Friday, October 1st 2021
USB-IF Brings New USB Certification Logos to Help Consumers Buy the Right Cables and Chargers
Last week, the EU Commission announced that it's working towards making USB-C the universal standard for charging portable electronics and this week, the USB-IF is bringing new Certified USB Type-C cable and Certified USB4 logos to help consumers figure out what is what. However, the USB-IF is also pointing out that consumers should only buy Certified USB products from trusted sources, suggesting that there are a lot of products in the market that don't meet the various USB specifications.
The new logos can be seen below and the first one is for devices that support 40 Gbps speeds over USB. Keep in mind that although USB4 is broadly based on Thunderbolt 3, the cables aren't going to be exactly the same, but that some USB4 implementations can also support Thunderbolt 4, just to complicate things a little bit extra. This logo can also be used with 40 Gbps capable ports on devices.
The second new logo is for cables supporting 240 W charging, i.e. 48 V at 5 A. This is a lot higher Voltage than current cables, that top out at either 20 V and 5 A, as long as the cable has an E-marker chip built into each connector, or 20 V and 3 A for cables without such a chip. Presumably the new cables will require an updated E-marker chip, as the USB-IF only offers certification logos for 60 W and 240 W cables, suggesting that anything over 60 W will use the same E-marker chip.
Finally there's a logo for 240 W certified chargers, although, oddly enough, this logo is only mandatory on the packaging, so it won't help people to quickly identify a higher-end charger by simply looking for the logo. On the other hand, the USB-IF is also offering combined logos of the 40 Gbps and 240 W certified logos, but only for cables if the logo is to be printed on the device itself.
Hopefully this will help clear things up a bit for the average consumer, but often these logos aren't printed on the packaging and rarely used properly online. Having a quick look at Amazon, some 20 Gbps cables are shown with the USB 2.0 Hi-Speed certified logo, others seemingly claiming to support eGPUs and most, even from known brands, have no logos at all, yet claiming to be 20 Gbps and 100 W capable. If the USB-IF can't even make its members put the logo on their products, yet warning consumers to only buy certified products, what chance does the consumers have to know what they're buying?
Sources:
USB-IF (PDF), via The Verge
The new logos can be seen below and the first one is for devices that support 40 Gbps speeds over USB. Keep in mind that although USB4 is broadly based on Thunderbolt 3, the cables aren't going to be exactly the same, but that some USB4 implementations can also support Thunderbolt 4, just to complicate things a little bit extra. This logo can also be used with 40 Gbps capable ports on devices.
Finally there's a logo for 240 W certified chargers, although, oddly enough, this logo is only mandatory on the packaging, so it won't help people to quickly identify a higher-end charger by simply looking for the logo. On the other hand, the USB-IF is also offering combined logos of the 40 Gbps and 240 W certified logos, but only for cables if the logo is to be printed on the device itself.
Hopefully this will help clear things up a bit for the average consumer, but often these logos aren't printed on the packaging and rarely used properly online. Having a quick look at Amazon, some 20 Gbps cables are shown with the USB 2.0 Hi-Speed certified logo, others seemingly claiming to support eGPUs and most, even from known brands, have no logos at all, yet claiming to be 20 Gbps and 100 W capable. If the USB-IF can't even make its members put the logo on their products, yet warning consumers to only buy certified products, what chance does the consumers have to know what they're buying?
44 Comments on USB-IF Brings New USB Certification Logos to Help Consumers Buy the Right Cables and Chargers
All that‘s needed now is for non-Intel USB4 solutions to come to market, as Intel has implemented USB4 in its Goshen Ridge / Maple Ridge controllers. I mean controllers in docks/hubs, and on hosts such as AMD motherboards and other peripherals as well. Once that happens, USB4 will proliferate. It might take a few years, but the backend infrastructure is starting to crystallize. Work has been done to bring up USB4 drivers for the Linux kernel (thanks to Intel and others), and I suspect they are for Windows as well. Also, displayport 2.0 will work over USB4 / thunderbolt4.
The future is bright for USB-C, thunderbolt, and USB4. Long live USB. I just hope the confusion in regards to USB-c cables is cleared up. A customer purchasing a USB-C cable should know clearly know what charging speeds and what data speeds are supported by the cable they are purchasing. Same thing with the USB-c port on their device(s).
My SO has a Dell work notebook with Thunderbolt USB-C ports, but she doesn't have a single Thunderbolt device that I'm aware of, although her office dock might use it.
She works in tech marketing, but don't really care about the details of things like what ports her notebook has, as long as they work. I think this is true for most people, so they'll get hardware with fancy interfaces and keep using them like they did with their last three computers, without shedding a thought about what else that port might deliver.
This is also why I think we see so many phones with USB 2.0 data speeds, even though USB-C is pretty much used on 99% of phones today, Apple not included.
Also, it's lo and behold ;)
It is the same with USB4 and beyond. It may take a few years but eventually most consumers will become educated in regards to the capabilities. Most consumers don’t need 40 gbps or higher speeds, but the versatility of USB-c, i.e., the ability to tunnel various protocols on the same wire (pcie, DisplayPort, USB, thunderbolt, Ethernet, power delivery), is what will make it indispensable in the future. In many ways, us techies are early adopters of this tech (in particular the high data rates of thunderbolt, USB4), but eventually it will work its way to the masses.
Just the fact alone that now up to 240W of charging will be possible will cement the utility and ubiquity of USB. It’s already starting to happen. Many new cars are now coming with USB-C ports for data and fast charging. Portable batteries have usb-c ports. Most Android phones have USB-C. It’s starting to proliferate, and rightfully so. My USB-C chargers are way more versatile than their USB-A predecessors. Devices negotiate the necessary charging voltage / amperage, and my chargers can supply 20V, 15V, 9V, or 5V depending on the device’s needs… it’s a beautiful thing to see, in my opinion. Long live USB.
So yeah, I remember a lot of dead interfaces.
Even so, USB wasn't even particularly popular when it launched, mostly due to lack of devices and the fact that very few PCs came with it as standard.
In fact, USB 1.0 wasn't even all that great and it was considered vastly inferior to FireWire that landed a couple of years earlier.
USB 1.1 was when USB became an interface that people started using, but that was two and a half years after USB 1.0 launched, so things could've gone very differently if Intel hadn't pushed the standard as hard as they did.
Yeah, you're missing a few years of phone history there, Ericsson and Nokia invented the smartphone, but whatever...
If you're going to give someone a history lesson, at least try and get things right ;)
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the features offered, I'm simply saying that most people are unlikely to 1. discover them on their own and 2. ever really use them.
USB replaced something like half a dozen interfaces that weren't really interoperable and ended up with a very simple connector design. This appealed to consumers, although if you look at something like the industrial PC market, serial ports are still very popular due to how robust they are in comparison and for the small fact that you can lock the connector in place with screws.
The whole tunneling thing you're so keen on, isn't going to matter to 90% of people, as they don't use their devices like some/many of us here do.
Yes, it's nice, but we've already seen Samsung make and dump their Linux OS for Android devices that was meant to double as a PC replacement kind of thing with a docking system, since people weren't keen on it and it made things too complicated.
I wish our car had come with a USB-C port, but it has a useless 5V 500mA USB-A port that doesn't even provide enough power to keep my phone charged when I used it for navigation...
USB-A chargers also negotiate the charging Voltage and current... Unless you got some crappy dollar shop charger. In all fairness though, they don't tend to deliver more than 9 or 12V.
Several friends had these drives too, so we would trade music and other things. Then DVDs happened and that was the end of that.
The worst version must've been the parallel port version, those were a PITA to get working.
Never actually owned one, but they were used frequently at work for backup.
I remember when they launched the clik! drive, later PocketZip, Agfa made a digital camera using those, it was awful. To small capacity, to slow and by then, mostly pointless.
I got one of these oddities though, was meant for my old man to use as backup, but he never figured out how to use it...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyQuest_EZ_135_Drive
It shows clearly if its 240W, 40Gb, or both.
Have a look on Amazon,I couldn't find a single cable that displays the certification logo, so unless you go to a physical store, you'd never know until the cable arrives and maybe not even then.
The USB-IF needs to enforce the use of these logos, which it doesn't.
expect them to start showing up soon, and official logos to be everywhere once tech sites start saying only buy products with the logo
That would be .19A between both hands.
So 48V @5A... this could be tricky!:(
48V was then carried over to modern telco equipment.
Also thunderbolt is not a plug-n-play for many thunderbolt docks still unlike USB. Also Thunderbolt is not a open Standard like USB, you cannot develop Thunderbolt controller. If AMD or VIA or Realtek want to develop a Thunderbolt controller they cant do that with Thunderbolt, but they can develop their own USB controller if they like. What Thunderbolt is doing is that, they came to your house, then kicked you from your own house and now pretending like they are the real owner of the house and you are and outsider.
Thunderbolt and USB both can exist but on different connector.