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posted by martyb on Wednesday February 27 2019, @04:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the clear-as-mud dept.

People already get the names wrong, so the USB group has doubled down on bad naming.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/02/usb-3-2-is-going-to-make-the-current-usb-branding-even-worse/

USB 3.0 was straightforward enough. A USB 3.0 connection ran at 5Gb/s, and slower connections were USB 2 or even USB 1.1. The new 5Gb/s data rate was branded "SuperSpeed USB," following USB 2's 480Mb/s "High Speed" and USB 1.1's 12Mb/s "Full Speed."

But then USB 3.1 came along and muddied the waters. Its big new feature was doubling the data rate to 10Gb/s. The logical thing would have been to identify existing 5Gb/s devices as "USB 3.0" and new 10Gb/s devices as "USB 3.1." But that's not what the USB-IF did. For reasons that remain hard to understand, the decision was made to retroactively rebrand USB 3.0: 5Gb/s 3.0 connections became "USB 3.1 Gen 1," with the 10Gb/s connections being "USB 3.1 Gen 2." The consumer branding is "SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps."

What this branding meant is that many manufacturers say that a device supports "USB 3.1" even if it's only a "USB 3.1 Gen 1" device running at 5Gb/s. Meanwhile, other manufacturers do the sensible thing: they use "USB 3.0" to denote 5Gb/s devices and reserve "USB 3.1" for 10Gb/s parts.

USB 3.2 doubles down on this confusion. 5Gb/s devices are now "USB 3.2 Gen 1." 10Gb/s devices become "USB 3.2 Gen 2." And 20Gb/s devices will be... "USB 3.2 Gen 2×2." Because they work by running two 10Gb/s connections along different pairs of wires simultaneously, and it's just obvious from arithmetic that you'd number the generations "1, 2, 2×2." Perhaps they're named for powers of two, starting with zero? The consumer branding is a more reasonable "SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps."

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by pTamok on Wednesday February 27 2019, @07:43AM (2 children)

    by pTamok (3042) on Wednesday February 27 2019, @07:43AM (#807502)

    ...to point and laugh. The marketing geniuses that came up with this need to be ridiculed so that they avoid ridicule next time.

    I'm less than impressed that is it possible to buy cables with a USB2 Type A (NOT 'Type A SuperSpeed') plug [wikipedia.org] on one end and a USB3 Type C plug [wikipedia.org] on the other that cannot be used to charge a device with a USB3 socket. Especially as the cable I bought is marked on its packaging that it is a charging cable, not a data cable.

    EN USB Charging cable. The charging cable should only be used for adapters with the right capacity, in this case max. 2.4 A."

    It does not charge the mobile phone I bought the cable to use with.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:21PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:21PM (#807633) Journal

    Point and laugh. But this is necessary. In order to sell you more new cables, dongles and adapters. It is a tried and true strategy tragedy that any Apple user can tell you about. It helps promote e-waste while not running afoul of EU laws designed to eliminate e-waste that was caused by every phone needing a different custom charger. Your old cables and adapters can be ground into a new powdered food additive marketed as being high tech.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday February 27 2019, @04:04PM

    by Whoever (4524) on Wednesday February 27 2019, @04:04PM (#807654) Journal

    This is very clearly a deliberate strategy. They intend to create confusion, just like they did earlier with USB 2.

    They won't feel ridiculed, since this was a decision they took, knowing how it would be confusing.