This USB-C gadget from hell brings back the worst part of USB-A

The USB-C ports, I am occasionally forced to admit, are somewhat confusing. Different standards, different loading speeds, different data and video resources, proprietary labels like Thunderbolt, all on top of identical looking plugs – it can be a lot.

But one thing that the USB-C ports had in its favor was a solution to one of the biggest annoyances of the USB-A – it is no longer possible to insert a USB cable in the “wrong” way, thanks to the symmetrical design of the plugs.

Or at least was, until mechanical engineer Pim de Groot came along with a USB-C device from hell, which does behaves differently depending on the direction of the USB-C plug. And I hate it so much.

The device itself is quite simple: when the USB-C cable is connected in one way, a green LED lights up at the top of the device. Plug it backwards and the bottom LED will light green, a malevolent horror that shines in a sea of ​​black silicon.

What supernatural science gave rise to this horror? Well, as Groot explains, USB-C plugs are not fully symmetrical – there is a set of contacts that are only used when connecting plugs like a USB 2.0 device that can only be found on one side of the plug. And when you plug in a plug to use in a USB 2.0 configuration, you can apparently take advantage of that to create the damn de Groot device above, which uses a pair of microcontrollers that light each one up only when they detect these contacts. (USB-C 3.0 connections are apparently immune to the trick, thankfully.)

Photograph: Pim de Groot (@mifune) / Twitter

Unfortunately, instead of seeing the monstrosity recorded in secrecy by Groot as a cautionary tale, some developers are looking to take things even further intentionally trying to build a USB-C cable this requires a “superposition” maneuver to constantly disconnect and reconnect in different orientations before it works successfully. For all the good in this word, we can only hope that these efforts will not bear fruit.