No PD for USB-A is kind of lame.

[OKC Yeakey Trentadue]

For the most part, USB-C is great. You youngsters don't know about the dark ages of mini-USB and micro-usb cables (still finding broken mini USB cables in my attic).

Still, I would much rather have USB-A on the charge side. Despite needing to flip it around 3 or 4 times to plug in correctly, its still a stronger, more secure connection. Also, aside from ultra books, most chargers, pcs, laptops, and consoles still have a lot of open USB A ports.

While all those older connections would still only charge at 12w or so, it would be nice to be able to still use these updated 60w, 100w or even 140w usb-a to usb-c pd cables. Cables are constantly being moved around throughout the house and it will still be a VERY long time before all these devices and chargers have enough usb-c ports.

Just want to see if I am in the minority on this.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

USB-A to USB-C fast charging cables already exist. There's a complicated set of tests done from the device end to determine what the maximum safe charging voltage/current can be. I fast charge my devices with such a cable when I'm on the road.

Due to the nonsense that is USB, there are several ways the device determines how much current and at what voltage it can use. Ancient old USB used to use resistor ladders between the data pins that the device would read to determine the charge current, but that was manufacturer specific, and chinese wofat figured it out and produced millions of chargers that burn everything down. Some devices will forgo that method and instead use a current/voltage curve, where it will pull an increasingly greater amount of current until it sees the output voltage drop off, and then back off to what it thinks a safe charge current is. Both of these methods of course don't protect from sketchy cables that'll burn as bright as the sun when loaded down.

The new USB 3 and 4 nonsense use I think some sort of smart communication to determine things since there are multiple voltages and current modes available. You don't want to send 9, 12, 20 or 48v down to a poor old usb 2.0 flash drive.

https://www.amazon.com/Charging-Devices-Efficient-Transfer-High-Quality/dp/B0842TT82B