USB Awareness
As I’ve commented on in a previous post – awareness of whats happening, what is about to happen or at least have a record of what happened is important to me.
Knowing what your devices are doing, what they’re connected to and whats happening when connected is important.
The USB Standards of 1.0/1.1/2.0 were using a connector that we have a lot familiarity of today. It is no doubt even the 6-year-old in my house know what the connector is for or where it goes.
USB Port Pilot
The USB Port Pilot is a favorite adapter and tester because it goes beyond in the information it provides and the ability it can perform.
When we travel around we can find a USB port and think it’s a great spot to charge my device – ” hey why not!!??!! ” What we don’t always know is if the charger bring provided is malicious, is it just being interested in our device or is it OK to use.
The USB Port Pilot has the ability let you control some of that by actually informing you of the connection type and also allows you to shut down the DATA side of the USB pins so that ONLY charging can occur.
Here it displays that is CHARGING or at least ALLOWING power to pass, but it is BLOCKING data from traveling.
Without getting insanely deep, USB as 4 wires where 2 carry data and 2 carry power and sometimes the cheap ones don’t even have a shield – but again – we’ll just stick to what we want to focus on here.
This 4 wire knowledge allows us to understand that the USB Port Pilot is blocking the DATA pins from being connected so that the device connected and the device providing charging, do NOT talk to one another. This is about device safety and data safety.
USB-C Port and Adapter
The USB-C port is a more complicated beast that has a few different variants however the specifications for USB-C allow it carry more current than standard USB A/B 2.0-3.0 cables while increasing data speeds. The convenience it brings is allowing the connector to be used in any up/down position as it doesn’t have a notch and isn’t ‘keyed’ for only being able to connect in one direction.
SATECHI USB-C Adapter
This device was the first of its kind I could find on the market that did USB-C pass-through while also giving detailed information about the USB voltage and current coming through it.
This Satechi adapter provides only the voltage and current used, however, this is incredibly powerful information as seen with the USB-C Testing I did with the Apple iPhone USB-C cable and the aftermarket cable.
Additional Thoughts
I wouldn’t expect everyone to want or need these devices, however, they really provide some simple details in what would be an otherwise difficult task of getting this information from your devices and cables you have.