In a nutshell: EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) is the main reason why cables got smart in the first place.
Many people in IT think, that data is just 1s and 0s. But in reality we are living in a physical world and as such some form of power is used to transmit those 1s and 0s. This power may is electrical power in terms of voltages with defined generated current or in terms of current with defined voltages (20mA communication heavily seen in industrial equipment). If you have a slow communication link, EMI and other environmental thinks like temperature is not much of an issue. But as faster you like to communicate you need to cope with those things. The electrical contacts in the connectors doesn't help. So people started to put the transceivers into the cables. Those transceivers with additional electronics like ringing suppression circuitry and other "magic" are then best fitted for the desired cables for the desired environments. Then you started to makes those cables smart like to detect the capabilities of the cables like is it really possible to talk at 10Gbps or is it more a cheaper type where 100Mbps is the max. As more smarter those cables get people get creative to put other things in it like "hey, the cable could become a converter as well".
Shielding helps. That is correct. But it does not help with ringing, temperature and other such kind of problems. And shielding is expansive.
What shielding does not help as well is contacting problems because of corrosion or dirt. We are talking about a consumer product and not a well designed any lay out wiring by some system integrator. Consumers are doing all kind of bad things to connectors and will complain if it does not work.
by replacing a cable instead of taking apart your iphone and soldering the chip in the phone when an electrical spike comes through from your open contact getting water on it. but you're asking about throughput. the reason active cables exist is because the amount of interference in a cable varies - that little sheath of tin foil in a lightning cable does almost nothing. you need an axial cable for that - which is what ethernet uses for passive direct connection. it's as thick as the coax cable for your tv antenna. your idea I guess is to plug in that thick non-bendable cable into your phone? or is it to put that chip into every usb-A power source in the world? or is it to only use approved apple usb power supplies - instead of the millions of plugs out there at airports, hotels, laptops, existing ac/dc converters from hundreds of vendors? so which of these is your plan instead of the chip in the cable?
I know, I know, usb cables don't need a chip inside, why does lightning. because usb cables are a useless random mess. lightning cables are not - they run at the guaranteed speed, they charge at the guaranteed watts, and they have no issues with shorts despite having contacts exposed and reversible, unlike usb. and usb-C? well, there are active cables available for that, which tackle the issues described with a chip in the cable. just like lightning does.
> In a nutshell: EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) is the main reason why cables got smart in the first place.
Considering the main use case (almost exclusive use case) for lightning is for charging and nothing else, I wonder why they have to be so complicated? Shouldn't charging cables work with Vcc/Gnd only wired and a dumb power 5V/2A source? Why is my phone doing some complex detection/negotiation of cables/chargers when I plug it in? Why is a charger considered an "acceessory"?
Lighting is for charging and nothing else? Really?
Tell that the people, who want to connect their professional microphone to make TikToks. Tell that the people, who want to connect a stick drive to offload their videos. Tell that the people who provide different accessories.
Lighting has evolved from the 30-pin Dock connector. The 30-pin Dock connector was the idea to combine charging, USB, and some analog stuff into one single connector. At that time USB provided only 5V and 200mA. Apple was one of the other who improved USB charging by allowing more power. But for the sake of compatibility, you cannot just do this, you need to negotiate it. It is like every USB up to USB3 starts in USB1.1 to negotiate the possibilities.
So, Lighting was not developed out of thin air. It was developed with a history, like many many other communication protocols and standards. Even as Apple is known for cutting of old ties easily, if you look really deep into the details, you will always find compatibility to old out-dated technologies. Its like you still find the good old 8051-core in many things, like even dead simple and cheap charge controllers.
While you might only use Lightning for charging, it is an accessory port. It can transmit data to computers, it can talk to SD cards, it can output HDMI.
You could argue you that you don't need any of those features, but Apple disagrees and that's why lightning is not just a 5V DC jack.
My argument (or question) isn't that Lightning is useless or that I don't need it, but that charging shouldn't require a lot of complex communication. I don't understand what it is about charging that requires both ends to have microcontrollers
It doesnt actually matter what the almost exclusive use case is, the sheer ability of being able to transmit data in this case and other available uses makes the apparent need of a chip.
Keep in mind these chips bring safety to the exposed pins and some negotiation is needed to understand whats on the other side of the cable in order to better handle it. (That and to make it possible to control 3rd party market accessory)
A charger is considered an accessory because it is merely a utility for a device, it is made to charge stuff. Take a purse for example, it merely holds stuff and nothing more, you can change a purse and the other one will do the exact same job.
> A charger is considered an accessory But because it is merely a utility for a device
Yes I understand the reasoning behind it, but I don't understand why it's not seen as a much more important feature to be able to load from anything anywhere so long as the +5V and GND pins are working, regardless of what power source and cable it is.
That there is complexity when the lightning cable and connector is used as a data transfer cable I understand. I don't understand why the charger mode isn't dumb as rocks.
Because destroying chargers with too much current, or lighting cables on fire is a bad PR?
I have a lot of cheap chargers, and they give out all sorts of crazy stuff. One drops the voltage to like 3.5 volts with 1 volt of ripple under load. Another shuts down the port completely if you draw >.6A.
It is really hard to tell how much current can one draw safety.
You don't have to remove negotiation and complexity from the system when it's used for data. My question isn't why those systems are there so much as why they are needed for the charging use case. E.g.: why do chargers even need more pins wired than +5V and ground? Is there really such a large benefit from making chargers "smart"?
Many people in IT think, that data is just 1s and 0s. But in reality we are living in a physical world and as such some form of power is used to transmit those 1s and 0s. This power may is electrical power in terms of voltages with defined generated current or in terms of current with defined voltages (20mA communication heavily seen in industrial equipment). If you have a slow communication link, EMI and other environmental thinks like temperature is not much of an issue. But as faster you like to communicate you need to cope with those things. The electrical contacts in the connectors doesn't help. So people started to put the transceivers into the cables. Those transceivers with additional electronics like ringing suppression circuitry and other "magic" are then best fitted for the desired cables for the desired environments. Then you started to makes those cables smart like to detect the capabilities of the cables like is it really possible to talk at 10Gbps or is it more a cheaper type where 100Mbps is the max. As more smarter those cables get people get creative to put other things in it like "hey, the cable could become a converter as well".