USB-C cables can be a mess. One cable charges at 5W, another does 100W and Thunderbolt 4, and they look identical in the drawer.
WhatCable sits in your menu bar and reads the cable data your Mac already has access to. Plug in a cable and it tells you in plain English what it can actually do: charging wattage, data speed, display support, Thunderbolt, etc.
Built in Swift/SwiftUI. Open source, free, no tracking.
denkmoon3 minutes ago
[delayed]
sagacity5 minutes ago
This is pretty nice, but why do a lot of Mac apps insist on living in the menu bar?
ricardobeat13 minutes ago
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?
n3storman hour ago
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.
bkummelan hour ago
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.
bkummel29 minutes ago
There's an issue on Github for this now: https://github.com/darrylmorley/whatcable/issues/2
gedy2 minutes ago
I like the idea and thanks for sharing, but I do think folks who vibe code or use Claude should take their time using, testing, and improving app before rushing to share. This was pushed/deved like 2 hours ago
Alifatisk10 minutes ago
Any plans to support installations through Homebrew?
kmmbvnr_an hour ago
Could it be just a console utility?
captainblandan hour ago
Yeah I like the sound of the functionality but I don't like the idea of it taking up menu bar space. Console utility would be good or even a gui that can be quickly launched through spotlight
brk44 minutes ago
14 Inch 2021 MBPro / M1 Pro chip / Sonoma 14.5
WhatCable says "No USB-C Ports Detected".
System info clearly shows my iPhone attached to USB 3.1 Bus.
bkummel29 minutes ago
There's an issue on Github for this now: https://github.com/darrylmorley/whatcable/issues/2
emaroan hour ago
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.
aquiran hour ago
Good stuff, but it's telling me that my USB-C Thunderbolt cable has been plugged in upside down but the connector handled this. I was not aware that you can plug in something into USB-C upside down!
justusthane30 minutes ago
I wasn't either (insomuch as I had never thought about it), but it makes sense if you think about it for a second. If you have one end plugged in one way, and the other end plugged in the other way, each individual wire is flipped from where it should be. The fact that you _can_ plug it in either way means that the device on one end needs to be capable of recognizing that and logically reversing it. Same as automatic crossover in Ethernet.
That's all the program is telling you. It doesn't matter that it's backwards, but technically it is.
regularfry6 minutes ago
It's not always the case that the cable will correctly fix it. I think (hope?) any that any which didn't would be out of spec, but they exist...
BiteCode_dev29 minutes ago
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.
[deleted]29 minutes agocollapsed
aphroz27 minutes ago
You mean LTT ?
smusamashah21 minutes ago
We type two capital LLs a lot these days.
ulfw32 minutes ago
The 'plugged upside down' is weird for a USB-cable. Especially as that doesn't work. I tried plugging it 'the other way around' and it showed the same 'upside down' warning
hallegbgan hour ago
Nice!
suyavuz40 minutes ago
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