[mikewhy]

So that measures transfer speeds, but what about the rest of the things USB carries?

Here's an example of the data that cable testers can give you: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XFbJD6RE4EY

[charcircuit]

The goal is to determine the type of cable. Testing the signal quality is an entirely different thing.

[_adamb]

Yeah, I would like a test device that could let me know which transfer rates a cable supports. I've got a huge pile of USBC cables (and adapters). A good chunk of them might even be USB 2.0!

It seems like a device capable of acting as a host & device could just try to shove data down a cable and see what the max is...

[sdenton4]

It would be helpful if the connectors for the different cables had different shapes, so it would be immediately obvious what kind of cable it is and mostly prevent plugging incompatible cables into the wrong places. Thank you for listening to my TED talk.