Beware: Cheap USB Type-C Cables May Harm Your Devices

Short Bytes: Thinking of buying a cheap USB Type-C cable from Amazon? Well, think again. Google engineer has blasted the substandard Type-C cables on the product reviews citing them for failing the mentioned specs. Some of those could even damage your device.

Type C cables are in town and are slowly making way into people’s electronics must-have list. USB Type-C cables came into picture as the universal connector platform, but the cheap ones might be doing more damage to your devices than charging it.

As revealed by Benson Leung, engineer at Google, cheap Type-C cables and adaptors sold at Amazon do not fulfill the provided standard specs. Benson tested 10 USB Type-C connectors from Amazon and found only three of them: Belkin, iOrange-E and Frieq ($20) to be capable of charging his Chromebook while seven others that were with $10 tags could not.

Also Read:  Do You Know there are 9 Different Versions of USB Type-C connectors?

The cables might be optimal for smartphones, but using the cheap ones for high-powered devices might do some damage. The problem is that the Type-C 1.1 specs clearly allow a power delivery of 3A which is used by the laptops. However, few adaptors are marked with USB to Type-C specifications but do not have an adequate hardware for that purpose.

In other investigation, Leung found that another adaptor manufacturer used easy methods to draw 3A current by using a 10 kΩ resistor rather than the standard 56kΩ. The adaptor would no doubt, Leung says, charge your phones, laptops or notebooks but will cause damage to the cable or the device itself.

Leung has been severe while giving reviews to the products that failed the standard specs.

So, simply said, you can use the cheap Type-C connectors and USB to Type-C adaptors for your smartphones but do not risk your laptop computer with these, instead stick to the official products or rather, the expensive ones.

Via: Arstechnica

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