The Frustrating Reality of USB C and why it never works

I'm tired of having to perform strange voodoo magic just to get my devices charged. Like, when I charge my dead remarkable tablet, this USB-C cable doesn't work. But this one does! Huzzah! Power! But why? It's literally the same hole. The problems don't stop there. When I transfer files with this cable, it's a snail's pace. While this one is lightning fast. And my MacBook Pro charges way faster with this cable than this one. But you know the worst part? So many devices don't even come with their own cables anymore. Which means you'll have to figure out which ones work with the right things. I'm sure you've had similar encounters where you're just looking for a cable that's going to do what you want it to do. So in this video, my ultimate goal is to find the perfect USB-C cable that's going to do it all so you never have to dig around for good cables ever again. And apparently, it's a deeper, more windy rabbit hole than I thought it was. I mean, it's just USB-C, right? So I've spent the past two weeks cutting and whacking the thick brush and vines of the USB forest. All in the name of learning! But to get to the bottom of all these cable mysteries, we have to start at the beginning. What even is USB? We hear it every single day and see it on every piece of tech. But what the heck is it? Well, it stands for Universal Serial Bus. And in the simplest of explanations, it's a type of port used to transmit power and data. Now that's where things get a bit complicated. The word AND. Before the modern times of USB-C and the ovular port, there was the boxy rectangular USB connector. You know what I'm talking about. Inside those were a pair of positive and negative wires for data and a pair of power and ground for power. So a total of four wires. Half dedicated to power, the other half data. Now I know what you're thinking. Why are we talking about all this? USB-A is a thing of the past. But remember the number one rule in history? We look into the past to see into the future. You can't understand the C without the A. Type C really is just the shape of the hole. And it can be just six wires all the way up to 24. Wait, what? But it's all the same hole! That's a big difference. And 24 wires handles much, much more complex tasks. You get more data, more power, and more speed. Plus, you can use USB in either direction. No more of that awkward turning it back and forth before getting it to go into the port. I swear I get it less than 50% right. For example, a six wire USB-C cable can do what USB-A can do. But it can also ask for a specific wattage instead of whatever is coming out of your wall. Stuff like screwdrivers and even toothbrushes. Basically things that only require charging and no data transfer. So why does this matter? Well, if you're looking at a listing for some new cool USB-C cables, man, what a nerd. How do you know what it can do? And what separates a good cable from one that'll just sit in the back of the drawer? So I dove into the archives. Into the place where all information goes to consolidate. Wikipedia. And after hours and hours later, I think I've arrived at some helpful conclusions that will help you pick your cool cable. First, let's start by saying that when it comes to USB, numbers and letters denote different things. The letters tell you the shape of the port. USB-C is round. USB-A is boxy. And USB-B is a weird looking one. It's ultra boxy. And you'll see these typically connected to printers and fax machines. And then the number tells you what it can do as far as data transfer goes. All these labeling protocols are made by something called the USB-IF. The Implementers Forum that was created by Intel and Microsoft in 1994. Basically a roundtable council of grand elders obsessed with USB. So if you look at this chart, it's going to help explain things a whole lot better. The number also tells you the maximum cable length, which is why you'll see the best cables are only available at three feet. Boo! That's so short. That's like this much. So a full featured USB-C cable will have display port data, high data transfer speeds, and high power delivery too. Now in the table, you also see Thunderbolt, which is a subset of USB-C. Wait, what? Let's just say this world is pretty complicated. But I'll do my best to make this easy to understand so that we can find the one true cable to rule them all. If we can. USB-C just has a million problems. Too many standards, too many cables that almost work, and it just ruins the flow of your day when it's not working. Well, this is the part of the video where I get to show you something that actually improves your life instead of slowing you down. This is the Framer Creator Micro, and I've been using it all week while working on this video. It's a tiny macro pad made by Framer and Work Louder, today's sponsor. It feels like cheating, like a little tiny productivity controller. I have it set up to help me in Photoshop using the preset shortcuts with a few of my own special ones thrown in. The entire device is super customizable and can be remapped exactly for your own needs. It's not just a boring macro pad either. It has 13 mechanical keys, a rotary dial, and this surprisingly useful 2D joystick that opens a radial menu with up to 7 shortcuts. I can literally flick my thumb to jump between timeline tools. It's nice being able to have all this extra functionality at the press of a button, and the keys come with this huge set of icon keycaps, making it feel ultra customizable and giving you an idea of exactly what each key does. They also have something called App Sense, so when I jump from designing the thumbnail to editing the timeline, the micro swaps my shortcuts and even changes the underglow color. All of that is inside this absolutely gorgeous metal case that looks premium and glows with these wonderfully diffused RGB accents. I love tech that makes my desk feel fun again. So if you want to speed up your workflow or you're like me and just like having physical controls that make digital work feel more real, check out the Framer Creator Micro. You can use my link in the description to get it today. Now looking at the table isn't enough to actually pick out a good cable. You actually have to understand it. Let's start with power because data transfer doesn't matter if you can't even get your laptops and tablets charging properly. First step is to see what's happening with USB power. Well, it's time to read the documentation, which is something I learned by troubleshooting Linux distros. These are the standards of USB docks made by the USB-IF. All hail the IF. For context, it used to be delicate from seven of the biggest computer manufacturers. After all, they had to get on the same page about how to manufacture their ports. But now over 30 years later, it includes a thousand different tech companies from Acer to Zowie. I don't know what they do. USB 2.0, which are the non-colored ports on most PCs. They're limited to five volts of power, half an amp of current, which means ultra slow charging. If you want to actually charge something in a decent time window, don't use those ports. Instead, use the new colored ones. Because in 2007, they introduced this thing that you see everywhere nowadays, PD or power delivery. Now you can charge things faster with more current. Power! For some reason, we mostly use the version two of PD. So version one probably was so bad, it never saw the light of day. This whole thing kind of feels like that old web comic about competing standards. It's sort of funny and right. They use some strange lingo in these docks. So let me catch you up. The thing being charged, like this tablet, is called a sink. I mean, who comes up with this stuff? The thing charging is called the source. Maybe they should have called it the faucet or the hose. So PD's claim to fame is power profiles. Sinks can still use the five volts of yesteryear, but they can also use other newer profiles too. And here's a chart of power profiles, the true holy grail. This lets you know if your cable can charge your cool laptop or not. So kind chart, tell me, how does a device determine what profile to use? Well, my dear Bettison, an A to C cable only has four wires. So it uses the lowest power delivery profile, the olden days profile. And new C to C cables now have six wires. The additional two are used for the configuration channel, which is a complicated word for telling the source its preferred profile. So simple sinks like this boring sink here. Why call it a sink? Now I just can't stop thinking about sinks. The source uses a five volt profile if it detects a resistor on the configuration channel of the USB-C pin. No resistor, no power. If you accidentally try to connect two outlets together, the system prevents you from electrocuting your electronics. What? You've never tried that? If you have no idea what I just said, imagine a handshake between two devices. The source is always looking to give out handshakes. Here, have some power, have some power, have some power. Then the sink raises their hand saying, I'm here, I'm here, give me power. That's the resistor. Then the source connects to the sink. They shake hands. They know that there's a real device there and they send some power. So real cheap devices like AliExpress flashlights, they save money, your pennies, by not soldering in these resistors. So you can only use A to C cables to charge them. Lame. On the other hand, USB-A to A will literally do anything. No resistors, no raising hands. It just sends what it sends, whether you like it or not. So in theory, it is potentially very dangerous to connect one USB-A to A cable from one wall charger to another. Do not do this, kids. So if you got something you want to charge quickly, you have to use a USB-C cable that's capable of higher power profiles. Now, back to my remarkable tablet. When it's dead, it doesn't request a power profile for some reason. Now, I've read countless Reddit posts on people trying to revive their dead tablet and all the recommendations suggest to connect it to a computer's USB port or those old power bricks you get for free at events. Surprisingly, using a A to C cable fixes the problem because it defaults to the slowest speed. Remarkable. If you're listening, tell me, am I right? I don't know if this is a problem with other devices, but it's definitely not normal. Now, what is normal is that this cable doesn't charge my laptop as quickly as this cable. And why is that normal? Because I was testing you to see if you were paying attention. After the sync says, hey, charge me, charge me, the source checks the cable to see if it can even handle the power that the sync wants. Power! So how does it confirm that? Inside each cable is a chip. It's called an e-marker. The chip holds basic information like the cable length, maximum power, vendor ID, just in case you want to track down who made your cable in a fit of vengeance perhaps. So I consulted a USB-C expert friend who happened to have read all the USB documentation for fun and he explained if your cable doesn't have an e-marker, it merely gets three amps because fire and melting are very bad things. More amps equals more heat. If your cable can't handle it, fire. He also recommended a USB tester, which I did get. Now I can go around testing all my cables and properly labeling them. So this cable that slow charges my laptop is 60 watts, and that number came from 20 volts times 3 amps, even though this laptop can charge at 96 watts if the cable has the e-marker for it. It's like wearing a Star Wars shirt to a nice dinner party and being like, I only want to talk to the cool kids. You don't have time for that awkward small talk, you know? Basically, buying nicer cables that can withstand higher wattages is a bonus. Yes. But I want the ultimate cable, not to charge just this MacBook Pro, but any laptop that will step foot into this office space. And that means charging this bad boy, the Framework Laptop 16 with the 5070 graphics card. This thing needs a whopping 240 watts of power. Dang, that's a lot of power. So 240 is not possible on our version of PD, which is 2. But if you move to the next one, which is 3.1, you can now go from 100 watts to 240 watts. That's crazy. It's a big jump. It also adds this other thing called PPS or programmable power supply. PPS means the sync can now request up to 48 volts. That's as much phantom power for this microphone that I'm talking into right now. So I know I need a cable that can do 240 watts, but I don't want just power. I also want data transfer because you can't just sit all day in front of your PC, waiting for files to move from your phone to your PC. The computer can transfer stuff fast. The phone can transfer stuff fast. And sometimes they don't. The problem could be you're just using the wrong cable. A USB-C cable that's designed for merely charging still has the same two wires for data transfer as the USB-A cables. So how do you tell if a USB-C cable has more than six wires? For nice cables, there are more prongs inside them. Much many, many, many more. That's a very scientific way to determine that. The best way really is just to read your cable specs. A USB-C cable has to support at least 20 gigabytes per second, but it can also support 40 or even 80. And that's fast. Plus they're supposed to work with every other USB version, including Thunderbolt 3. Which brings us to the big elephant into the room. What even is Thunderbolt? They look like USB-C cables, but they have this cool lightning symbol and then a number. And according to Intel, Thunderbolt 4 and 5 are just newer implementations of USB 4. Same cable, same rules, just more strictly enforced. Which is another way of saying they're expensive. More expensive. So if your USB-C cable can handle the data transfer of Thunderbolt, then technically it will work as a Thunderbolt cable. It will do DisplayPort for multiple monitors, PCIe tunneling for graphics cards, and pretty much all the fancy features. That means if we go for Thunderbolt 5 as our perfect cable, it should work with everything. Except not only are they usually a bit more expensive, Thunderbolt 5 cables are officially limited to 3.3 feet. That's nothing. That length limit is not only for Thunderbolt 5. Any Type-C cable that can do 80 gig speeds has that limit. So what is the answer? What is the ultimate cable to rule them all? Or is this all pointless? Well, we do have to accept that slower data speeds will be a thing for longer cables. Sure, you can do extension cables, but technically they're not allowed within the rules bestowed upon us by the grand USB wizards. Now, some companies like CableMatters sell these extensions anyway, because apparently they don't always play by the rules. Go them. Especially because CableMatters is a pretty trusted brand. But when you go against the wishes of a holy council of USB, you don't know when and how things are going to fail. Because they might. Luckily, CableMatters does also sell USB-IF certified cables that go up to 240 watts and 80 gigabits per second. And they're not too expensive. And more importantly, they're labeled clearly what speeds and power they support. Unlike all the other random cables I just chucked back there. I say not too expensive, but $17 for a cable might actually land on the expensive side of the coin. But now we have a couple 80 gigs per second, 240 watt USB-C cables. And while they're not a perfect one single cable everywhere solution, it does cover a lot of what we do. You can charge, you can data transfer. Hopefully this will be the last time I ever have to think this hard about USB ever again. I already got a huge headache just wrapping my head around all it. But hey, it was interesting. If you're into some new technological innovations and also want to know about the latest Wi-Fi 7 situation, watch this video here. Should you upgrade? This video will tell you everything.