When Elgato rolled out an affordable teleprompter recently for video streamers, it included a USB-C cable. No big deal, right? Well, this one got people’s attention.
Elgato reduces cable confusion by printing important numbers right on the connector
Cult of Mac reported on Elgato’s new teleprompter because its functionality at a relatively low price of $280 will help DIY streamers who want to look and sound more professional. But it took no less than an audio engineer to notice a crucial detail in the release.
Matt “Spike” McWilliams praised how Elgato prints the bandwidth capacity and USB type right on the cable’s connector. It indicates support for 5Gbps data transfer over USB 3.0. The Verge picked up on it and said all cable manufacturers should do that.
My favorite thing about @elgato… their cables actually have the bandwidth and usb type imprinted on the connectors…
This should be a global standard, and yet they are the only ones I’ve seen doing this.
Never stop being you Elgato pic.twitter.com/MIQsqDh4Wo
— Spike ️ (@JustSpike_) November 5, 2023
Simple labeling like that is a big help when you need a certain cable for, say, fast data transfer, but none of your cables comes right out and IDs itself as the right one for the specific job. Does it support fast data transfer? How about fast charging? Both? Neither?
And in Elgato’s case, this isn’t a one-off or a fluke. It’s more of a best practice rolling out to new products.
“You’ll see spec data on all Elgato USB and HDMI cables going forward,” wrote Julian Fest, an Elgato senior vice president, in a Sunday post on X (formerly Twitter). “No more guessing if the cable is the culprit of a tech issue.”
Cable-makers, take notice. Everyone’s going to want you to do this, too, if you don’t already.
