Show HN: WhatCable, a tiny menu bar app for inspecting USB-C cables
156 points - today at 8:43 AM
USB-C cables can be a mess. One cable charges at 5W, another does 100W and Thunderbolt 4, and they look identical in the drawer.
WhatCable sits in your menu bar and reads the cable data your Mac already has access to. Plug in a cable and it tells you in plain English what it can actually do: charging wattage, data speed, display support, Thunderbolt, etc.
Built in Swift/SwiftUI. Open source, free, no tracking.
Comments
pimeys today at 11:40 AM
Cool. Just want to chime in that I wanted to see how quickly GPT-5.5 can turn this into a KDE Plasma 6 Plasmoid. Took about 10 minutes and two dollars, and now I have a nice QML app showing the same information in my taskbar.
Just wanted to say this because I feel it's really crazy that I can just do this today...
bichiliad today at 11:51 AM
I love that this is a native mac app. Thanks for building this, and thanks for sharing.
sagacity today at 10:55 AM
This is pretty nice, but why do a lot of Mac apps insist on living in the menu bar?
bkummel today at 10:01 AM
Doesn't work for me. Says "No USB-C ports detected", although I'm pretty sure my monitor is connected via USB-C, and the monitor also has a built-in USB hub where my USB keyboard is connected to.
n3storm today at 9:54 AM
can something like this be done for linux? maybe a wrapper for lsusb. I just found https://github.com/doug-gilbert/lsucpd which adds PD and more.
theanonymousone today at 11:03 AM
I would like to ask an LLM to rewrite it as Python CLI script. Is it even possible, or some Swift-only functionality is necessary?
P.S. Some time ago I learnt through HN of a one-line command in macOS which revealed the power (Wattage) of the connected charger. Can't find it now, but it was very useful.
mp0rta today at 11:32 AM
Great project. It would be even better if it supported platforms other than Mac.
randomeel today at 12:00 PM
Cool ! Would love a brew installation as well
ricardobeat today at 10:47 AM
I remember seeing a recent analysis where the vast majority of cables from Amazon misreported their capabilities. Is this tool going to be able to catch those, or blindly report what the chip advertises?
kmmbvnr_ today at 10:09 AM
Could it be just a console utility?
aquir today at 10:06 AM
Good stuff, but it's telling me that my USB-C Thunderbolt cable has been plugged in upside down but the connector handled this. I was not aware that you can plug in something into USB-C upside down!
brk today at 10:16 AM
14 Inch 2021 MBPro / M1 Pro chip / Sonoma 14.5
WhatCable says "No USB-C Ports Detected".
System info clearly shows my iPhone attached to USB 3.1 Bus.
thiagoperes today at 11:12 AM
I am definitely gonna contribute or fork to create an open leaderboard of cable brands and quality :D
emaro today at 9:59 AM
Pretty cool. What I don't understand is why both my USB@1 and USB@2 show the same connected devices. I'd expect to only see the respective devices. USB@1 is my USB-hub monitor, the other one is connected to my phone. Both show keyboard, etc. plus my phone as connected devices.
denkmoon today at 10:57 AM
I get that the connectors are identical but I find it odd that people find it so challenging. Thunderbolt is the thick and short cable. If it's not thick it's not gonna work well and if it's over a metre it's not gonna work well. cf my pile of thin long "basic" usb c cables.
BiteCode_dev today at 10:30 AM
Tangential, but LLT recently came out with their own lineup of USB-C cables guaranteed to be up to spec. And they have the main specs printed on each cable end, so you know what you grab.
That should be mandatory.
Alifatisk today at 10:50 AM
Any plans to support installations through Homebrew?
ulfw today at 10:28 AM
The 'plugged upside down' is weird for a USB-cable. Especially as that doesn't work. I tried plugging it 'the other way around' and it showed the same 'upside down' warning
gedy today at 10:58 AM
I like the idea and thanks for sharing, but I do think folks who vibe code or use Claude should take their time using, testing, and improving app before rushing to share. This was pushed/deved like 2 hours ago
hallegbg today at 10:15 AM
Nice!
suyavuz today at 10:19 AM
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