The current naming is silly and unhelpful.
Similarly, on the data side, can your “USB-C 40G 45W” port be used to directly connect to a display via a USB-C to DisplayPort cable? Will it support Thunderbolt 4, e.g., can it connect to a TB4 dock and drive two 4K 60hz displays from a single cable?
USB is a mess. Your suggestion is admirable, but given what the spec already supports, I don’t think there’s a way to convey all the info that should be conveyed in a short, easy to remember way.
Would require compliance testing beyond what is currently done for cables, but would also remove ambiguity for the user.
`USB-<connector> <protocol>.<speed>.<max_voltage>.<max_amperage>`
E.g.
* `USB-C 3.20.15.3` for 20Gbps (although this doesn't tell you how many layers, and what encoding), 15V, 3A or `USB-C 3.5.4.1` where the `.5` maps to the data transfer speed of 20Gbps over 2 lanes with 128b/132b encoding, the `.4` maps to max voltage of, say, 20V, and the `.1` maps to 2.25A (this way you don't have to deal with fractional amperages)
each version is an exact spec so we could go to like USB500 and the cables would still be different because it could be like a SKU?
I guess at some point I'll need to buy a USB-C tester that can spit out the data/charging speed and things like if it supports TB3/4/etc.
Why is every standards body seemingly incapable of sane naming? The same thing just happened with WiFi semi-recently.
"WiFi 6": Oh thankfully we have sane naming after years of B/G/AC/AX/etc
"WiFi 6E": WTF were they thinking?
What we have now is a bunch of different types of serial busses that all happen to use one of a handful of different connectors. Even if we ignore everything but the USB-C connector, we have a bunch of different types of serial busses that all use the same connector.
Anyhow, super excited for this change. I love love love that home networking is futzing around with 2.5Gbps, but USB4+ has direct host-to-host attach at data-center speeds. The distance is way less but often people just want to plug their laptop into their NAS, and now there's amazing options built in on most computers (waiting for more NAS applicances!).
> USB4 Version 2.0 has also been updated to feature the latest versions of the DisplayPort standard and PCIe spec
Still love so much that we can tunnel all kinds of other protocols (DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, &c). Yeah, it's chaotic, but I love this chaos. Good chaos. Lots of possibilities chaos.
I disagree. Having to buy 5 cables (and return 4 of them) just to figure out which one supports the USB 4 spec correctly and doesn't have weird issues with Thunderbolt or DisplayPort is annoying. I shouldn't need to be an electrical engineer just to figure out whether it will work with a Thunderbolt hub, or deliver adequate speeds or display resolutions...
It literally dates back to USB 2, when USB 1 was helpfully renamed USB 2.0 full speed (as opposed to "high speed")
This chaos makes me very reluctant to use it at all.
- you have to make sure they support the wattage requirements you need.
- you have to make sure it isn’t power only and supports data.
- you have to make sure it supports the data speed you need
- you have to make sure it supports video over USB C - I have a portable USB C monitor.
- USB A/USB C on one end
- Micro USB, Lightning, and USB C on the other end
- 10Gbps data
- 100W power
- supports video over USB-C (4K 60Hz)
A cheaper not as universal alternative. But good enough to charge everything but my 16 inch MacBook Pro
An ereader released today likely comes with usb 2.0 because that’s all it needs. They won’t spent the extra to give it a 40gbps chip with 10 gigabit Ethernet like the usb 4 spec defines.
Differences between all those different standards and/or variants are huge and thus doesn't really matter how you name them, it's for sure going to be messy. Making it worse, they keep adding more sh*ts to it.
I used to know all my cables on which can do what. Since USB-C, I seriously became no idea at all, they all look the same, but differences are just like heaven and hell.