into the standard so that cable&amp;#x2F;port capabilities are clear visually.&lt;p&gt;Though ofc the design challenge is for users to feel comfortable that putting red into blue won&amp;#x27;t break anything, it just might not give the expected features.</text></item><item><author>neither_color</author><text>And every time I buy a new device and &lt;i&gt;think&lt;/i&gt; I&amp;#x27;ll be able to use my existing USB-C cables I&amp;#x27;m met with a new standard. Bought a new external GPU enclosure? My macbook charging cable wont work I need a 40gbps thunderbolt THREE(not 2) cable. Bought a new Oculus Quest? Neither my egpu or macbook cables work I need an $80 LINK cable.</text></item><item><author>grawprog</author><text>I haven&amp;#x27;t had to delve into the world of trying to find an appropriate USB-C cable until fairly recently. I didn&amp;#x27;t actually understand the situation thinking a replacement USB-C cable should just work.&lt;p&gt;Oh hell no and none of the packaging actually explains what features a cable supports, none of them actually explain what the cable is actually compatible with. The little android logo doesn&amp;#x27;t mean shit. Sure, you might be able to slowly charge your phone with a particular cable, but it doesn&amp;#x27;t  mean it&amp;#x27;ll do anything else it&amp;#x27;s supposed to do.</text></item><item><author>cletus</author><text>I look forward to USB 4.1a Type C.2 Phase iii.b Gen 3E and the 482646282 different cable capability combinations that all plug in and have no distinction of those capabilities whatsoever. I also look forward to all the necessary and helpful posts telling me how the identical ports on my laptop are in fact diffferent despite their identical appearance.&lt;p&gt;But at least everything uses the same plug, so that’s nice.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>samatman</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t actually want this. I would rather have the problems that come with incompatible cables than the problems which come with incompatible ports.&lt;p&gt;In particular, if my Thunderbolt ports didn&amp;#x27;t support bog-standard USB, that would suck. I would need special ports which weren&amp;#x27;t as powerful, or even more dongles, or both.&lt;p&gt;As it stands, things are.. fine, actually. I have one TB cable that works on everything, and a small handful of USB-C cables which work on most things. and a USB-C-or-Thunderbolt-and-I-don&amp;#x27;t-know-or-care to DisplayPort which stays plugged into my monitor. and a USB-C-or-Thunderbolt-etc to microHDMI for my camera.</text></comment>
<story><title>USB-C is about to go from 100W to 240W, enough to power beefier laptops</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2021/5/25/22453936/usb-c-power-delivery-extended-power-range-epr</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>madsbuch</author><text>Or! We could go one step further, and change the connector to make sure that people use them correctly. Wouldn&amp;#x27;t that be clever!?</text></item><item><author>grlass</author><text>I wonder if the the committee have looked at integrating colour or some other indicator into the standard so that cable&amp;#x2F;port capabilities are clear visually.&lt;p&gt;Though ofc the design challenge is for users to feel comfortable that putting red into blue won&amp;#x27;t break anything, it just might not give the expected features.</text></item><item><author>neither_color</author><text>And every time I buy a new device and &lt;i&gt;think&lt;/i&gt; I&amp;#x27;ll be able to use my existing USB-C cables I&amp;#x27;m met with a new standard. Bought a new external GPU enclosure? My macbook charging cable wont work I need a 40gbps thunderbolt THREE(not 2) cable. Bought a new Oculus Quest? Neither my egpu or macbook cables work I need an $80 LINK cable.</text></item><item><author>grawprog</author><text>I haven&amp;#x27;t had to delve into the world of trying to find an appropriate USB-C cable until fairly recently. I didn&amp;#x27;t actually understand the situation thinking a replacement USB-C cable should just work.&lt;p&gt;Oh hell no and none of the packaging actually explains what features a cable supports, none of them actually explain what the cable is actually compatible with. The little android logo doesn&amp;#x27;t mean shit. Sure, you might be able to slowly charge your phone with a particular cable, but it doesn&amp;#x27;t  mean it&amp;#x27;ll do anything else it&amp;#x27;s supposed to do.</text></item><item><author>cletus</author><text>I look forward to USB 4.1a Type C.2 Phase iii.b Gen 3E and the 482646282 different cable capability combinations that all plug in and have no distinction of those capabilities whatsoever. I also look forward to all the necessary and helpful posts telling me how the identical ports on my laptop are in fact diffferent despite their identical appearance.&lt;p&gt;But at least everything uses the same plug, so that’s nice.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Klinky</author><text>People already incorrectly buy USB A when they should have bought USB C or visa versa. Changing the physical form-factor doesn&amp;#x27;t solve this problem.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I thought I needed a USB cable&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;Also it&amp;#x27;s a huge waste if say an HDMI 2.1 cable cannot be used on an HDMI 2.0&amp;#x2F;1.4 device. People would complain about that too.</text></comment>