I wanted to share this opinion on Hackaday about a topic that is the usefulness of a something that has become ubiquitous relatively fast.
This techonolgyy has a lot of potential, what do you think?
I’m in my 40s and therefore generally in the “get off my lawn, kids” age.
But I totally agree with that article. I’ve converted quite a few legacy devices with barrel jack to USB-C - and got rid of a huge box of junky old power bricks. Especially for devices I only use occasionally I don’t want to search for the matching power bricks - I just want to plug it into one of the 4 USB-C PD sockets I have installed into my desk.
It was until Raspberry Pi fucked it up by calling 5V5A “USB PD”.
I have a love/hate relationship with USB. The form factor of USB-C is fine, that’d be great to standardize it, but mechanically I prefer Apple’s lightning connector.
After multiple projects I’ve worked on that involved wiring up devices to use USB in ways other than the creator of USB intended, USB can fuck right off. I watched a video on how to properly wire up a shielded cable and the guy said that the creator of USB had no idea of how electricity flows through devices and now I agree.
Edit: I’m curious why I’m getting downvoted.
I think the entire design was based on working around Apple’s patents.
Citation please? Apple was part of the USB-C Specification Working Group. Despite their obsession with the Lightning connector, they were also the ones who made USB-C-only laptops.
I generally like USB-PD, as you can generally plug in any PD compliant device into any PD compliant charger and it will charge. The connector doesn’t even matter, PD works over Lightning and for example MagSafe as well.
What I found to be lacking are these multi-port charging bricks. They do a solid job at charging battery-powered devices, but most of them renegotiate the power contract with every connected device when you plug another one in or remove one. I tried multiple chargers by Anker, Ugreen and Belkin and they all do that. Apparently Apple’s dual 35 watts USB-C charger doesn’t, but manages to renegotiate without a momentary disconnect. It’s only 35 watts though, so it’s not practical for many use cases.
I carry around a two port 110w GaN charger for the laptops. Fast charges everything else.
Which model is it?
Anker something. It’s fucking dope.
What hurray? USB-C and PD are both monstrosities (though of course the mini and micro USB connectors were even worse). We already had a perfectly good low power standard, regular 5 volt USB. It’s just that higher power was wanted. But we have that already too, automotive 12 volt DC, and various options after that. It’s just the mobile phone industry’s obsession with thin, tiny connectors that are causing this.
