We've been following the new, reversible USB Type-C port since the very beginning, and as nice as we think it is compared to the current jumble of USB and mini and micro USB ports, it can be hard to explain to people. It was described as a "supplement" to the then-new 10Gbps USB 3.1 spec, but Type-C can also work with USB 2.0 or 3.0. USB 3.0 itself is now called "USB 3.1 gen 1," another point of confusion. Some laptops can use the USB Power Delivery spec to replace proprietary power ports, but this won't always be the case.

The USB Implementers Forum is aware of the potential for confusion, so we met up with them at Intel's Developer Forum last week to talk about what they're doing to clear it up. The answer, sadly, is that it's out of the USB-IF's hands most of the time.

More standards, more logos

If you have a PC desktop or laptop, check out its USB ports. You may see some little markings next to them—those markings are one of the ways the USB-IF tries to inform users of those ports' capabilities.

Take the HP Stream Mini desktop pictured above. The small "SS" markings stand for "SuperSpeed," which is another name for USB 3.0, which is another name for USB 3.1 gen 1. Maybe it's not the most intuitive thing in the world, but it's relatively easy to explain.

The answer to an increasing number of standards, though, is an increasing number of logos. You've got separate logos for USB 3.1 gen 1 and gen 2, as well as USB Power Delivery logos for USB 2.0, 3.1 gen 1, and 3.1 gen 2 ports—these are a combination of a small picture of a battery and the standard USB logos. Alternate Mode ports can include logos for other standards, too, so it won't be out of the question to see USB badges and HDMI or DisplayPort badges next to each other on the same port.

There are plenty of companies that choose not to use these badges, though, and the USB-IF is hoping that companies that use USB Type-C and the other standards will make it clear to consumers what the ports do. Companies like Apple and Google have done a decent job explaining the port on the product pages for the new MacBook and the second Chromebook Pixel.

In the past, OEMs have also color-coded ports to differentiate them—black is usually 2.0, blue is 3.0, teal is 3.1, yellow denotes sleep-and-charge, and so on—but these colors aren't part of the core spec, OEMs have never had to use them, and Type-C ports are small enough that it may be difficult or impossible to continue the practice. It's going to be up to PC, phone, and motherboard makers to make this clear to their customers.

"We're doing the best we can, but these OEMs, we cannot mandate that they use the mark," USB-IF President and COO Jeff Ravencraft told Ars. "If they're using our marks in addition to whatever else they're telling their consumer, and we're educating retail sales associates... It's always a hard problem to solve, to cover the whole gamut of stuff, and we just try to make the best tools available that we can."

Using these marks requires a trademark license agreement with the USB-IF, but that's one of the things included in the organization's $4,000-per-year member fee. Getting a standalone agreement will run you $5,000, a price Ravencraft told us is meant to incentivize membership rather than one-off certifications.

"3.1 gen 1" versus 3.0

The difference between 5Gbps and 10Gbps USB is straightforward, but the decision to retroactively rename USB 3.0 "USB 3.1 gen 1" is also confusing. Ravencraft and USB-IF CTO Rahman Ismail explained that it was to ease the transition for developers.

"If I'm a developer of a product and I'm making a USB 3 product, it has to work at 5 gigs, it has to be backwards-compatible," Ismail told Ars. "It has to work at USB 2 speeds, at a minimum... If we start making these guys go to three different specs, then all these guys are starting to get to the point where it's becoming an issue. So they go to the USB 2 spec to understand what they need to do for USB 2, and the USB 3.1 spec is one spec that tells you how you need to do both 5 gig and 10 gig."

Additionally, Ravencraft said that USB-IF's use of alternate names for each speed level is meant to reduce reliance on the version numbers. Low-Speed refers to 1.5Mbps USB 1.x, Full-Speed to 12Mbps USB 1.x, Hi-Speed to 480Mbps USB 2.0, Superspeed to 5Gbps USB 3.1, and Superspeed+ to 10Gbps USB 3.1. That said, while these labels often appear on boxes, the vast majority of spec sheets and product pages use the numbers instead. As with the port labels, the USB-IF can make these labels available, but it can't make OEMs use them or consumers pay attention to or understand them.

The ultimate fix for the problem is time; Ravencraft expects confusion to fade as the 10Gbps version of USB 3.1 proliferates. Eventually USB 3.0 "will disappear from the landscape," he told Ars, and the short-term confusion caused by the retroactive rebranding will be moot.

USB is getting simpler in some ways. When used with the new Power Delivery and Alternate Mode specs, companies can use Type-C to do things that just weren't possible with the old ports. And USB remains preferable to the mess of ports that it has replaced over time. But there's still plenty to keep track of, and the people responsible for defining the USB standards can only do so much to fix that problem.