alt Hacker NewsI was looking for a USB cable tester (where I would plug in both ends of my cable and it would test it (power, data, ...).
There are plenty for Ethernet, but none such ones for USB. Was I looking with the wrong keywords or such device does not exist?
Note: I have a dongle that measures the power when inserted between the laptop and the charger, this is not what I am looking for
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The reason is probably that anything faster than USB 2.0 (480 Mbit/s) and supporting power over 3A/60V will need to have an active marker, and to read that, you'll need something slightly more complex than a connection tester.
That said, these things do seem to exist at this point, as sibling comments have pointed out.
As an aside, it's a real shame devices with USB-C ports don't offer this out of the box. They need to be able to read the marker anyway for regular operation!
On aliexpress for very cheap search for "DT3 Data Cable Detection Board Type-C". I got the one below and seems to work fine for what I needed.
https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/1005007509475055.html
Edit: This will test whether the cable is functioning properly. It will show the connections and indicate whether the cable supports only power or also data transfer. However, it won’t provide information about the USB-C cable type or its speed capabilities.
I have been planning to get either Witrn K2 or Power-Z KM003C. If just cable testing is enough, the Treedix one is probably good.
Related: If you are looking for cables, this guy has tested a bunch (mainly for charging capabilities) https://www.allthingsoneplace.com/usb-cables-1
What do you mean "testing" it, reading hardcoded data from e-marker chip, or really test it?
The later would require multi-thousands dollar machine.
I have the Treedix cable tester, it works well.
https://treedix.com/collections/best-seller/products/treedix...