Hardware Safe USB C to Micro USB cables

gbadl · Oct 20, 2018

Is there a wiki that lists cables that are good for connecting a Micro USB android phone to the Nintendo Switch for payloads?

I am looking at buying one of these cables but I can't find any info. There are also no resistors on the cables but I think they are needed for USB 2.0 speed.

https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-USB-Type-C-Micro-B-Cable/dp/B01LONQ7R6/

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-6-usb-type-c-to-micro-usb-cable-black/8896026.p

hippy dave · Oct 20, 2018

I don't think you need to worry about resistors for this purpose as you're not charging the Switch from the phone, and it wouldn't supply too much power anyway. The hard part is that it needs to be an OTG/on-the-go cable, the kind that tells the phone that it should act as a host to the connected device. Problem is it needs to be OTG in the right direction, so the micro usb is the host end and the usb c is the device end, and it's possible the cables are more commonly made the other direction assuming that the usb c will connect to one of those fancy modern phones. When I was looking for such a cable the direction generally wasn't specified - I messaged an ebay seller to ask about that specific detail and the reply said "check our website for details" - there was no website listed on any of their ebay pages and they didn't respond any further when I asked about it. Bought it anyway (it was like 2 quid) and it didn't work, so I guess it was the wrong direction.

tl;dr: I haven't managed to find a working one yet, don't know if they exist. Shouldn't be too hard to make one, but so much less neat.

gbadl · Oct 21, 2018

The OTG cable you mention does it need a chip of some kind or can I just rewire the cable to be OTG?

thorasgar · Oct 21, 2018

Why does it need to be an OTG cable when running from phone > Switch but doesn’t need to be OTG when PC > Switch? I have been using the ProController cable for PC > Switch, is it an OTG cable?

hippy dave · Oct 21, 2018

gbadl said:
The OTG cable you mention does it need a chip of some kind or can I just rewire the cable to be OTG?

No chip needed, yeah it's just a matter of bridging two pins at the phone end apparently. I was googling last night after posting here.

Ignore that it shows usb a rather than usb c at the other end, the important bit is the bridging of pins 4 and 5 at the micro usb end.

thorasgar said:
Why does it need to be an OTG cable when running from phone > Switch but doesn’t need to be OTG when PC > Switch? I have been using the ProController cable for PC > Switch, is it an OTG cable?

OTG is a standard for phones/tablets etc, because originally when connected by a data cable they would always act as a device (eg. a storage device for copying files on/off) rather than a host, so later OTG came along which would tell the phone/tablet to act as a host, so it could communicate with a device like a flash drive (or a Switch in RCM mode).
Computers have always been capable of acting as a usb host (not literally always, but since usb came along

), so otg isn't needed for that.

Hardware Safe USB C to Micro USB cables

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