Poll: Charging Electronic Devices

[ohio jones]

For travel and public charging your best bet is to bring your own high wattage power brick and find a 120 volt household plug which are usually all over the perimeters of airport walls. And also just carry a backup battery. You also don't know if plugging into a public USB port is secure or if it will be a decoy that hacks into your phone. With your own power brick you are completely safe.

Also carry a few of these in case those 120 volt outlets are all in use or not conveniently located.

[Ken]

For travel and public charging your best bet is to bring your own high wattage power brick and find a 120 volt household plug which are usually all over the perimeters of airport walls. And also just carry a backup battery. You also don't know if plugging into a public USB port is secure or if it will be a decoy that hacks into your phone. With your own power brick you are completely safe.

Also carry a few of these in case those 120 volt outlets are all in use or not conveniently located.

Ha.

I actually do carry one of these which lets me find an outlet someone else is already using and share it.

[steve-in-kville]

We lost power at home yesterday afternoon for a few hours. We are in the midst of a heat wave.... mid to high 90's, heat index over 100*. My wife texted me just before I left work letting me know the electric went out. On the way home, various businesses and farmers had the generators humming.

[Bootstrap]

If you want to charge your phone fast, upgrade to a high watt charger like one of these which will cost you more money but give you a lot more output and will also charge smaller laptops: https://www.anker.com/products/a2343-10 ... 1851911318

And for your car, upgrade to a high watt cigarette lighter charger https://www.anker.com/products/b2731?re ... 3546354838

Yes, exactly. I have the Anker charger that you point to for my car. With the cheap chargers, I can't use Google Maps and a podcast or Kindle audio as I drive without losing charge during the day. With that charger, I can.

There are wall chargers with more USB-A and USB-C ports. I have one of those and use it for international travel.

[steve-in-kville]

If you want to charge your phone fast, upgrade to a high watt charger like one of these which will cost you more money but give you a lot more output and will also charge smaller laptops: https://www.anker.com/products/a2343-10 ... 1851911318

And for your car, upgrade to a high watt cigarette lighter charger https://www.anker.com/products/b2731?re ... 3546354838

Yes, exactly. I have the Anker charger that you point to for my car. With the cheap chargers, I can't use Google Maps and a podcast or Kindle audio as I drive without losing charge during the day. With that charger, I can.

There are wall chargers with more USB-A and USB-C ports. I have one of those and use it for international travel.

The power strip by my nightstand has a few USB ports. They all get used. I haven't charged anything off a computer port in a long while.

[Ken]

If you want to charge your phone fast, upgrade to a high watt charger like one of these which will cost you more money but give you a lot more output and will also charge smaller laptops: https://www.anker.com/products/a2343-10 ... 1851911318

And for your car, upgrade to a high watt cigarette lighter charger https://www.anker.com/products/b2731?re ... 3546354838

Yes, exactly. I have the Anker charger that you point to for my car. With the cheap chargers, I can't use Google Maps and a podcast or Kindle audio as I drive without losing charge during the day. With that charger, I can.

There are wall chargers with more USB-A and USB-C ports. I have one of those and use it for international travel.

Everything comes at a price. If you want to run more current that means more heat. Which means chargers designed to pull more current need to have more robust circuitry, heavier internal wiring, and better insulation so that you don't melt your dashboard or start a fire or just fry the charger itself. All of that costs money and requires more labor to assemble. And that it is why high-capacity chargers are bigger, heavier, and more expensive. Some cheap little charger you bought for $5 at the checkout line of a convenience store is not going to be any of that.

Also the original USB-A ports on computers were designed to run at 5 volts. These are the ports that you use to plug in flash drives, mouses, keyboards, etc. They are powered so that they can provide power to those devices. A flash drive requires power to run. But it is low power and not really intended for cell phone charging because USB ports long preceded cell phones. I don't know about the USB ports that one sees built into car dash boards. But if they are the USB ports that are designed to provide a hard-wire connection to the car's sound system then they may well be running at 5 volts as well. Which might give you enough of a trickle charge to keep the phone from draining if the screen is off. But probably not if you have the screen on for navigation.

That is one of the reason why the industry is switching to USB-C ports. They are designed to run at higher voltages. I think what happens with USB-C ports is that they provide 5 volts by default (so that low power devices like flash drives don't get fried) but that higher voltage devices like phones or tablets can electronically negotiate with the port to provide higher voltage power. In other words, they are smart ports whereas the older USB-A ports are dumb ports.

[RZehr]

The dumbest thing about them is the mystery of how first blind stab with a cord is 75% likely to be oriented the wrong way. You might think that there would be a 50/50 chance of getting it right, but no. Most often you hit it backwards the first time. This is probably why so many public USBs are busted. Just another conspiracy by monopolistic tech repair companies.

[Ken]

The dumbest thing about them is the mystery of how first blind stab with a cord is 75% likely to be oriented the wrong way. You might think that there would be a 50/50 chance of getting it right, but no. Most often you hit it backwards the first time. This is probably why so many public USBs are busted. Just another conspiracy by monopolistic tech repair companies.

That’s one reason why the newer USB-C ports are such an improvement. But then everyone complains about them because their old cords don’t fit.

[RZehr]

The dumbest thing about them is the mystery of how first blind stab with a cord is 75% likely to be oriented the wrong way. You might think that there would be a 50/50 chance of getting it right, but no. Most often you hit it backwards the first time. This is probably why so many public USBs are busted. Just another conspiracy by monopolistic tech repair companies.

That’s one reason why the newer USB-C ports are such an improvement. But then everyone complains about them because their old cords don’t fit.

Conspiracies everywhere. They aren’t going to go peacefully. If they can’t charge to replace the plugs, they’ll charge to replace the cords. Follow the money.

[temporal1]

Table lamp with USB outlet.

My grdaughter studies at a table with her school-issued ipad/tablet.
i bought a small table lamp for her with 2 built-in USB ports. not expensive. pretty lamp. it’s useful for her.
somewhat like these, there are all sorts of styles: i doubt they’re great quality. they get the job done.