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USB Type-C

There'due south a basic supposition that underlies cable purchases, even amid techies. It's the idea that almost cables are created equal, and that you can grab any cable from a well-regarded supplier or manufacturer and come up out on top. Recent reviews at Amazon from Google engineer Benson Leung claiming this exclamation as it applies to USB Type-C cables, and the results aren't pretty.

Leung is a software engineer on the Chrome OS team, as well as an engineer on the Chromebook Pixel and Pixel C teams. He's reviewed multiple USB Type-C convertor cables manufactured by companies like Frieq, CableCreation, Belkin, Monba, Kupx, iOrange, Juiced Systems, Orzly, and Techmatte, evaluating each for whether or not it meets the USB group's specifications. The results are mixed (to put it mildly).

USB Type-C port

A USB Type-C port next to USB iii.0

The Frieq, Belkin, and iOrange cables all run into the relevant USB-IF specifications for their respective features. The residue accept one of 2 serious problems. CableCreation's adapters advertise themselves as beingness 3A capable, but don't comprise internal circuitry capable of supporting that power level. Instead of using a resistor of value 56kΩ, CableCreation used a 10kΩ pull-up. A device capable of drawing 3A might attempt to practise so, with rather ugly results. The Kupx and Techmatte adapters accept the exact same problem, while Monba's adapter doesn't identify itself properly at all.

Several manufacturers accept dedicated their product specifications, merely with no great success. The trouble, as Leung explains, is equally follows:

Past setting the 3A resistor setting, you may cause impairment to wall chargers, hubs, or PC USB ports that are NOT rated at 3A because the device volition attempt to pull 3A and while the Type-A host on the other side may exist Anything made with a USB-A port since 1997.

The specification dictates that you MUST employ a 56K pullup to identify equally 'Default USB Power' source if you utilise a legacy cablevision in order to protect weaker chargers, hubs, and PCs that have been made in the last eighteen years…

Using your bad USB cable, I have personally seen a loftier quality Anker charger in a dark-brown out wheel continuously until I unplugged your cable and my Type C device charging from it.

By selling a cable that has a Type-A plug on one side but a resistor that should only be used when there is pure Type-C charging path (ie, C-C cable to a C port), you chance dissentious people'south older hardware with your out-of-spec cablevision.

Cable quality: Like shooting fish in a barrel to lie about, difficult to verify

It's neat to see someone tackling this result, fifty-fifty if the results are only given in relation to Chromebook Pixel hardware. Some cables are easy to exam for functionality — either they work or they don't — merely many aren't that accommodating. All of the USB Type-C cables Leung tested will technically work,but if you connect them to incorrect hardware, you may end upwardly with damaged equipment. That kind of failure mode is invisible to the consumer; people tend to assume that their chargers "but work" unless presented with dramatic prove to the contrary.

Super-positioned USB

The perennial problem USB Type-C is supposed to fix.

If you have a Chromebook Pixel from 2022 and desire to bank check whether or not your USB Type-C cable contains the proper hardware, Leung has posted instructions on how to do so over on Google+. While Leung isn't representing that these cables are a poor selection for anything merely the Chromebook Pixel, the issues he'southward identified would exist mutual to whatever hardware. It'south particularly important that companies get these issues right, since USB Type-C typically requires these converters to function with legacy equipment. So far, in that location are also many companies dropping the ball.