USB cable, does it have to be power only?

[hg1027]

So I'm late to the chromecast party (been using a raspberry pi for a few years), and I see it comes with a power only USB cable. I have bucket loads of regular (power and data) micro USB cables from kindles and tablets and phones and headphones and rpis and bt speakers etc etc etc, and all of those things are happy with full fat cable.

Any reason the CC is power only, or can I trash it and use a real cable? I just hate the idea of showing up somewhere having grabbed just this wire, and not being able to use it for data transfer.

 

[hallux]

"Power only" cables typically allow a higher current than "power and data" cables. I don't know what the power needs are for a Chromecast so I can't say if a regular USB cable would work.

 

[Rukbat]

Nope. Some power only cables are made to carry the amount of current that device needs and no more. The reason they're power only is that, with a few million cables a company makes a year, that 3 feet of thin copper for the 2 18" data leads adds up to tons, and copper is expensive.

Use any microUSB to USB cable you like on a Chromecast, as long as it's not so long that the voltage drop across it makes it useless (like a 25 foot long thin cable). Ohm''s Law still applies, even with Chromecast and USB.