It changed my economy game.
Now I have to buy an USB-C to USB-A adaptor to plug USB-C stuff into my already standing devices. Honestly, no idea why didn’t they make it connector-compatible. Wasn’t that the entire point of the “U” in “USB”?
They really wanted to put an end to this meme.
But manufacturers wanted a micro usb replacement and this is what we got.
It’s nice that my phone charges quickly, but otherwise I don’t notice. It’s just one more cable type I need to search for.
Charges faster, but also doesn’t break all the time!
I’ve actually had the opposite experience with USB-C. It seems to break all the time. I’ve talked about it online though, and it appears that I’m the only person experiencing that. Perhaps I just had a rush of bad luck with cables and devices.
I think the real game changer here is the USB-PD. I now only bring a single charger for both my laptop and my phone. Also, a lot of different laptops now charge with USB-C, getting rid of the need of different plugs.
Props to the Thinkpad USB-C retrofit hack. Granted they only work with 65w, but it is still great! My Anker Nano GaN charger is only a little bit larger than an ice cube, definitely smaller than most traditional USB charger, yet it packs 65w.
Usbc-pd is an absolute game changer as an off grid person. The fact a 100w charger can act as a dc to dc converter with up to five output voltages, at up to 100 watts is crazy. And that the protocol automatically detects and communicates the proper voltage is very convinent. The problem is that usbc-pd 100w chargers are expensive and you need to know what you are doing if you want to diy power appliances with it.
Its really nice to have a standardized cable that just works and can be plugged in both ways. We really are approaching a Universaal Cable after a quarter century of RnD.
I’m curious as to what exactly you do with it as an off-grid person, and what you mean by DC-to-DC converter.
Im happy to explain pastermil. So first off let’s talk power.
Electrical Power Systems
Most off-grid electrical systems have a few major components. A device that generates electrical energy, a battery that stores excess electrical energy for later, and a power distribution interface which allows for connecting appliances to the batteries in a safe standardized way.
My particular electric system has a 200w solar panel for power generation, two 20ah lifepo4 batteries for capacitance, and the charge controller acts as a very basic interface with two usba slots and a car cigarette port.
AC vs DC Appliances
Now let’s talk about AC and DC appliances. Theres essentially two kinds of electrical power people deal with. The one most people are familiar with is AC power it comes to your home from power plants through power lines and transformer boxes. Its very easy to transmit long distance however its very high voltage so only very power hungry devices like kitchen appliances and washing machines and AC compressors use it directly. It’s why american homes have a seperate 240v circuit for kitchen and basement.
Offgrid electrical systems with batteries tend are DC powered by nature. The difference is technical but the way the power flows through the system is different. Direct current moves in a straight path while alternating current moves back and forth.
Most consumer devices in your home dont actually use wall outlet AC power directly, it uses converted stepped down DC power. Desktop computer power supplies, Laptops, monitors, vaporizers, led lights, DVD players, audio speakers, your phone. everything that can powered by usb and batteries. Everything that has barrel plug inputs and power bricks plugging into it.
If you look closely on the power bricks plugged into the appliance you’ll see that it has an input and output voltage rating. The input tends to be 120vac here in america 240v over the pond, and the output tends to be either 5v, 9v, 12v, 15v or 20v DC usually up to 5 amps.
Device vs Voltage Examples
Laptops and computer monitors tend to be 20v, fast charging smart phones and the Nintendo switch docked are 15v, very bright home LED lights can be bought that are powered at 12v directly, the ps2 could be powered with 9v, and most usb devices charge at standard 5v. Would you like to guess which voltage profiles the USBC-PD protocol is capable of? Its all of them.
Energy Conversion Efficency Losses
Now let’s discuss energy efficiency. Converting from AC to DC eats up some of your power. So does converting from DC to AC. And its not small losses either, each time you convert its about a 15% loss in efficency.
This loss through conversion doesn’t matter when you pay cents on a kilowatt and have unlimited power at the tap. It adds up very quickly when you have a limited power supply.
Let’s say I want to power a laptop on my offgrid DC system, and I only know how to power it with the AC cable that it came with. I would need to
- Convert the DC power of the batteries to AC through an inverter. 15% efficency loss.
- Then convert that power right back down into DC with the power brick plugged in. 15% efficency loss.
- The inverter and power brick are both parasitic draws. They eat a bit of power just sitting there even if nothing is being powered. Lets add 5% total system efficency loss each.
Add these up and you get 30-40% of your power eaten up needlessly double converting the power. Wouldnt it be really nice if we could convert the battery DC voltage directly to the appliance DC voltage without those power hungry inverters and transformers?
What DC-to-DC Converters Are
Thats where dc to dc converters come in. They still introduce efficency loss but way way less only 10% total. A USBC-pd 100w car charger that plugs into a cigarette port can convert a batteries 12vDC into 5v, 9v, 12v 15v, and 20v dynamically depending on the device.
Do you know how magical that is? How much trouble that saves when it comes to mcguyvering a DC appliance that only came with AC cable to supply proper power directly? All I need is a 10$ cable to manually select the voltage needed and some barrel plug adapter bits to fit into the appliance.
Wasn’t a game changer but I’m finally happy to really only need one cable.
It’s been more of a pain in the arse than initially expected.
Most motherboards (for example) only have 2-4 USB-C ports, meaning that I still need to employ A-C and C-C cables for peripherals etc.
My main gripe is that the standard just tries to do too many things without clear delineation/markings:
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Is it a USB 2.0 (480Mbit), 5Gbit, 10Gbit or 20Gbit cable? Can’t really tell from the plug alone.
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More importantly, for charging devices: How the heck do I determine maximum wattage I can run?
For all its faults, at least the blue colour of a USB-3.0 plug (or additional connectors for B/Micro) made it easy to differentiate !
Now I’m eyeing up a USB Cable tester just to validate and catalogue my growing collection! 🤦🏻♂️
USB Cable tester
Great idea, and then:
It’s even more annoying that there are different possible pinouts in the port itself without clear labling. So always use the one cable that came with the peripheral, or you have a chance to fry it
I wonder about this too. Can I plug my laptop’s USB-C charger into my phone? Or is that a big nono
Should be okay, that USB-PD would detect the correct voltage and current.
Yes, you can. The charger and the device communicate between one another what they can support, and pick the highest one they both agree on.
E.G. my laptop charger can charge at full speed (100W) for my MacBook, but only at 20W for my iPhone.
That bit is pretty straightforward and transparent to end users (there are a few rare conditions where devices might not agree on the fastest, and have to fall back to a slower one); the issue is more with cables not having sufficient gauge wire, or missing connections that prevent the charger and device from communicating their full functionality.
Yes.
I charge by Bluetooth headphones ‘pod’ with my Steam Deck charger and it seems to be ok.
The deck charger uses USB PD. It will charge anything that supports the standard as fast as possible (up to its rated 65W) and use normal 5v USB for everything else.
For the power matter, you don’t. The device being charged, the charger, and cable does.
If you mean what is the maximum wattage that will actually be used, that should be the maximum possible between the charger, cable, and device. So look at their specs. Whichever has the lowest maximum, is what the others will match.
USB PD defines a protocol for the device and charger to determine max safe power. If the cable is replacable (not attached to the charger), it must be rated for PD and be able to tell the charger it can handle more than just the usual 5 volts at 2 amps.
USB PD chargers only output the maximum safe amount of power. That’s why I can use my 65W steamdeck charger to charge my phone if I want to. It just outputs normal USB charger power if the device on the other end can’t verify it can handle more.
It’s also why my SteamDeck charger is what I use to fast charge my phone, because it can actually talk to it using the USB PD protocol to request the voltage and amps it needs to fast charge.
To clarify; I have a 100W Ugreen Nexode 4 Port USB Charger that I use to charge my laptop (~60W), Steam Deck (~40W), iPhone (~20W) and AirPods (~5?W).
The problem is if my original product cable has gone walkabout temporarily and I need to use a random one to stand in - there is no clear way of telling if I’m accidentally using a 5W-max cheap cable to try and keep my laptop charged while working.
Obviously there are some context clues depending on cable thickness etc., but with how common cosmetic braiding is becoming a thing - even that’s getting harder to rely on.
Some kind of cable labeling would be nice.
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Its convenient and superior to Micro. But mostly its just nice that both mine ans my wife’s phone uses the same cord.
I bought a high quality USB C charger with a couple nice cables to keep plugged in in my living room. I use it to charge my phone, my girlfriend’s phone, my tablet, my laptop, my Switch, and my vape pen. I never have to go looking for another charger and it charges all of those things at a very acceptable rate. I’d qualify that as a game changer.
Not at all, its slightly more convenient.
If all cables were created equal then it’s kind of a big deal that laptops can now charge via USB-C. Proprietary chargers can suck my ass.
Fucking awesome, it is. When I travel, I take 1 laptop power cord. Charges my phone, laptop, Switch, and backup battery. (The backup battery’s output ports are USB-A, but it’s got a lil converter cable that stays in the lil bag that the backup battery is stored in.)
It’s the best. So much so that not having usb c, has become a deciding factor if i buy something or not. It also seems a bit of a quality insurance, even if it’s just a little. But electronics with micro or even mini usb is usually just some cheap shit or that old and they are still selling it.
Compared to USB-A, not really that much of a game changer (it’s still the most common for me). Though I do not miss the three rotations to get it in.
Compared to Micro-USB? Holy fuck, I almost refuse to buy anything still using Micro-USB ported now. Mainly because I can’t never find the fucking cable for it.
I certainly like it better, it’s an improvement, but “game changer” is strong. I’m slowly replacing gadgets to USB C through attrition. The charge port has ceased to be the failure point for any of the gadgets I own. My pile of spare cables is still excessive, but moving further back in my storage closet because I need them less and less.
So far it’s a mess.
I still have Micro USB devices, so I need two cables or USB-C→Micro USB adapter.
I have PCs without USB-C ports, so another adapter needed USB-C → USB-A.
But, I can now “dock” my new-ish laptop with only one USB-C ↔ USB-C cable to a monitor.
Monitor gives power.If your PC has PCIE slots you can get a USB-C card for around $25
I’m still in the messy stage, but I’ve made preparations for C. Pretty soon I’ll get a newer used phone and tablet, and they’re both going to be type C.
Currently I have a few things that use C, so I’ve shad already got some cables and chargers for them. Once the transition is complete, I’ll get rid of a bunch of old cables.
a bit, reversable charging.
Last week I found out that there are off-brand batteries for my DSLR cameras that can be charged directly through USB-C so I don’t have to pack a different charger for every camera. Let that sink in!
Overall pretty great, in a pinch I can charge my laptop on a Nintendo Switch power supply. Now if I could just upgrade the last few remaining Micro-USB and Lightning devices without spending a fortune…
