USB-C Plug Orientation Can Cause It To Behave Differently

Contrary to popular belief, it looks like the USB-C plug orientation could actually result in different behaviours. We have learned more about thanks to a mechanical engineer on Twitter.

USB-C Plug Orientation Can Cause It To Behave Differently

I’ve made a Cursed USB-C 2.0 device. It behaves differently based on the orientation of the plug. pic.twitter.com/8Ko66wPuV2

— Pim de Groot (@mifune) March 21, 2021

When USB-C was first unveiled, many people saw it as a godsend as you didn’t have to worry about flipping cable over just to connect it. This was when microUSB was still the norm, mind you. While it can function no matter how you connect it, it turns out that it can behave differently depending on the orientation.

According to mechanical engineer Pim de Groot on Twitter, the idea here is that you can connect USB-C either way you like due to its symmetrical shape, but that doesn’t mean the wiring inside is the same. It was noted that the D+ and D- contacts aren’t mirrored while the other contacts are.

Pim de Groot used two microcontrollers to show that it’s possible for USB-C to react differently depending on the orientation, basically focusing on which side gets the D+ and D- connections. While this ultimately should not affect your average consumer, it’s interesting to think that it could actually make a difference when we were all told otherwise.

Source

Pokdepinion: I legitimately thought it would be the same regardless but now that I took note of the internals, it makes sense why that wouldn’t necessarily be the case. Learn something new everyday.