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- Hacker News
- Pretty cool. What I don't understand is why both my USB@1 and USB@2 show the same connected devices. I'd expect to only see the respective devices. USB@1 is my USB-hub monitor, the other one is connected to my phone. Both show keyboard, etc. plus my phone as connected devices.by emaro
- I'm curious how the SPI to do this (e.g. `IOPortTransportComponentCCUSBPDSOP`) was discovered. There was nary a mention of it anywhere prior to release. Even Claude has to latch on to something. Always wondered if there was some way to read emarker data through some buried framework, but wasn't sure how to find it.
I don't think I can abide running vibe-coded software, but maybe I'll make a hand-coded fork now that the SPI is exposed. (Assuming it works correctly.)
by archagon - Tangential, but LLT recently came out with their own lineup of USB-C cables guaranteed to be up to spec. And they have the main specs printed on each cable end, so you know what you grab.
That should be mandatory.
by BiteCode_dev - I'll only buy them if they have gold connectors, those are the fastest. /sby barbazoo
- You mean LTT ?by aphroz
- TIL, and they look great indeed. Shame they are all sold out except for <= 0.3m lengths. https://global.lttstore.com/products/ltt-truespec-cable-usb-...by pzmarzly
- I tried to contribute back adapter current Wattage display to stats, but I got my PR closed without comment. It is similar to this:by bhouston
- I remember seeing a recent analysis where the vast majority of cables from Amazon misreported their capabilities. Is this tool going to be able to catch those, or blindly report what the chip advertises?by ricardobeat
- The tool can only tell you what the cable says. Detecting the gauge and composition of the wires in the cable is either destructive or requires temperature probes.
Detecting whether the signal characteristics are close enough to in-spec or not requires a speed test, perhaps, but that also doesn't necessarily mean the cable is the problem if such a test failed.
by avidiax - I think for real cables the delta could also be explained by damage or just a bad plug-in attempt, so even if you're not trying to detect counterfeit cables it could be useful to know:
1. What does the host support
2. What does the cable support
3. What does the device support
4. What actually got negotiated
by Neywiny - Doesn't work for me. Says "No USB-C ports detected", although I'm pretty sure my monitor is connected via USB-C, and the monitor also has a built-in USB hub where my USB keyboard is connected to.by bkummel
- Hi, should be fixed now.
- There's an issue on Github for this now: https://github.com/darrylmorley/whatcable/issues/2by bkummel
- I love that this is a native mac app. Thanks for building this, and thanks for sharing.by bichiliad
- Thanks for taking a look, just pleased other people find it useful.
- can something like this be done for linux? maybe a wrapper for lsusb. I just found https://github.com/doug-gilbert/lsucpd which adds PD and more.by n3storm
- by WillAdams
- Thanks for creating this. I'm blind so the $16 USB tester off amazon to sort through my drawer of cables is not an option. This will stop me from needing to buy a sbc just so I have something running Linux to test cables.by jareds
- Curious whether you've tested the popover with VoiceOver yet. Menu bar SwiftUI apps usually nail the status item by default, but the popover content tends to be hit-or-miss depending on row layout. A stack of Text views walks cleanly, but custom-drawn rows often read as one blob. Worth confirming for jareds' use case.
- How did Claude do at conforming to accessibility standards on macOS?by wffurr
- This is pretty nice, but why do a lot of Mac apps insist on living in the menu bar?by sagacity
- oh no you're right, my menu bar is full already.by jrochkind1
- Is it not rather useful in this particular case? You will see the reported capabilities whenever you plug in a cable. Or do people rather want to diagnose and label their cables just once?by _Microft
- Making 1 click to access is faster than typing the app name in finder. Dock is usually full and used for different type of apps. Makes also constantly visible output possible with standard ui patterns.by poisonborz
- It works for me, but I understand for others it might not. So, there's now a "Show in menu bar" toggle in Settings. Turn it off and WhatCable runs as a regular Dock app with a normal window instead.
- Agreed, especially for something like this that might get used a handful of times (I’m assuming most people don’t have myriad cables or want to check them regularly?)
The problem of course is that on my 14” screen the area to the right of the notch is already close to full and I don’t even have that many things there…
by mft_ - Props to @sleepingNomad here, who has done 16 releases in the last 7 hours, incorporating feedback from HN on the fly!
* Don't like menubar apps? you you can run it as a normal app
* Don't like GUIs? Now you can run it on the command line
Just look at that Changelog:
by billyhoffman - Software development will never be as it was 3 years ago :D and that is great :Dby fredcallagan
- Username doesn’t check out, that guy is anything but not sleepingby 9dev
- Quite impressive, indeed. OP/sleepingNomad, can I have this on MacPorts, please? Thank you.by AnonC