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Not All USB Power Is Created Equal
jfruh writes "We've reached a point in our electronic lives where most of our gadgets draw power from a USB cable, and we have lots of USB ports to choose from — some of which live on other gadgets, some of which live on adapters that plug into your wall or car. But those ports supply wildly varying amounts of power, which can result in hours of difference in how long it takes your phone to charge. The Practical Meter, the product of a successful Kickstarter campaign, can help you figure out which power sources are going to juice up your gadgets the fastest."
Like this little thing and also learn what the numbers and values mean. Got two, they work great and they're consistent with more pricier measurement options.
At work I could plug my phone into the computer or... Buy a second plug, that seams a bit pointless even it if it does knock and hour of the phones charging time.
At home I do have choice, but why would I really worry as each night it gets charged and has all night. So again an hour does not really matter.
What am I missing from this?
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
Being the fastest might not be the best for your battery life.
I believe most types of battery when charged faster actually degrade faster.
Life fast die fast ;-)
New things are always on the horizon
Instead of that ugly one, you may get something that gives an exact value, like this one. A new iPhone/iPad expects 2A, the MacBook (10W) expects also 10/5 = 2A.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Samsung seems to measure the "reliability" of the supply or the cable, and limits power based on those values. Then the same supply will charge at different rates depending on the cable used.
In what way is it "good and practical" to ignore a standard, possibly damaging electronics which assume the standard by providing a variable non-guaranteed maximum current? At worst this is a fire hazard, as you'd end up delivering an unreasonably high current. If the device isn't intelligent enough to ask for the right current, it should be delivered a safe trickle - as the USB standard asks.
A USB port should react gracefully to a defective USB device - either limiting current or cutting power if draw is too high. It should not give the malfunctioning device the opportunity to catch fire by delivering it as much current as possible.
Liberal in what you accept; conservative in what you send.
I'm an Apple Abhorrent... I don't use any of their products, not even an Ipod. I'm an Android/Windows guy. But my daughter decided she had to have an iPhone and bought it with her own money. I have one of those little plugs you put in a cigarette lighter in the car. My car has two up front, one that is ignition keyed, the other is always on. The dongle is in the one that is always on. And I have a standard USB cable to charge phones and other devices from it. It charges all of my Android phones fine. It charges the GPS fine. It charges pads like the Galaxy Tab and the Nexus fine. It won't charge my daughter's iPhone, even with her white Apple USB cord. To this situation, my daughter tells me that the little dongle I have is a POS. I smiled and was reminded, yet again, why I won't buy Apple products.
Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
Which (blankety-blank-censored-blank) is no longer available. And since the cables are no longer made or sold and since they were notoriously prone to fail means that I've been trickle-charging my unit for about a year now.
Exactly why I avoid devices with weird custom cables whenever possible in consumer electronics. It's been my experience that unless a custom cable is so popular as to become a standard itself (like Apple's Lightning) that eventually you are going to run into a problem. Furthermore it adds to the cost of the device (custom cables = $) and it usually means that the company making the device had lazy and/or incompetent engineers. Now admittedly the USB spec is pretty flawed, particularly when it comes to power, but even so I've still seen lots of devices that could have used standard USB (or Firewire etc) had they taken the time to do so.
Now sometimes the standard needs to be updated. I think USB should be beefed up to handle up to 100 watts with all due haste.
Bear in mind that my day job is to run a company that makes custom cables. Think about that. I make a living off of custom cables, have the ability and equipment to make a copy of pretty much any cable, and I still think they are a bad idea for most consumer electronics.