- > But I shouldn't have had to do any of this. It's time cables came with a label of their own, or some sort of color coding.
There shouldn't even need to be a label. A USB-C cable should be a USB-C cable should be a USB-C cable. There should be a single connectivity/performance spec, and if the cable meets it, it can be called a USB-C cable, and if it doesn't, it should have to be marketed as USB-JUNK or something.
This is what happens when the spec is awful and says "the cable must do 480Mbps, or it must do 40Gbps, or... whatever, have fun!"
- Unless you want all cables to be thick, $60, and cap out at 1 meter long, this is not a reasonable standard. 480mbps USB-C is perfectly adequate for many applications. Likewise for 60W cables.
- I have several 1m long TB4 cables (100W, video, 40Gbps) and they’re neither particularly thick nor were they anywhere close to $60.
The best you can get is TB5 (240W, up to 120 Gbps data transfer) and at 1m long they’re $32 or so from CableMatters. Those are admittedly somewhat thicker, but not stiff.
I wish there was a higher baseline data transfer mandated for usb-c. Sure, 40gbps isn’t needed for all cables, but is some piddly 5gbps too much to ask? We had usb 2.0 speeds back when CPUs just barely entered 1 GHz range, it’s practically ancient technology. Admittedly most people never transfer any data over usb, but with this logic we might as well have usb-c that does charging only. Being able to pick any cable and have 5 gbps baseline means that any usb-c cable is fundamentally usable, if slow. 480 mbps is… ugh.
I don’t have an issue with 60W being the baseline, it’s enough for most laptops and the average GaN charger is 65 W (or less) anyway.
- So, call it USB-D or something, if one cable is significantly different (in purpose, performance, form factor) than another cable. Don't just call everything the same label, and let the non-technical buyer beware.
- Okay, great, it’s called USB-D. Is this a new connector? Or do we now need to resort to labeling cables and checking the label?
Do we do this for every new version and combination of versions for USB? USB-PD? Thunderbolt? DisplayPort?
- USB-A has many variants and we don’t call it a different connector. Heck, USB-B and micro USB both have 3.0 variants that are physically different and we don’t call them something different either. I don’t see the problem here. This is just semantics, especially when they aren’t even labeled period… people just see a cable and will try plugging it in.
- The naming could be better for sure.
- > There shouldn't even need to be a label. A USB-C cable should be a USB-C cable should be a USB-C cable.
Then USB is forever frozen in time, unless we start using new connectors.
This was the tradeoff we got when standardizing on one connector. The protocol versions change (USB, USB-PD, Thunderbolt), the cables that go between each connector change based on the needs of the spec they supports. But the connectors stay the same.
In my opinion, this was a poor tradeoff and now we’re living in the hell we asked for.
If you want every cable to support the latest and greatest of whatever exists as of right now, you can do that. By all means, buy Apple’s USB-C Thunderbolt 5 cables. They’ll run you $70 apiece but you’ll be buying a cable that makes no compromises.
My personal approach is to just use whatever cable came with the device for anything for which that’s convenient and plausible. For mobile devices with relatively limited charging speeds over USB-PD and for which portability and durability are typically important, I buy the latest Apple woven cables. For high-bandwidth devices I spend the big bucks on the Apple Thunderbolt 5 cables. I discard any cables of unknown provenance.
- USB-C is just a connector. A cable can be a USB-C connector USB 3.0, power delivery 3.1 cable, or it can be a USB-C connector Thunderbolt 4 cable, or it can be a USB-C connector DisplayPort 1.4 cable.
- I think you didn't put a lot of research in before making this recommendation. Labels make more sense because the top tier USB c specs are darn expensive.....
- I use one of these to check the wiring of the USB cables I get, especially if I'm getting a weird one. I've always been a little freaked out by the story of that Google employee who posted very trusted USB-C cable reviews to Amazon, then got his equipment fried by one that crossed the wires.
https://www.tindie.com/products/bittradeone/usb-cable-checke...
But when I care about performance, I just get a cable from Anker and don't worry too much about it.
BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS: WHERE CAN I GET ONE OF THOSE TINY GREEN MILK CREATES IN THE PHOTO?
- I came up with a color code based on the wiring: Red for Power Only, Blue for USB 2.0, Green for USB 3 (the ones with the extra pairs connected). I use paint pens to mark every cable I come across with this code. Generally speaking, only the Green ones have special PD emarker chips.
It doesn't cover every possible configuration, but it's good enough for when I'm like "I need a USB cable" vs "I need a good USB cable"
I use this tester: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CF95VL2Y
- E markers are required for USB3, so that’s why. If you have a cable capable of 100 or 240W, they will also have a marker (it’s required), even if they only do USB2 speeds.
- > Any cable that can transfer data faster than USB 2.0 speeds also requires a chip to do so.
I always found this confusing because USB 3.0 Micro-B cables can transfer data faster than USB 2.0 without needing an e-marker, so why do USB-C cables need one if they already have the Tx and Rx SuperSpeed wires?
It seems like the answer is, roughly, "it's complicated".
https://old.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/1ow1tpf/why_d...
https://old.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/13j0gev/do_us...
- If you’re following USB-C standard, all cables with faster data than 480mbps and more power than 60W require an e marker, period. Whether devices will still function for USB3 without that marker… that’s another story and will depend on the device.
- Related discussion “The USB Situation” (3 months ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47950993
re: https://randsinrepose.com/guides/usb/usb-guide.html
Apple sells this $30 (0.5m) CalDigit cable https://www.apple.com/shop/product/hs9d2zm/a/ and this $70 (1m) Apple cable https://www.apple.com/shop/product/mdw94am/a/
There's also some interesting discussion of Thunderbolt 5 cables on reddit (6 months ago): https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/1r84q54/
- Does HN allow spammy posts written for the sake of sharing an affiliate link? Surprised to see this here.
- LTT has created true spec cables with the actual spec mentioned on the cables but they can not keep up with demand despite being expensive get sold out as soon as new stock comes in.
- They are not TB5 compatible though, and if you are going to drive monitors through it, or connect external GPU, 120Gbit (TB5) is much better than 40Gbit TB4 gives you. If you are willing to pay a bit more, consider TB5 cables from CalDigit, StarTech, CableMatters, or Apple.
- By chance, has anyone tested Cable Matters' cables?
I just bought a couple of their Thunderbolt™ 5 cables. They seem like a reputable company that would make their cables true-to-spec. Thanks in advance!
- I bought a 3-meter long USB C cable from them for data and display transfer, which turned out to be the only USB C cable of that length capable of driving my display at its full resolution and framerate. However, after a year of use, it stopped transferring any sort of data. So while they're probably up to spec, the quality isn't necessarily what their pricing may suggest.
Support allowed me to send it back for replacement as a "one-time exception", though I was well within the common 2-year warranty period in the EU.
- We had good results testing Cable Matters stuff here at work, but that was for non-critical use so I didn't go too hard on the tests. (Actually, I didn't go too hard on any of it since it was mostly make-work from a manager trying to cause trouble, but still....)
I was quite impressed by GlobTek (available at Digi-Key) and have been buying those when I need something nice. Their USB-C line are some of the best I've seen, not that I'm a connoisseur.
- I've not spec tested them, but astronomy gear is notoriously picky about USB cables and since I switched all of my cables to cable matters a lot of weird behaviors just stopped happening
- They are excellent.
- They also crackle out of the package, or at least the 5 I got did. Kind of sound like the thin glow sticks a bit.
- Could that possibly be shielding?
I can't say I've seen it on USB-C-esque cables (except maybe a thunderbolt cable a while back?) but I've seen some cables use a type of aluminum or mylar-looking foil between the outer rubber sleeve and the inner sleeves and wires.
- That shield is a drain wire combined with either a woven braid (most effective at lower frequencies) or a solid aluminized mylar foil (most effective at higher frequencies), or, for the best cables, both together.
A USB-C cable really should be shielded. Here's a cross-section I took of a nice full-featured USB-C cable: https://ibb.co/svR5Yvyr . You can see the VBUS/GND (fat red/black), the SS pairs (white plus red/blue/yellow/brown, each one foil shielded on this cable), the USB 1/2 pair (white/green), and then the CC and SBU stuff is the remaining wiring. Notice how not just the whole thing is braid+foil shielded, but the SS pairs are individually shielded; that's really important at these speeds, and what you want to see on a good cable.
Compare with two USB 2.0 cables: https://ibb.co/BHz4v1mx and https://ibb.co/GfpJmgbx ; the first one has the shield braid, as it should, but everything else is nicer on the second one. Cables!
- I have a few of these cables, pretty decent although I think the USB-C ports are a bit too thin? They feel lose in multiple of my devices
- I managed to get a few and so far am impressed. They are definitely on the chunky side but that probably comes with the durability
- My concern is stiffer cables are likely more likely to rip USB ports off the PCB. A lot of devices provide very little support to the USB port which is basically just hanging off pads on the PCB, so a stuff heavy cable could provide a lot more bending force to rip it off.
Phones and macbooks have it done right where the outer portion of the port is built in to the device body, but most other devices don't do this.
- That's an ad. There's a lot of cable testers around, most of them are crap. Cheap testers like this one are based on generic chips reading e-markers and aren't even guaranteed to support all quick charging standards. And bandwidth is another matter entirely.
- Yeah, I found it odd that the author started talking about bandwidth and data concerns, but then testing part is only about power-transfer.
- As always, these testers (the affordable ones) are capable of testing continuity, and, I guess, the cable chip report.
If you want to test bandwidth, that's a five- or six-figure bit of gear.
- This keeps needing to be pointed out every thread this appears on. Plenty of cables have eMarkers that claim "40Gbps" or whatever speeds, or support 240W PD...but absolutely cannot deliver either of those. And none of these consumer level testers can test either of those claims.
Resistance measurements can cursorily test claims of 240W but resistance changes with temperature which changes with current...so unless your tester puts 5 amps down the wire for 5 minutes and then tests resistance it's not a very good test.
- Yeah — "the eMarker said 40Gbps" is basically the same problem as trusting the print on the jacket.
For home use I've ended up treating real capability as an empirical property of the specific cable+port+device combo: does this exact cable drive this monitor at the mode I want, under load, for an hour? If yes, it gets a colored heat-shrink band and never leaves that use case. Everything else is a phone/charge cable until proven otherwise.
- Why on earth is so much more expensive than an arbitrary pair of devices that could max out a cable?
- Think about it.
You need to generate a precise, calibrated, 40GHz signal, transmit it, then precisely measure the returned signal for phase, amplitude, and waveform integrity -at that speed.
Oscilloscopes and logic analyzers that run at that speed, are damn expensive.
- It’s much cheaper to just buy your cables from Apple or LTT knowing they tested them on a 6 figure testing rig.
I throw out every usb cable that comes bundled with devices because they are literal junk.
- Interestingly, I have found a very mixed bag of USB-C cables I've collected over the years to generally just work for all my use cases. I can charge my various USB-C laptops at 65W with all the USB-C cables I have on hand. Maybe it's just my habit of just buying cables from known brands (Belkin is normally my go to) but I also have random cables that came with various devices of varying quality and all these also work just fine. I have a 6-port charging hub so I can see the charging wattage and I can easily get 65W to various laptops and a high capacity power bank, regardless of the cable being used. All cables also work fine for data transfer, although I confess I use USB-C for data transfer rarely so it is possible there is some variability there. YMMV but I wonder how much of this issue is just crappy low-end cables?
- Every not-broken USB C cable allows for 480Mbps USB 2 speeds and 60W charging. In USB C terms, it doesn't get any more basic than this; that's as low-and-slow the specification tolerates.
The issues come into play with going beyond that. USB 3 speeds? USB 4? Thunderbolt? DisplayPort (4k uncompressed video!) alt modes? 240W charging? These are all practical things that regular people use USB C cables for every day, but they require very specific support from the cables themselves, and that support is widely varied.
Your cables work fine for what you're doing with them, but you're really barely scratching the surface of the kinds of things that can be done. :)
- Not that I disagree with you, but I _wish_ "regular people" used 240W charging every day. As far as I can tell it's still pretty niche and hard to get 240W chargers
- Just convince the auto industry to use USB cables for electric car charging!
My desktop “server” with two 4K monitors doesn’t even reach 240W !
- What device would I encounter in my day to day which would use 240W charging though?
- It’s because you are using the lowest use case for usb (like most people). Literally everything can manage 65w power only.
All of these “usb sucks” posts are about using multiple 4k 120hz monitors dasychained while pumping 140w and a handful of other dongles hanging off which pushes usb to the limit and requires carefully selecting the highest quality cables.
- It's surprising to me you've been that lucky with Belkin. They do not have a good reputation. Maybe cables are easy so that's an easy bar to pass.
- What 6 port charging hub do you have? I have a broken UGREEN one.
- Verge recently posted this (free) app for testing on Mac's: https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/963759/whatcable-usb-c-cabl...
- This effectively only tells you what the E-Marker reports though, the actual capabilities of the cable are still unknown.
You can say the cable can do whatever you want on the E-Marker, its not the source of truth.
The problem is, to actually benchmark everything, voltage drop, resistance, actual bandwidth (especially at Thunderbolt 5 speeds) requires a lot of hardware.
Using a USB-C Test Controller ($13,000), connected to a Pro Keysight Infiniium oscilloscope ($258,809) is the proper way to test it. https://www.keysight.com/au/en/product/N7018A/type-c-test-co...
- Yes and no..
Oscilloscope is needed for things like frequency response.
but most consumer care only the power loss and bandwidth only.
- well, that's disappointing; someone needs to miniaturize that and reduce the cost massively
- It’ll never happen. Measuring to the proper Thunderbolt spec is only possible on literally the most cutting edge measurement equipment. Physics just won’t permit that being a gadget you can buy for $20 of whatever.
- They are just catching up with ShowHN:
- It's not actually free, it's $14 to unlock all the features.
- Can't actually read the Verge without a subscription either.
- Is there a cheap, reliable tester that someone can recommend that will test multiple USB cable types (A, micro & C)?
- $45 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DYJL5Z67
This is the one I use and I quite like it. I've had it for a little over a year and a half. I used it to sort (or trash) all my cables and to test new incoming cables.
- I just got this one a few days ago so it's kinda weird I've seen it mentioned or posted about multiple times since. Guerrilla marketing?
Anyway, it's definitely better than having nothing, and tests resistance as well. I tossed a couple low value/duplicate/high resistance cables because I've got too many just lying around causing clutter. Also helped 'confirm' my good (e.g. TB4+) cables that weren't labeled clearly are indeed good cables - granted, this is only as dependable as the marker chip the manufacturer added.
- If you just want to know what wires sets you have in your USB cables you can get the Gikfun "USB Cable Tester - Fast Check for Type-C/Lightning/RJ45 | Tests Charging Data Transfer | Continuity Check Quick Cable Sorting"
It's only $14.
It even offers test pads you can use to test the cable with a much more expensive multimeter.
- I'm not so sure about cheap. All the cheap ones I've tried have been pretty flaky, and ended up in the junk bin. I picked up this guy for work: https://bit-trade-one.co.jp/en/adusbcim/ and it's been pretty good. That was a while ago though, and some of the cheaper ones might have caught up.
- The whole space is so scammy that I'd pay for a good USB-C cable tester
- A consumer grade tester test only the continuity and read the chip.
To actually test for the bandwidth those are hell expensive.
Now people starting test for the chip, those scammers will install more fake chip ...
- But how can we know which tester is good and which one is scammy?
- With a USB-C cable tester tester, of course.
- I’ll bust your trace buster buster!
- I like your "who watches the watchers" reference, but AI's reviewing AI work, and notably, people reviewing people work, are subject to the same problem!
The same principles that worked for auditors tracking risk compliance in the 2000's now work for humans tracking AI-output risk compliance in 2026
- for throughput, you can use a stopwatch and a big movie transfer from one end to another
- I swear ive read this exact same thread with the exact same truepsec cable mention with the exact same amazon link for recommendations.
- I have completely stopped buying USB. I only rely on thunderbolt cables and hubs now.
- I'd like a HDMI cable tester as well, I can't seem to find one that works well with my high refresh monitor.
- Started using whatcable.uk app. Been amazing at finally knowing cable speed, but also device max speeds, and everything in between, without having to carry around one of those digital dongles with more limited use.
- If you want a super fast cable and high power thats where they get pricey. "Charge only" cables can often be fairly cheap and perform well even for laptops and high draw devices.
- I just pay a premium to a reliable source: Apple
Regardless of tests they do charge my most energy hungry devices and everything else
Many of us are privileged enough to make our lives easier in this way and haven't thought about it
- Just measuring the power info is limited use. I'm sure there's value for some people, but I only need to keep track of 0-2 high power cables.
> Your no-brand 480Mbps USB 2.0 cable is indistinguishable from the super-fast USB 4 cable that can move 40 gigabits (around 5 gigabytes) of data every single second.
One of those is way thicker than the other, at least.
I would love for something to force a speed and power rating on USB-C plugs.
- > One of those is way thicker than the other, at least.
I bet there's at least one brand with extra–thick plastic insulation.
- > I would love for something to force a speed and power rating on USB-C plugs.
This already exists. Cable makers can certify their cables and mark them with their data speed and wattage.
I buy only certified, marked cables. If I see an unmarked cable, I assume it’s slow and low-powered…which is good enough for some things.
- Isnt this what "USB-IF certified" is supposed to guarantee?
- USB-IF certified is a certification that the cable follows the spec, but that spans usb 2.0-only cables up to USB4v2 cables. The tester shows you what the capabilities are.
- Yes, there's even a spec here: https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb_type-c_cable_log...
The cables are supposed to be labelled with their maximum speed (5, 10, 20, 40, or 80 Gbps or nothing if no data) and maximum wattage (60W or 240W).
HOWEVER, I don't remember ever seeing a cable with such a label. I'm sure they exist, but I don't see them. Requiring products to be labelled, and treating mislabelling as fraud, could mostly solve this. It's definitely a real problem.
- > Requiring products to be labelled, and treating mislabelling as fraud, could mostly solve this.
There are too many manufacturers to hunt. Basically USB-IF needs to stop almost all shipments in the world. That's not going to happen.
USB spec is completely open and free to obtain. While it allows people to develop and DIY many things, it also attracts bad manufacturers like flies.
Good certified cables with correct markings exist. There are companies like Cable Matters or Startech who bother to actually certify their cables and get USB-IF TIDs. They do cost you quite a bit money though. Here are some:
https://www.cablematters.com/pc-1532-123-usb-c-20-charging-c...
https://www.cablematters.com/pc-858-123-usb-if-certified-usb...
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- Instead of using a dedicated device, on Macs you can also use the WhatCable app:
- This is really good. The base is open source, and has both GUI and a CLI. For the purposes of this article, identifying what each cable can actually do, that’s covered. There’s additional Pro capabilities that you can pay for.
- Sure, but that doesn't allow the author to share an Amazon affiliate link for a product.
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119 points by baranul 3 days ago | 86 comments