Quote from: makamajic on March 24, 2021, 18:56:51
This is a great psa regarding usb c connectors. An example of a usb c device requiring the correct orientation is my thunderbolt dock. If the connector is plugged in with the wrong orientation, I get screen stutter and tears that not only go away when I flip the orientation of the connector, but are also reproducible when re-orienting the connector the other (bad) direction. For most things like charging and even simple data transfer, this isn't an issue. I find that when you are nearing the capacity of usb c transfer speeds, connector orientation can make or break your experience.
Is it really certified? I can't imagine any compliant device being sensitive to it. It would be interesting to know the reason as it sounds to me like crappy design (signal integrity problem).
Personally, I never had problems with accidentally reversing type A or B. I would simply automatically check orientation when picking up a cable or dongle. In many cases, you can tell the orientation even without looking at the connector. An example would be flash drives (when a logo is only on one side, it's always the top side for horizontal connectors). And the ports on devices are typically predictably oriented. I sometimes had to double take, but always as a result of inserting blind (back of a device) and I always found I was trying to insert it correctly (as I wrote, they tend to be predictable). I was just struggling to hit the port precisely as I couldn't see it, going by feel alone.
Then again, I was actually aware of the fact that it fits only one way. And I take care of my things. I can understand that a layman might try to push it in and investigate only after failing. But that's about the only excuse I can come up with.