github darrylmorley/whatcable v0.2.1
WhatCable v0.2.1

latest releases: v1.0.4, v1.0.3, v1.0.2...
one month ago

What's new in v0.2.1

Sharper interpretation of the data, plus quality-of-life fixes.

New

  • Charging diagnostic. A green/orange banner per port identifies the bottleneck: cable rated below the charger, charger maxed out, Mac asking for less than the link can carry, or "everything matches." Answers the "why is my Mac charging slowly?" question directly.
  • Vendor names. USB-IF vendor IDs now resolve to readable labels for common cable, charger, hub, dock, and storage brands (Apple, Anker, Realtek, ASMedia, Belkin, Logitech, Seagate, etc.).
  • "Display connected" headline for monitor cables — DisplayPort-only ports no longer fall back to the generic "Connected" / "Couldn't determine cable type" message.
  • Keep window open toggle in the right-click menu. Pin the popover so it doesn't auto-close when focus shifts (useful for screenshots and demos).

Fixed

  • PowerSourceOptions parser. The full PDO list now decodes correctly (CF arrays of CF dicts weren't bridging cleanly to Swift's [Any]). Headlines now show real wattage instead of "0W charger".
  • Phantom internal ports. The watcher no longer surfaces usb-drd0-port-hs/-ss services — those are Apple silicon's internal dual-role-device ports, not physical connectors.
  • Refresh button. The header refresh now actually refreshes everything (ports, power sources, PD identities), not just the port list.
  • MIT license added to the repo.

Install

  1. Download WhatCable.zip
  2. Unzip → drag WhatCable.app to /Applications
  3. Launch — cable icon appears in your menu bar

Universal binary (Apple silicon + Intel), signed and notarised. Requires macOS 14+.

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