This little gadget to find out which type of USB-C cable you have
discuss.tchncs.de
USB was supposed to rule them all but it's now a mess of standards sharing the same connector. Different speeds, voltage, charging protocols, alt modes, even the number of pins used is variable.... For those asking, the thing is available on Kickstarter
I’m not sure if there’s supposed to be a picture or video but the media doesn’t load for me (both on web and iOS voyager app).
How is this different from existing USB cable testers available from places like Amazon and AliExpress? In reading the description I didn’t see anything that set it apart
Loads for me. It is a video of a small device with a screen. Both ends of a usb-c cable are connected to the device and the screen shows the max power, max data speeds and other information about the cable.
Interesting, I just uploaded the .mp4 directly to lemmy and assumed this to be working. How else would you share a gif/short video?
No idea. As much as I love lemmy I’m not exactly shocked that directly uploaded media isn’t seamless. I thought it was my lemmy client, but it didn’t load when I checked from the web, either.
On Raccoon on Android from within EU it works. Hope that helps you narrow down the problem.
But on Jerboa (also Android) it doesn't work the same seamles way: It's shown as a link and I can tap it and open it in Firefox and it will play fine in there.
Just to let you know, video works for me on desktop Firefox. Thank you for posting.
Clicking the link in the text works for me. Clicking the media for the post does not work for me.
I had video but no audio.
Out of curiosity, is there a reason that this couldn't be an Android app? I would think that there should be some way to check a cable's functionality by plugging it into a phone and a computer.
It could be, but I imagine the reported capabilities would be limited by the connected devices. So if your phone doesn't support USB SuperSpeed 80gbit/s, it wouldn't be detected by the app.
Cable testers can bypass all of the standard driver and USB negotiation bullshit before anything else. I would imagine building a device to manually control when and how the connections are made is much easier than fighting for low level device control on systems like Windows, macOS and Android.
Pretty much. I'm not even sure if regular USB ports can talk to pins individually, let alone test them for shorts.
(thinks out lound..)
If you could force different speeds and different voltages, you can make some guesses as to what the cable might support.
USB packets use CRC checks, so a bad checksum may indicate a speed or physical problem. (Besides stating the obvious, my point is that doing strict checks for each USB mode gives CRC more value.)
I just looked over the source code for libusb (like I knew what I was looking for, or something) and it seems that some of the driver(?) components hook really deep into the kernel. There might be a way to test specific parts of any type of handshake (for dataflow or voltage negotiation) to isolate specific wires that are bad by the process of elimination.
I think my point is that a top-down approach is likely possible, but it's probabilistic.
Among other reasons, phones only have 1 USB port.
Genuine question: in what ways does it differ from what ChargerLab’s existing km003C does, other than a “cable health” percentage? The other functions seem similar to me.
This one also measures data transfer speed. As far as I can tell, the KM003C only measures power transfer capabilities.
Gotcha, thanks!
I wouldn't trust anything sold on kickstarter.
But if someone launches an open hardware version of this on crowd supply, I'd back it
Why? do you think it's gonna hack your wire or something?
Because there's a high amount of scams on kickstarter that never deliver. Whereas crowdsupply has a 100% delivery rate
Not even necessarily scams. I backed the CHIP sbc by nextthingco back in the day and it turned out fine. Then I backed their next project and they got tied up with a lawsuit over the name and wound up bankrupt.
The ports should be on the same side of the device. As it is, short cables can't be tested.
The current funding level remaining is for 69 euros, 78 us dollars. Supposed to include shipping to anywhere in the world from Austria.