Yet another Hacker News

Searching for the best silicone USB cable

79 points evakhoury 5 days ago 50 comments

r_lee 4 days ago | parent

this is awesome, I've also been looking for these kinds of cables more than the "braided" cables which are stiff and tend to eventually take some kind of shape and not straighten back

tansanrao 4 days ago | parent

Not very sure of heat resistance, but I’ve been very happy with a bunch of LTTStore TrueSpec cables.

OptionX 4 hours ago | parent

Pretty sure for anyone outside North America the shipping absolutely kills the value proposition nowadays. Last time I checked to replace my deskmat both it and the cables were about as much for shipping as for the items themselves. And taxes on top of that. That, for example, turns a 20 cad cable, already on the pricey side into a 40+ cad one. I do not know if there are any officials redistributors in other continents, but I don't think there are.

LoganDark 4 hours ago | parent

If you purchase multiple cables at once, the shipping cost per cable goes down, I'd think.

Not saying that's easy considering their stock issues. Maybe it's better now.

ghostly_s 3 hours ago | parent

Yes, we all know the US economy is effectively severed from that of the rest of the world now.

threecheese 4 days ago | parent

It’s chubbycables. You’re welcome.

happymellon 4 days ago | parent

I ran through their website and all the ones I selected were USB 2.0, and there isn't a filter for speed as far as I could see.

So no, it appears that "chubby cables" aren't the best.

threecheese 4 days ago | parent

You are right, they are only really useful for charging (though 240w - beasts) or keyboards. I’ve given up on trying to find silicone cables for data transfer and just buy thunderbolt which are typically rubber (Apple ones are braided these days, but it’s a very tight braid).

pseudohadamard 4 days ago | parent

Just beware that an awful lot of "silicone" cabling coming from China is actually overplasticized PVC, particular cabling used in instrument probes. It feels like silicone until it starts getting stiff while at the same time outgassing plasticizer like crazy, or you touch it with a soldering iron or similar. I would expect most or even all of the cat-ran-across-the-keyboard Amazon brands to be overplasticized PVC, not silicone (hint: Use the Knockoff plugin for Chromefox, https://github.com/Shpigford/knockoff, which will warn you for stuff that's sold on Temu West, aka.Amazon, it's warning on almost all of the pseudo-brands listed in the article).

I've also run into way too much cabling that's CCA or even CCS. Garbage on the outside, garbage on the inside.

hilbert42 1 day ago | parent

"…actually overplasticized PVC,"

Despite the point in my comment about power cable extensions coverings becoming hard through the lack of plasticizers, I confirm your point about overplasticized PVC in instrument cables.

I have a lot of instrument leads that I thought were silicone only to find that after a year or so they've gone hard. So much so that new unpacked ones can no longer be easily straightened (the kinks remain unless one heats the cable up and then straightens them).

Despite availability issues,the problem is trying to determine what's real silicone and what's not.

kevin_thibedeau 5 hours ago | parent

You used to be able to buy silicone extension cords. Now it's all the new low temp plasticized PVC.

atombender 5 hours ago | parent

Is there a way to test a cable to see if it's PVC and not silicone?

unrented7977 4 hours ago | parent

Heat. PVC melts, silicone burns.

mschuster91 4 hours ago | parent

> hint: Use the Knockoff plugin for Chromefox, https://github.com/Shpigford/knockoff

le me: see README, spot slop tells, scroll to the files, see CLAUDE.md

Yeah I'd love to see a stopslop extension for Github, warning me if the usual suspects of slop bullshit are present.

cromka 4 hours ago | parent

WHAT

yjftsjthsd-h 3 hours ago | parent

Okay. Is it inaccurate? Buggy? Defective or deficient in any material way?

mschuster91 24 minutes ago | parent

I consider any form of AI generated stuff a waste of my time. I do not wish to interact with LLM generated content more than absolutely necessary and I loathe being surprised with uncanny valley "tells".

CGMthrowaway 4 hours ago | parent

And the plasticizers (DEHP primarily) are really nasty, easily slough off onto your skin where they are absorbed. Don't ever put plastic cable in your mouth, or that of a child

fcjr 3 hours ago | parent

100%, this is unfortunately what I've found, the vast majority of cables I've purchased so far are not genuine silicone

Terretta 4 days ago | parent

This article recommending scrabble letter brands seems sketchy.

Anker offers lovely soft silicone sheathed USB-C cables, in black or white and many lengths. They perform for data and do not get stiff or discolor. Our office specifies these unless TB4+ is required.

idiotsecant 1 day ago | parent

How do you purchase them? Supply chain mixing is rough with a lot of retailers.

LoganDark 6 hours ago | parent

You purchase the ones labeled Anker?... They say Anker on the box and the cable... I don't think the supply chain is an issue as long as you get the intended product

Someone 6 hours ago | parent

If it were that simple, these pages wouldn’t exist:

https://www.anker.com/eu-en/verify

https://cairovolt.com/en/blog/how-to-identify-original-anker

embedding-shape 6 hours ago | parent

> https://www.anker.com/eu-en/verify

I love how the path includes eu-en but then the list of countries where this is actually used:

> Europe: Turkey, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Azerbaijan

Looks like list almost half not in the EU and half in, but missing quite a lot of EU countries.

Anker themselves say they "promise that all the products purchased through our Authorized Retailers or Distributors and Online Channels are genuine" but the link to who those are is gone apparently.

LoganDark 4 hours ago | parent

If you purchase from the official seller on Amazon, you're highly unlikely to get a counterfeit unless someone committed return fraud. I think platforms that destroy returns aren't susceptible though.

SirMaster 5 hours ago | parent

What is the model or part number for an Anker silicone cable that is faster than USB 2.0?

synack 2 days ago | parent

Almost seems like it’d be easier to spend a couple weeks in Shenzhen getting cables made to your specifications rather than testing everything on the market.

bsder 1 day ago | parent

I thought this is exactly what Linus Tech Tips did.

hilbert42 1 day ago | parent

I cannot understand why silicone rubber is not more commonly available for cable insulation. It is so much better than much of the badly plasticized PVC and other plastics that are now used.

What's made this situation worse is that it seems that worry over plasticizers and health etc. has lead to a reduction in the amount being used in cables. I have some power extenstion cables whose jackets have gone so hard that I can no longer coil them effectively — even though I take care the coiled cable still ends up a tangled mess.

Even if silicone jacketing is more expensive it's so good I'd pay extra. Trouble is it's not normally available on products found at the local hardware shop.

idiotsecant 1 day ago | parent

Unless you're running cables inside an oven just buy SOOW aka EPDM cables. They are the recognized standard for flexible, rugged cable assemblies resistant to just about everything. Silicone rubber is only used in very special cases because it's not as UV resistant or mechanically resilient.

hilbert42 1 day ago | parent

Sorry, not available where I am, nor do I see USB, coaxial cables etc. of that type.

ghostly_s 4 hours ago | parent

> SOOW aka EPDM cables

AFAIK there's nothing about the SOOW spec that requires EPDM.

qurren 4 hours ago | parent

> I cannot understand why silicone rubber is not more commonly available for cable insulation

Silicone is more flexible and high-temperature resistant, but it does have a major downside of being very easy to cut and strip. That's not great either, especially for power applications where short circuits are a concern.

Silicone also kinda sucks for crimping. Most crimps have one set of tabs which grab the conductor (which is fine) and then another set which grab the insulation, but in the case of silicone the insulation set tend to just slice the insulation and don't mechanically grab it.

megous 16 minutes ago | parent

I bought silicon 2-line cable to replace plastic insulated cable that came with my trafo-soldering-iron originally about 30 years ago. And how easy it is to cut, is what surprised me. It's still a good tradeof for this use case because dents in the plastic from accidentally touching the original cable with hot soldering loop were getting a little scary.

quickthrowman 3 hours ago | parent

> I cannot understand why silicone rubber is not more commonly available for cable insulation. It is so much better than much of the badly plasticized PVC and other plastics that are now used.

PVC, XLPE, and rubber insulation is more durable than silicone. THHN uses PVC, XHHW uses XLPE, SOOW cord uses EPDM rubber.

AdamGibbins 6 hours ago | parent

Doesn't suit OPs demands as power only, but moved most my USB-C power cables to Anker Nano recently. They sound like described, lovely. Super flexible, don't tangle, nice weight to them - very well built. Nicest cables I've ever owned and an upgrade from prior Anker ones.

joshstrange 4 hours ago | parent

Didn't see your comment before I posted pretty much the same thing. I wish I could replace all my cables with the Anker Nano ones but they aren't cheap and most places I don't need a "great feeling" cable so I've settled for just a few strategic places around the house for now to put them.

I've had Anker braided cables before but the Nano is in a whole other league. I have one by my bed and every time I touch it I smile a little, it sparks joy (no pun intended).

amelius 5 hours ago | parent

I still feel sad that my heatgun didn't come with a silicon cable :(

Luckily my soldering iron did.

amelius 5 hours ago | parent

I want cables in many different colors so I can more easily see which is which.

faster 5 hours ago | parent

My CPU load goes through the roof after a minute on that page. Chrome 154.0.8037.0 on Linux. WTF does a cable review need to do that works my CPU so hard?

I bought some of the official Pinecil silicone cables but haven't tried burning them yet. Has anyone tried that? I think they're USB2 but rated (well, advertised) for 100W so they're great for the Pinecil.

randomblock1 4 hours ago | parent

It's the website's "grid-bg" effect. It's glitching out and also normally barely visible at all.

foder 4 hours ago | parent

I like the Ikea SITTBRUNN cable series, they feel great, are inexpensive and actually come with a technical specification.

The only drawbacks I've found are: * It's 480 Mbps cables, so for charging and occasional transferrers. * They don't have a huge selection of lengths and colors.

layer8 3 hours ago | parent

The longer ones are braided, unfortunately.

jubilanti 4 hours ago | parent

These aren't "brands". You can't trust that the random character "brands" on Amazon like SNOALK, TOOALQ, lipr or whatever are even the same from shipment to shipment. Model names and numbers are meaningless here. It's all just a random lottery.

liquid_thyme 21 minutes ago | parent

Even if someone builds a brand, it can get sold and (atleast this twas true last time I checked) the Amazon reviews get grandfathered in.

neilpanchal 4 hours ago | parent

I went on the exact same quest. The answer is Belkin BoostCharge Flex. They have one version that’s flexible silicone and one that’s wrapped in braid. Check pictures and verify.

The description on Amazon was this: Belkin BoostCharge Flex Silicone USB-C to USB-C Charging Cable (1M/3.3FT) for iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Pro, Galaxy S25, S24, Pixel 9 & 8, Nintendo Switch 2 & More with Cable Clip - Black

joshstrange 4 hours ago | parent

It's not silicon but the _best_ (charging only) cables I've used by far are the Anker Nano [0] cables. they are so flexible, feel amazing, and I wish I could replace all my cables with them (but can't due to cost). It's USB 2.0 speeds so I only use them for charging but that's one of the reasons they can be so flexible/enjoyable to use (they don't have to be as thick to support USB 3+/TB speeds). I own many other Anker braided cables and none of them are like this one.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CZ43567W

nzoschke 4 hours ago | parent

Does anyone know the best USB thumb drives?

I need to buy 10 32GB, but every somewhat affordable bulk option is very suspicious and throttles or fails.

Sandisk is reputable but costs a premium.

nemomarx 28 minutes ago | parent

microcenter?

ramses0 4 hours ago | parent

Aside: has anyone found a good "fancy color" TB4 cable? I'd like to (eventually) have a distinctive color for my needed ~3-4 TB4 cables, but they're mostly black/white/grey. I found KondorBlue in my travels but they're sold out/limited availability.

I'd like to know at a glance if I'm using the right "MacBook TB4 Monitor Cable" (or "guaranteed high-ish wattage") as opposed to "random usb-c which may/may-not work".