5 ms·

I think it's fine to point out the Thunderbolt mess, or the PD vs non-PD devices (although non-PD is becoming exceedingly rare as far as I can tell at least for

I think it's fine to point out the Thunderbolt mess, or the PD vs non-PD devices (although non-PD is becoming exceedingly rare as far as I can tell at least for "larger" devices), but using the Nintendo Switch seems like a bad example in my opinion, since it explicitly does not follow all USB standards, especially in fact on charging.

falcolas 6y ago
And yet it's a USB-C plug that, on the surface, appears to charge from USB-C chargers just fine. Nintendo is to blame, but it hurts the USB-C landscape. Plus, Nintendo is far from the only offender in the USB-C space.
reader_mode 6y ago
Why ? You have the same plug but it's not actually compatible - this to me is a good example of confusion - I would be the first to assume you can charge it with whatever USB-C power cable available and not bother checking the docs.
- zenexer 6y ago
  It seems like a deliberate effort on Nintendo's part to cause chaos. They could've done the same thing with any other standard, including micro USB. They made it just different enough that it's dangerous to use third-party peripherals.
  - dathinab 6y ago
    No it looks honestly like a mistake and then not caring for standard compatibility. Else we wouldn't be in a situation where most (all?) Laptop USB-C PD chargers work without problems with the switch.
- derefr 6y ago
  Because it could have happened just as well with any other plug. It could have been a non-conforming micro-USB charging port. Either way, it would have nothing to do with “the mess that is USB-C” (i.e. the inability to identify which of the various wire protocols that work over USB-C cables that a USB-C port follows/supports), because such a port isn’t following any of the USB-C-cable compatible standards. It’d be like saying Nintendo hurt the mini-DVD format when they used non-compatible mini-DVDs in the GameCube. Those discs have nothing to do with the mini-DVD standard; they just happen to share a physical substrate and so a physical appearance. They’re not claiming to be mini-DVDs. And nor does Nintendo claim the Switch’s charging port to be a USB-C port. In all the docs, it specifically says that it’s just a port for the Dock or the Switch AC charger to plug into. It just happens to share a form-factor. Do you remember the days when every connector looked like a DB9 connector with only some of the pins populated? (E.g. the various game-controller ports on the Atari, Commodore, Amiga, etc.) Or later, when every connector looked like a PS/2 port, with only some of the pins populated (e.g. Apple Desktop Bus)? None of these were claiming to be the same type of cable or jack or socket. None of them were claiming cross-compatibility. They all just happened to share the same physical connector—because it was a cheap and plentiful, easy-to-source part to build your own proprietary cables and jacks and sockets in terms of. Heck, do you know how many random different types of cables are terminated with TRS or RCA connectors? Would you blame your hairdryer for “destroying the audio ecosystem” because its wall-charger is terminated in an RCA jack, and you could theoretically plug said RCA jack into an iPod (probably frying it in the process)? The outlier in all this isn’t USB-C, but rather the previous USB physical-connector standards. Pretty much nobody used those for anything other than USB devices. Probably because the connectors were 1. expensive as parts, and therefore not really worth using in your own project unless you specifically were trying to be a part of the USB ecosystem; and 2. weren’t designed to be physically capable of meeting the current-draw requirements that proprietary cabling standards would want to place on them. In being both cheap and capable of high current delivery, USB-C connectors are just bringing us back from the temporary reprieve of USB-A/B, to the world of the 100 years before that, where a physical connector tells you nothing about what type of cable you’ve got, because every fly-by-night company uses any random connector for whatever they like. You know how USB jacks and sockets had the USB icon on them? That was because the USB Consortium assumed people would do random things with the USB connector standard; and so the icon was meant to distinguish the USB connector as applied to a USB use-case. It never really became relevant in USB-A/B, but it’s actually relevant now in USB-C. That icon is what tells; not the shape of the socket.
  - reader_mode 6y ago
    >Because it could have happened just as well with any other plug. It could have been a non-conforming micro-USB charging port. But if you have a standard aren't you supposed to enforce stuff like this ? Precisely to avoid the confusion and protect your standard.
    - jolux 6y ago
      “Enforce” how?
      - reader_mode 6y ago
        Same way they enforce licensing fees presumably.
        jolux 6y ago
        Haphazardly, and with more concern towards adoption of the standard than profit?
      - addicted 6y ago
        I can’t imagine the headlines if the USB consortium tried to enforce a restriction on the shapes of products people are allowed to create. Remember when people were mad about Apple patenting rounded corners? This would be as bad.
        Dylan16807 6y ago
        Round corners happen by coincidence, and Apple wouldn't let you use round corners even if you met their spec. Someone making a port the exact size and shape of a USB-C port (within tolerances) is doing it for the purpose of being compatible, and telling them to meet the (non-onerous) spec to be allowed would not get nasty headlines.
        derefr 6y ago
- dathinab 6y ago
  It's like saying that because one concrete house collapsed because the architect didn't properly so it's job concrete house are bad in general. Also most charger are fully compatible with the switch off I remember correctly the only way to fry your switch with a charger is by using a charger with high voltage/amper support with a cable which doesn't support any form of fast charging and even then it might not happen. But most chargers which support faster charging do have the cable fixed to the charger to prevent any user confusion. As an effect of this most (all?) USB-C PD laptop chargers work with the switch. Only with chargers for phones and small tablets do you have to be careful but again most higher quality chargers from that area work just fine, too.
  - Goronmon 6y ago
    It's like saying that because one concrete house collapsed because the architect didn't properly so it's job concrete house are bad in general. I'd actually say its more like building a failed structure out of something that looks like, but actually isn't, concrete, and then saying that concrete is a terrible material to use for buildings.
- vr46 6y ago
  Indeed, and then when you check the specs, it says USB-C! https://www.nintendo.com/switch/tech-specs/ https://www.nintendo.com/switch/tech-specs/ I was not pleased with it being an outside warranty issue, but I paid up just to get the thing fixed and back.
  - paulmd 6y ago
    File a small-claims court suit, they probably won't even bother showing up and will just pay it.
    - vr46 6y ago
      Fair point, lot of hassle for fifty quid, though.
    - sellyme 6y ago
      If there's any company that's going to take absolutely every opportunity to continue with legal proceedings against the general populace even when they're clearly in the wrong... well, it's Disney, but Nintendo's probably a close second.
- samatman 6y ago
  I'm quite sure someone, somewhere, made a charger and port in the USB-A format, which delivered 12 volts of power without asking. This is a violation of the USB spec, not a flaw in it. Anyone could deliver mains AC voltage over a USB-C cable, and it would fry just about everything on the market.
SifJar 6y ago
> it explicitly does not follow all USB standards I think that is very non-obvious though, especially for the typical consumer
- nieve 6y ago
  Agreed, explicit is almost exactly opposite from the truth for owners. I guess if you're a hardware implementer and poke around you'll find people saying it's not USB-C, but that's not in any way Nintendo being explicit. Why they might have been explicit about would be to never use anything that wasn't Nintendo branded at a major markeup. After the last few decades of profiteering a lot of users have been trained to assume that the only reason is money.

falcolas 6y ago

And yet it's a USB-C plug that, on the surface, appears to charge from USB-C chargers just fine. Nintendo is to blame, but it hurts the USB-C landscape. Plus, Nintendo is far from the only offender in the USB-C space.

reader_mode 6y ago

Why ? You have the same plug but it's not actually compatible - this to me is a good example of confusion - I would be the first to assume you can charge it with whatever USB-C power cable available and not bother checking the docs.

zenexer 6y ago
It seems like a deliberate effort on Nintendo's part to cause chaos. They could've done the same thing with any other standard, including micro USB. They made it just different enough that it's dangerous to use third-party peripherals.
- dathinab 6y ago
  No it looks honestly like a mistake and then not caring for standard compatibility. Else we wouldn't be in a situation where most (all?) Laptop USB-C PD chargers work without problems with the switch.
derefr 6y ago
Because it could have happened just as well with any other plug. It could have been a non-conforming micro-USB charging port. Either way, it would have nothing to do with “the mess that is USB-C” (i.e. the inability to identify which of the various wire protocols that work over USB-C cables that a USB-C port follows/supports), because such a port isn’t following any of the USB-C-cable compatible standards. It’d be like saying Nintendo hurt the mini-DVD format when they used non-compatible mini-DVDs in the GameCube. Those discs have nothing to do with the mini-DVD standard; they just happen to share a physical substrate and so a physical appearance. They’re not claiming to be mini-DVDs. And nor does Nintendo claim the Switch’s charging port to be a USB-C port. In all the docs, it specifically says that it’s just a port for the Dock or the Switch AC charger to plug into. It just happens to share a form-factor. Do you remember the days when every connector looked like a DB9 connector with only some of the pins populated? (E.g. the various game-controller ports on the Atari, Commodore, Amiga, etc.) Or later, when every connector looked like a PS/2 port, with only some of the pins populated (e.g. Apple Desktop Bus)? None of these were claiming to be the same type of cable or jack or socket. None of them were claiming cross-compatibility. They all just happened to share the same physical connector—because it was a cheap and plentiful, easy-to-source part to build your own proprietary cables and jacks and sockets in terms of. Heck, do you know how many random different types of cables are terminated with TRS or RCA connectors? Would you blame your hairdryer for “destroying the audio ecosystem” because its wall-charger is terminated in an RCA jack, and you could theoretically plug said RCA jack into an iPod (probably frying it in the process)? The outlier in all this isn’t USB-C, but rather the previous USB physical-connector standards. Pretty much nobody used those for anything other than USB devices. Probably because the connectors were 1. expensive as parts, and therefore not really worth using in your own project unless you specifically were trying to be a part of the USB ecosystem; and 2. weren’t designed to be physically capable of meeting the current-draw requirements that proprietary cabling standards would want to place on them. In being both cheap and capable of high current delivery, USB-C connectors are just bringing us back from the temporary reprieve of USB-A/B, to the world of the 100 years before that, where a physical connector tells you nothing about what type of cable you’ve got, because every fly-by-night company uses any random connector for whatever they like. You know how USB jacks and sockets had the USB icon on them? That was because the USB Consortium assumed people would do random things with the USB connector standard; and so the icon was meant to distinguish the USB connector as applied to a USB use-case. It never really became relevant in USB-A/B, but it’s actually relevant now in USB-C. That icon is what tells; not the shape of the socket.
- reader_mode 6y ago
  >Because it could have happened just as well with any other plug. It could have been a non-conforming micro-USB charging port. But if you have a standard aren't you supposed to enforce stuff like this ? Precisely to avoid the confusion and protect your standard.
  - jolux 6y ago
    “Enforce” how?
    - reader_mode 6y ago
      Same way they enforce licensing fees presumably.
      - jolux 6y ago
        Haphazardly, and with more concern towards adoption of the standard than profit?
    - addicted 6y ago
      I can’t imagine the headlines if the USB consortium tried to enforce a restriction on the shapes of products people are allowed to create. Remember when people were mad about Apple patenting rounded corners? This would be as bad.
      - Dylan16807 6y ago
        Round corners happen by coincidence, and Apple wouldn't let you use round corners even if you met their spec. Someone making a port the exact size and shape of a USB-C port (within tolerances) is doing it for the purpose of being compatible, and telling them to meet the (non-onerous) spec to be allowed would not get nasty headlines.
        derefr 6y ago
dathinab 6y ago
It's like saying that because one concrete house collapsed because the architect didn't properly so it's job concrete house are bad in general. Also most charger are fully compatible with the switch off I remember correctly the only way to fry your switch with a charger is by using a charger with high voltage/amper support with a cable which doesn't support any form of fast charging and even then it might not happen. But most chargers which support faster charging do have the cable fixed to the charger to prevent any user confusion. As an effect of this most (all?) USB-C PD laptop chargers work with the switch. Only with chargers for phones and small tablets do you have to be careful but again most higher quality chargers from that area work just fine, too.
- Goronmon 6y ago
  It's like saying that because one concrete house collapsed because the architect didn't properly so it's job concrete house are bad in general. I'd actually say its more like building a failed structure out of something that looks like, but actually isn't, concrete, and then saying that concrete is a terrible material to use for buildings.
vr46 6y ago
Indeed, and then when you check the specs, it says USB-C! https://www.nintendo.com/switch/tech-specs/ https://www.nintendo.com/switch/tech-specs/ I was not pleased with it being an outside warranty issue, but I paid up just to get the thing fixed and back.
- paulmd 6y ago
  File a small-claims court suit, they probably won't even bother showing up and will just pay it.
  - vr46 6y ago
    Fair point, lot of hassle for fifty quid, though.
  - sellyme 6y ago
    If there's any company that's going to take absolutely every opportunity to continue with legal proceedings against the general populace even when they're clearly in the wrong... well, it's Disney, but Nintendo's probably a close second.
samatman 6y ago
I'm quite sure someone, somewhere, made a charger and port in the USB-A format, which delivered 12 volts of power without asking. This is a violation of the USB spec, not a flaw in it. Anyone could deliver mains AC voltage over a USB-C cable, and it would fry just about everything on the market.

SifJar 6y ago

> it explicitly does not follow all USB standards I think that is very non-obvious though, especially for the typical consumer

nieve 6y ago
Agreed, explicit is almost exactly opposite from the truth for owners. I guess if you're a hardware implementer and poke around you'll find people saying it's not USB-C, but that's not in any way Nintendo being explicit. Why they might have been explicit about would be to never use anything that wasn't Nintendo branded at a major markeup. After the last few decades of profiteering a lot of users have been trained to assume that the only reason is money.