You can actually get optical usb3 and thunderbolt (all generations) cables. Thunderbolt was originally called light peak and shown off by Intel and Apple in demos as optical, and Sony had a line of laptops with optical light peak connectors to connect
to external GPUs. But ultimately the default became non-optical because it can carry power too.
That’s a good point although optical usb3 and thunderbolt3 cables tend to be advertised with electrical isolation as a feature and suggest using an external hub to provide power.[1]
You can actually get optical usb3 and thunderbolt (all generations) cables. Thunderbolt was originally called light peak and shown off by Intel and Apple in demos as optical, and Sony had a line of laptops with optical light peak connectors to connect to external GPUs. But ultimately the default became non-optical because it can carry power too.
> But ultimately the default became non-optical because it can carry power too.
There's no problem in making a cable with two fibre leads for data and two (at higher lengths thicker to reduce issues with voltage drop) power lines.
That’s a good point although optical usb3 and thunderbolt3 cables tend to be advertised with electrical isolation as a feature and suggest using an external hub to provide power.[1]
[1] https://www.corning.com/optical-cables-by-corning/worldwide/...
3 replies →