Are there any reliable usb-c cable testers that anyone has used, not just to say what wires are hooked up and what "power’ it supports, but what is the transports supported like thunderbolt 3/4, data speeds, monitor support that kind of thing. It doesn’t really seem like there is anything out there in the consumer or even power user space…
thanks
As a start, have you absorbed the information that Glenn Fleishman has collected over the years on this topic? His blog links to a short video and also to the book he has written to explain the sorry state of USB.
Simply switching the physical connectors on the ends of our USB cables has not been the panacea that some predicted or hoped for. If you are a consumer, use the cables that come with your devices or buy cables from their manufacturers. If you are designing a product, get yourself a good electrical engineer.
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Yea lack of any kind of labeling standard is the real pitfall of the ‘only one connector’ promise. I’m trying to at least do some color standards on new cable purchases, I just dream of being able to plug two ends of the cable into my MacBook and have it say 'this is a thunderbolt 3 supporting 45watts charging" or even a little thing I can keep in my ‘go bag’. Yes I did read his TidBITs piece USBefuddled: Untangling the Rat’s Nest of USB-C Standards and Cables - TidBITS but listening to an episode of Clockwise #530 with Doc Rock and he mentioned something but all I could find close to what he was talking about was one that just lit up lights to show connections.
I bought this, and “backed into” identifying the cables.
In that my, “Honey I took out a second mortgage
to buy this Apple Thunderbolt Cable” lit up lights
1-25 and the cable that came with my phone
(that they TELL you is USB 2.0) lights up 1-15.
I don’t recall the actual lights but you can clearly
see the difference and the pattern.
While the tester does come with a truth table, to your
point some industry standard labeling would be nice!
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That brings back memories. I used something similar 50 years ago to troubleshoot RS232 (“serial port”) cables. Actually they are still being sold! https://www.amazon.com/Breakout-Tester-Monitor-Female-Module/dp/B0CL4KLJRJ
The problem with this is that it can only test for continuity. It won’t tell you how it performs at the high frequencies especially involved in the more advanced standards. So as a charging cable probably OK but if you are running video or other data through it, all bets are off.
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