What kind of piece-of-shit cheapest junk cables do you guys buy? Is it another 0.99$ Amazon/aliexpress cable that you expect handles 130W charging while transmitting 10GB/s or similar?

I have cca 10 different usbc devices, and use all their provided cables to charge all other accessories. All works as expected, charges fast, transfers fast. The key is to not cheapen out and buy the cheapest crap. Just like with anything else in life.

For low-speed (USB 2.0) devices, there are exactly three cables. One supports up to 60W, one supports up to 100W, and one supports up to 100W.

Considering all the devices you listed need less than 60W, they should charge with all cables. If they do not, the manufacturer gave you a broken cable which does not follow the USB-C specification. Blame the manufacturer, not USB-C.

I have one 100W ucbc cable and can charge absolutely everything in my house with it, maybe just buy one good cable?

> Most of the time, you avoid problems of "PD device hierarchy" by using a proper charger (i.e. a device that only has the functionality to charge other devices).

The problem is with the "most", which means you can't count on it.

I have usb-c headphones that can be charged with my hp usb-c laptop charger (which is a "proper charger", I guess, since it only does charging) or from a regular computer usb port. They don't pretend to have any high-powered charge mode (manual says 3 hour charge time and "usb charging").

My usb-c ecig won't charge from that. It will only charge from either my pc's usb-a port or random "low power" usb phone charger.

I haven't tested it with any of the fancier high-powered adapters, since I don't own any. But, clearly, usb-c charging ports are not that universal.

Using the Xbox controller cable with an actual charger does work. The confusion came with how the PC delivers power to the controller but not the headset.

It’s ultimately not a big deal, and it’s surely something I can learn to intuit. But I think lots of consumers (I think about my poor mother) would benefit from a clearer labeling scheme on the various devices, ports, chargers, or cables.

Yeah, I totally agree. The only annoyance I see is that you have to experiment with what cables and power adapters through trial and error to find what works with particular devices. I mentioned in a different reply in this thread that there ought to be some kind of consumer-friendly labeling on these things, so that you can see at a glance what will work with what.