Getting Charged Up Over Chargers at CES (Video)

First we look at Skiva Technology and their Octofire 8-port USB charger that pulled in nearly five times the requested amount from a Kickstarter campaign. (The 'pulled in X times the requested Kickstarter amount' is becoming a common product boast, isn't it?) Then, for MacBook owners who are tired of having their chargers or charger cords break, we take a brief look at the Juiceboxx Charger Case. These two power-oriented products and WakaWaka, which we posted about on January 9, are just a tiny, random sample of the many items in this category that were on display at CES 2015. Timothy was the only Slashdot person working CES, so it's shocking that he managed to cover as many (hopefully interesting) products as he did, considering that even the biggest IT journo mills don't come close to total coverage of the overwhelming muddle CES has become in recent years. (Alternate Video Link)

Comments

Re:Reverse Octofire

[QuasiSteve]

Sorry, device charging doesn't work that way. If it did, you'd just hook your mobile device up directly to your car battery and have it charged in minutes.

The device itself determines how fast it gets charged by drawing a certain amount of current. Based on passive or active measures, it might draw more current (say, 2A max) from e.g. a wall charger than from a computer USB port (say 500mA max), but if you decided to just wire two wall chargers together, the device isn't magically going to draw 4A.

As for your Kindle, depending on the model you have (Kindle Paperwhite or Kindle Fire? big difference), it really should charge in just a few hours to the point where it decides it's charged (based on LiPo voltage levels). Sounds to me like the internal battery in your unit may be worn and either the charge controller is dropping charging current way too early, or the battery's voltage level takes too long to reach the 'charged' state during the voltage phase. If it's within its warranty period, try exchanging it.

Of course the other possibility is that your nights are very short :)

Re:You know...

[bill_mcgonigle]

Every dollar store sells USB wall chargers

Speaking of that - maybe everybody knows this already but it had escaped my attention - I was getting annoyed that my phone charges very fast with the Samsung charger/cable but rather slowly with the well-rated 2A charger I bought off Amazon.

The issue was my dollar-store cables. Long story short, there is 28/28 gauge wire inside cheap cables and the resistance means they can only pull 500mA. The electronics at both ends are smart enough to figure this out. What you need is a
28/24 cable and then you can get a fast charge.

I'm using Galaxy Charging Current Lite to measure my existing USB cables and tossing the ones that can't handle at least 1.3A. This helps with my over-stuffed box of USB cables too.

Re:That thing is enormous

[munwin99]

Got mine the other day. Works like a charm charging a Galaxy Tab 8, 2x Galaxy Nexus' and an iPod touch all at once. And it's small and nicely designed. No complaints here :-)