alt Hacker NewsI'm using the hardware tester from Treedix in which you have to plug both ends of the cable and which tests a lot of things, I'm quite fond of it.
I have a basket with a lot of USB-c cables and without the tester I can't remember (nor guess) which one does what.
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Yep, I probably have the same one. Insanely useful, and it is also crazy how much variance there is in cables. You can’t believe what the sellers claim, so many times they end up being less capable than claimed.
Would this tell me if a cable is close to the end of it's life? I like to travel light and I've had cables (mostly phone/pad power) go out on trips after working as expected when I packed.
Nice. You just got them a sale from me. I have a crap ton of cables so this will come in handy.
> I'm using the hardware tester from $INSERT_NAME_HERE
Oh god not again... before everyone starts naming their favourite brand, here's a 265 comment HN thread[1] (from last week !) on why these cheap USB-cable "testers" are not worth anything.
TL;DR You need a six-figure wallet to seriously call anything a "hardware tester" for USB cables. User ChrisMarshallNY has a one-liner summary buried in that thread:
If you only paid $40 for a black-box on your favourite online marketplace, then what you've got is definitively NOT a USB-cable tester.[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49152255