Charging via USB

No, if it is just charging it would not show up in usbconfig.

You should buy a USB powermeter. Very handy and they also answer questions like this one.
 
Depends, if it's a USB power cable, no, because there's no data connected. Also some devices might have a charging only option, even if you used a "full" USB cable there's still no data connection between the host and the device.
 
What kind of device are we talking about? Doesn't the device itself show when it's being charged? Phones all have a battery icon with a special lightning bolt. Same for portable media players. Many earbud cases have a button to check the status (full/empty/charging).
Note that not every USB port on a computer is powered. Power delivery can vary between ports. Some BIOS/UEFI firmware allow you to control that. Long USB cables can also significantly impact power delivery.
 
SirDice said:
Depends, if it's a USB power cable, no, because there's no data connected. Also some devices might have a charging only option, even if you used a "full" USB cable there's still no data connection between the host and the device.
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Please explain what a FULL usb cable is and how I identify one.
 
Beastie said:
What kind of device are we talking about?
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Beastie said:
balanga, doesn't it have a LED near the USB connector? It should be blinking while it's charging.
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Yes, I can see it now. The problem was that I hadn't used this keyboard for a long time and couldn't establish if was charged up. After trying various cables and USB ports on various computers I can see that it is blinking.

I'm still in the dark about what a full USB cable is and whether some show a presence under lsusb/usbconfig whilst charging.
 
balanga said:
I'm still in the dark about what a full USB cable is and whether some show a presence under lsusb/usbconfig whilst charging.
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SirDice is probably referring to the internal wiring of the cable. A typical USB cable has 4 wires: 1 power, 1 ground and 2 data.
Some rare ones only have data wires.
Some only have positive and ground wires; they only charge and can't transfer data.
Most cables out there have the 4 wires and can both charge and transfer data, if, as I already mentioned before, the port it's connected to has power on it (and enough juice to deliver it) and charging hasn't been disabled in the BIOS/UEFI (usually in the southbridge section).
 
balanga said:
I'm still in the dark about what a full USB cable is and whether some show a presence under lsusb/usbconfig whilst charging.
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There are charge-only USB cables that you can buy (and that are sometimes included in device sales). You can also buy cables with a switch that always charge but let data through only when you use the switch. That's a security feature in case you want to charge from a device you don't control. I am not sure whether they have those for USB-C, but I have multiple micro-usb examples.

Again, what you might like for questions like this is a USB powermeter.
 
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