August 10, 2015

USB Connector Roundup

Filed under: Main — Tags: , — admin @ 12:01 am

ma-USB-Notification

I’ll confess that the USB standard has been not only tremendously successful but also quite stable. It’s predictable. And just about everyone has enough USB cables available to make any sort of connection.

The two major events on the USB path to glory have been the introduction of the faster, better USB 3.0 and the more recent introduction of the USB Type-C connector.

USB 3.0 is a welcome addition. It’s fully backward-compatible. The only way you can tell the difference between older USB ports and USB 3.0 is the color blue; the connectors are blue and the ports are blue. Oh, and Windows incessantly reminds you to plug USB 3.0 devices into USB 3.0 ports, even when you’ve already done so.

The Type-C connector is another welcome addition, which I’ve written about before. The big question now is a what point in the future will your favorite mobile device gets the USB Type-C connector? iOS gizmos have them, so now the rumor bloggers are predicting that every new Android phone will suddenly have the Type-C connector.

I hope so!

The current micro-USB connector suffers from the same orientation problem as all USB connectors: Which side is up? The Type-C connector plugs in and works either way. Truly, it will be a blessing.

For the larger USB connectors, hopefully the standards committee addresses the orientation issue. You’d think you could use the USB logo on the connector to tell which side is up. That’s the idea, but not every cable has the logo and not every logo is on the same side of the connector.

On my devices, I refer to the micro-USB port as either “happy” or “sad.” It’s happy when the D-shape connector points down, like a smile. It’s sad in the other orientation. So all Samsung devices have a sad connector; everything else is happy.

For your reference, the table below lists the current host of USB connector types. This list doesn’t include some of the more esoteric types, which are still part of the standard but seldom used.

Connector Name
USB-A A
USB-B B
USB-micro-B micro-B
USB-mini-B mini-B
USB-Type-C C
USB-3.0-A USB 3.0 A
USB-3.0-B USB 3.0 B
USB-3.0-micro-B USB 3.0 micro-B

Some connectors you might believe to be USB, but they’re proprietary. For example, the squat connector on my old digital camera looked like a cross between the micro-B and mini-B connectors, but it turns out it wasn’t a standard USB connector at all.

I’ve seen the USB 3.0 micro-B connector on the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 phone, but not other phones. Those ports can still accept the standard micro-B connector, which is effectively the right side of the 3.0 micro-B connector, although data isn’t transmitted at full USB 3.0 speeds.

Being familiar with the computer industry, I can promise you that this list of USB connector types isn’t the final one. Standards come and go. New things appear all the time. Just Twenty years ago, PCs came with printer ports, serial ports, and unique mouse and keyboard ports. Twenty years from now, who knows?

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