Reversible USB Cable Design Finished

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The new USB Type-C cable design is finished. Now all you have to do is wait until manufacturers start using this and then we'll still be stuck needing "old" USB cables until devices that use them are finally phased out. ;)
 
While its smart, the whole appeal of USB over competing formats I always thought was its backwards compatibility.
 
Ducman69 said:
While its smart, the whole appeal of USB over competing formats I always thought was its backwards compatibility.
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Though there isn't full backwards compatibility between original, micro, mini, etc. already -- correct? I know the new 3.0 design is backwards with micro, but I still have to have a pile of USB cables for all of devices through the years.

Reversible would certainly be nice, and going to back to the smaller plug compared to the current giant 3.0 plug format. At this point I'm not really worried about needing another USB cable as I've gotten used to it... and at least they are always consistently cheap (unlike Apple's offerings).
 
As far as I know this is the design for peripherals but not necessarily what you'll find on the towers?
 
kreno said:
As far as I know this is the design for peripherals but not necessarily what you'll find on the towers?
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Someone on another forum said that the plan is for devices and hosts to have this new Type-C connector.

There will be a "chicken-n-egg" syndrome for the first couple of years though. They will have to make a cable with a traditional Type-A plug on one end for your older computer if your new phone has the new Type-C connector. It will take a long time for these new Type-C connectors to appear on computers, phones, printers, hard drives, etc.

But eventually... all USB devices will have Type-C connectors.

That's a hell of a lot better than this:

usb-connectors.JPG
 
I'll come back to this around.. hmm.. 2020 or so when all this is actually sorted out and being used in real devices I can buy!!
 
Ducman69 said:
While its smart, the whole appeal of USB over competing formats I always thought was its backwards compatibility.
Click to expand...

They did all that work to make sure USB3.0 was backwards compatible port wise and now they propose this? Why not just do this in the first place and get it over with?
 
Ok, sure we have type-C, but I still barely have any devices that use 3.0. A new cable is nice and all, but I didn't realize we were actually fully utilizing 3.0!
 
AaronGant said:
is the plug & receptical any stronger or more durable than the micro we use now?
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If judging by the way it has been since the first USB connector, it'll be more fragile and prone to breakage just by looking at it. :D
 
rhouck said:
Though there isn't full backwards compatibility between original, micro, mini, etc. already -- correct?
Click to expand...
Traditionally USB cables have a host (A) end and a device (B) end.

The B end is all over the place with standard, mini and micro sizes, USB 3 variants with one-way compatibility (you can put a 2.0 B plug in a 3.0 B socket but not vice-versa), propietary connectors, captive cables, devices abusing host connectors as device connectors and so-on.

The A end on the other hand has largely stayed with the same design. There are mini and micro A plugs but they are rarely used (only supposed to be used in on-the-go and embedded host situations and afaict mini-a has now been removed from the spec completely). The USB3 variant was designed to allow compatibility in both directions.

The result is that generally you can take a device and the cable that came with a device and plug it into any generation of USB computer.

It looks like this new connector intends to move away from that and use new connectors on both the host and device end. It will be interesting to see if that actually happens or not.
 
Honestly, plugging in a USB cable, especially the standard one, can sometimes be the most frustrating thing to do. I'm talking about this mostly from a perspective where you don't have optimal vision on the port. It's almost like trying to fit a square into the the triangle slot.
 
Term-X said:
Honestly, plugging in a USB cable, especially the standard one, can sometimes be the most frustrating thing to do. I'm talking about this mostly from a perspective where you don't have optimal vision on the port. It's almost like trying to fit a square into the the triangle slot.
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Not. Even. Close.


Try cabling a portable dimmer rack with Socapex. Worlds. Worst. Standard. Cabling. Interconnect.
 
plugwash said:
Traditionally USB cables have a host (A) end and a device (B) end.

The B end is all over the place with standard, mini and micro sizes, USB 3 variants with one-way compatibility (you can put a 2.0 B plug in a 3.0 B socket but not vice-versa), propietary connectors, captive cables, devices abusing host connectors as device connectors and so-on.

The A end on the other hand has largely stayed with the same design. There are mini and micro A plugs but they are rarely used (only supposed to be used in on-the-go and embedded host situations and afaict mini-a has now been removed from the spec completely). The USB3 variant was designed to allow compatibility in both directions.

The result is that generally you can take a device and the cable that came with a device and plug it into any generation of USB computer.

It looks like this new connector intends to move away from that and use new connectors on both the host and device end. It will be interesting to see if that actually happens or not.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I completely missed the part about changing the A end, as that's definitely a huge change. I thought this was just another iteration on the B end.
 
Actually I feel like USB has been pretty amazing in terms of compatibility. The first computer I had with USB dates back to 1997 yet I could still take a modern USB 3.0 type-A connector and plug it right in to the USB 1.x ports on the motherboard of that old computer if I wanted.

All of the confusing BS came from phones, demanding smaller connectors. Phones have always been about patchwork standards that come and go quickly.
 
the-one1 said:
If judging by the way it has been since the first USB connector, it'll be more fragile and prone to breakage just by looking at it. :D
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Not thrilled with this new type C plug myself for that reason.

It actually reintroduces the design flaw they tried to mitigate with MicroUSB: Moving the clips to the cable and not to the socket.

Lightning Connectors have this same flaw: The clips that hold the cable in place are inside the socket and become loose over time. This is the same issue that plagued Mini USB. At least with MicroUSB, if the cable was too loose to stay in the plug, all you had to do was replace the cable with a new one since the part that wore down was on the cable and not inside the plug.
 
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