Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Pretty sure when the Switch launched it's 15V 2.6A spec wasn't part of the PD standard. Not really any different from the myriad of phones out there with their own custom fast charging protocol like OnePlus. Mainly where they went out of spec was the dock side to make connecting that easier. The Switch charges fine with other chargers, running the dock is a bit trickier because of the 15V 2.6A requirement but some like the newer MacBook ones will do it.

That said I have several cheap devices that refuse to be charged/powered by a PD charger like an Apple charger. For instance the Neo Geo Mini, only likes basic 5V 1A chargers for some reason (I guess looking at the MB charger it doesn't support 5V 1A). If the charger doesn't support what the device wants it won't work. My phone happily will charge with what the Switch charger puts out.




>Pretty sure when the Switch launched it's 15V 2.6A spec wasn't part of the PD standard. Not really any different from the myriad of phones out there with their own custom fast charging protocol like OnePlus.

You missed my point entirely. The speed of the charging is not the issue here. It shouldn't matter what PD or fast charging protocol Nintendo or OnePlus would use, they should all be backwards compatible to legacy slow-charging and trickle charge from any type-C charger ever made, which is a lifesaver in an emergency and is why the type-C connector is a godsend.

Nintendo fucked up the pin-out on the connector making it completely non-standard and incompatible to any other type-C charger released. The speed of their charging protocol was not the issue.


The pinout is fine. You can charge a Switch with random adapters fine, powering docked mode is trickier because older PD adapters don't support it but newer ones do. The Switch adapter will happily charge my phone, tablet, eReader, etc and I have used it as my only charger on trips where I don't bring a laptop. Perhaps the problem here is OnePlus and whatever THEY do to get their fast charging spec?

Nintendo did more non-standard stuff with the dock port dimensions. Not so much pinouts. 3rd party docks fried Switches because of shit power management sending more voltage than the Switch needed.

EDIT: The problem seems to actually be that the Switch charger only supports 5V 1.5A whereas some phones require 2 or 3A and are not compatible.


My brother recently moved, and was taking his USB-C powered cable boxes back to the cable company. I thought the cable company wouldn’t care if the power adapters were missing.

The cable boxes’ USB-C power supplies do not charge my Sony USB-C camera. They’re on my stack of things I intended to look into one day, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.


Charging is one thing, but getting display out or Ethernet is at another level. After reading the link, I am still none the wiser on a situation I experienced recently. I have a Moto G6 phone. I bought a USB C dock for it, a "Kapok 11-in-1-USB-C Laptop Dockingstation Dual HDMI Hub" on Amazon. It would charge, but the video out didn't work, and the Ethernet didn't work either. Both did work for my Steam Deck, though. How come? I understand some USB C hubs work for Android phones, some don't, and I don't know how that works. How does one find a dock that will work with Android? That specific dock does mention compatibility with a bunch of Android devices; but not specifically Moto. But I know that the Moto G6 does support external display outputs and Ethernet connectivity - I just haven't found a device which allows those, yet.


Moto G6 simply doesn't support video output. That's not a USB-C issue.


That’s only “not a USB-C issue” if you fail to understand the central complaint about USB-C - that ports that support, say, video output (or input) are visually identical to ports that do not, and cables that can carry video are indistinguishable from those which only support USB 2, or those which only support charging at 15 W, or those that support charging at 100 W or or or. Thus the central question: is his phone failing to output video a failing of the phone? The dock? The cabling involved? Some combination of the above?

Everything looking the same with zero indication of what does what is the USB-C issue. The answer here might be “your phone doesn’t have that capability”, but the fact that you have to dive into the data sheets of everything involved including all of the cabling just to figure out what the hell the outcome is supposed to be versus the observed outcome is all completely absurd.


> Everything looking the same with zero indication of what does what is the USB-C issue. The answer here might be “your phone doesn’t have that capability”, but the fact that you have to dive into the data sheets of everything involved including all of the cabling just to figure out what the hell the outcome is supposed to be versus the observed outcome is all completely absurd.

That has always been the case - when phones had random 25 pin connectors some of them supported video out, some of them didn't, some of them let you connect and sync with your PC and some of them didn't. You couldn't tell by looking at them.


First off - my bad, I mentioned the Moto G6 above, but I actually have a G8 (the G6 was my previous phone). However, of course the same things apply.

> phones had random 25 pin connectors

Well, that's not exactly how things worked. Back when phones used feature connectors, you'd be searching for cables for the specific phone type. Video was... almost never a thing, but let's take a data cable instead like you mention, for using the phone as a modem. Or a firmware update cable. So you were searching for, say, a "Nokia 9210 Data / Firmware Cable". If you found one, you were mostly certain that it worked. There were mobile shops that specialized in this stuff. Every large city had at least one store with a firmware unlock service, and they could tell you the exact cable you needed for firmware, or for modem data. The best I can look for right now is an Android-compatible USB C Dock with HDMI output. Hard to tell if it's any good.

I still don't know how int_19h knows definitively that the phone doesn't support video output.

And then, what about Ethernet? I've tried a few different solutions: this specific dock, then a USB C to USB A converter with an ancient 10/100 interface that even works on the Wii U and has been in the Linux kernel for over a decade, and also using that interface plugged into the USB C dock.

And finally, I also tried some simple keyboards - both with that USB C dock, and with C-A converters. None of them worked. Why wouldn't basic USB functionality like keyboards not work? Has the Android kernel dropped support for such exotic devices as keyboards? It does support bluetooth keyboards; and it's not like the kernel is wanting for memory with 4GB of RAM, or whatever is left of it after all the spyware Android devices run whether I want them to or not.


I simply googled it. It seems that it only uses USB-C for charging benefits, but otherwise it's restricted to USB 2.0.

(I suspect it doesn't support being a USB host in general, which would explain why keyboards and mice didn't work for you.)


Some cheap type-C devices lack some pull-up resistor to convince newer PD chargers (with type C output) to enable. So those devices only work on type-A output chargers.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: