Ha! I laughed at the "my left ear enjoyed it" comment.

Note that the audio mix for the microphone fell in the left channel only.

Apart from that, interesting images!

Here is the other video we've released so far if anyone is curious:

https://youtu.be/z09X_ZnAcLs

Happy to take recommendations for other stuff to drop in there and film!

Also if this sounds cool to you, we're hiring US citizens.

https://redballoonsecurity.com/company/careers/

> At my work, we have an X-ray machine for PCB reverse engineering.

Curious, does this machine get past the top copper layer?

Would a CT scanner work better for your use case? (ignoring cost)

> but its nice to know which suppliers have been proven in use.

Watch out. Some of the suppliers you’ve never heard of are capable of delivering good parts to companies like Apple but still have ultra cheap parts available retail.

You can’t rely on brand names in this space.

Similar design is a Ugreen Nexode 45 watt charger[0]. Folding prongs, May be ever so slightly larger. I just purchased one for an upcoming trip.

0: https://www.amazon.co.uk/UGREEN-Foldable-Charger-Support-Com...

Don’t buy Apple products from Amazon. Especially power or cables. The counterfeiting is out of control, and they have no plans to fix it

Wow, that does look very neat for an Apple charger. The prongs are individually foldable, right?

I wish there was something like this for Europlug chargers. Ironically, the most compact USB adapter for me so far is one with a US plug, combined with an US-to-Europlug adapter, which can be made very compact, but seem a bit risky at 220V, given that US plugs expose the prongs while connected.

China makes a 50 watt PD version with 2 ports already.

https://a.aliexpress.com/_EuPD4j8

It can deliver 50 watts entirely to 1 port, unlike most others where they mean 25 watts per port.

$5.50 with free shipping.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/1nfhctl/hands...

Hot but not too hot

Toastyness is regulated by law for anyone sticking to the law.

Many devices are made larger simply to have more surface area to spread the heat over to stay within the law.

Chargers that get to hot then thermal cut off (out of action for an hour) are so annoying.

I remember the old macbook pro chargers, they and the cable would get so hot it melted the insulation of the cable (over time). Not to mention the self-desoldering GPU’s inside the actual laptops.

Wow, that's really small. Only 43 cm3 (without the plug) for the EU version. I own an a Anker Nano II 65W GaN Charger and that's already small with 64 cm3. I can imagine that Rolling Square one getting even hotter with that low amount of material, and thus cooling.

The one thing I like about the Apple charging bricks is how on certain models the prongs can be swapped out for a cable, which is very useful when the wall plug is cramped. However, this device doesn't seem to incorporate that so I'm not sure what benefit it has over an Anker.

Are they full power to both ports simultaneously, or do they split between them?

The charging smarts are always in the phone, and always have been. Just because a USB port has 15 or 30 or a gazillion Watts available doesn't mean that the phone is required to consume that much. Similarly, the wall outlets in your house may be able to supply a couple of thousand Watts -- but that doesn't mean that a device plugged in is required to use all of that.

And batteries can charge pretty fast these days. Modern pocket supercomputers keep track of battery temperature to keep things within defined limits during charging.

AFAIK the real problem, longevity-wise, for these batteries in normal use is the time spent at extremes of charge (<20% or >80%, ish).

That all said: Sure, some phones have options.

My Samsung phone does some man-behind-the-curtain tricks to attempt to make it reach 100% just before it predicts that I'll unplug it (eg, when I wake up). The idea is to maximize the charge on the phone while also keeping it at 100% SoC for as little time as practical. This probably works great for people with regular schedules (which is to say: people who are not like me).

This phone also lets me explicitly disable various fast-charge modes. I think there's at least two different modes that I can turn off (but I leave them all turned on).

And there's also a mode that limits the maximum charge to 85%, to promote long-term battery health. I have this mode engage automatically when using wireless charging, which is something I only do with the wireless charging cradle on my car's dashboard. (I do want the phone to be powered while I drive, but I don't normally need anything to work extra-hard to cram that last 15% into the battery when I'm on a long drive. It's a good balance, for me.)

It's up to the device. If I have an alarm for the morning my pixel 7 slow charges over the night so that it's full when the alarm goes off. Modern charging standards give all the control to the client device.

You could convert from USB-C to USB-A and back. MicroUSB adapters are popular to chain for devices that only charge on USB-A. There are also adapters just force legacy USB charging for same problem devices. Then your phone will only charge at 12W.

On newer MacBooks you can turn on a similar battery protection mechanism to the phones. I believe vs the phones the smaller chargers won’t stress these cells since they’re a lot larger. 20-40W into a 15Wh battery is more stress than the same through a 52Wh (MBA) battery. A 1C charging rate is healthy.

The device being charged controls the charging current. Typically for smaller gadgets, a single resistor connected to the charge controller IC sets the current. Bigger things like laptops may be more sophisticated.

I still keep a few 5 watt chargers around and use them for overnight charging whenever possible. I reserve the use of high power chargers for the odd occasion when I need the speed.

I use USB-A ports on a dumb charger, but most likely, it'd be best for the battery to use a charger with PPS support (programmable power supply - the device can request finely tuned voltages, reducing losses and thus heat inside the device).

If you really want to, you can plug a USB tester (e.g. AVHzY) between your charger and device and manually force the charging mode.

On my Samsung S24 Ultra I have a routine set up where it automatically disables fast charging during the night, but enables it again during the day - the logic being that I don't mind if the phone charges slowly while I sleep, but if I plug it in during the day then I probably want the quickest top-up possible.

This is why I'm glad my phone has a cooling fan that can be set to come on during fast charging https://i.imgur.com/05lhMJA.jpeg

If you buy a crappy one it'll thermal throttle itself after a few minutes

This isn't exactly what you're looking for, but it may fit the use case.

I've recently been replacing some of the wiring in my house as part of a renovation, and I discovered that Leviton sells outlets with PD USB-C built in now! Not talking about the useless 2A USB-A "built-in" chargers of yore, now they actually have proper PD up to 60W!

They do also sell non-PD, so it requires some careful checking of the model numbers. And the 60W one is pretty large (the in-wall part) so it might not quite fit in an existing wallbox if it is a small one. But briefly: - T5636: two USB-C PD, up to 60W total / 60W individual or 30W each if both in use - T5635: two USB-C PD, up to 30W total / 30W individual or 15W each for both - T5634: one USB-C PD and one USB-A. USB-A is 10W and USB-C is up to 50W (even if both are in use) They also make T8xx versions of these that have 20A receptacles (NEMA 5-20R) but those are harder to find.

They also make other T56xx/T58xx which have non-PD USB-C, good for places like bathrooms where shavers/etc work fine on 5V.

I've found that putting a few of these around has eliminated a lot of the Anker chargers I used to have sticking out everywhere. They're completely in-wall and they leave both outlets free. If I need 100W for my computer, I'll still use a separate charger, but otherwise these are fine.

The only point they don't hit on your list is the ports facing down, but because they're flush at the wall, that means they don't interfere with furniture (any more than having any plug plugged into the outlets at all would).

If you're in Europe/elsewhere, not sure if other manufacturers make similar devices. I know Legrand makes some 30W PD ones in the US market, and as they're French, maybe they make them for others as well.

Depending on your location and exact geometry needs the IKEA SJÖSS might do it.

Wireless charging may avoid putting wear on the USB port, but it typically does negatively impact battery health due to higher heat while charging. I suppose with a sufficiently low power charger this may not be a factor, though.

You aren’t, but that concern is mostly superstition.

I work at a place with a huge phone fleet. We have interns study our telemetry and records because I kids like phones and they find ways to save us money. We allow for low friction replacements of phones at 12 months — the average replacement is ~27. The most common issues are cracked screens and excessive scratching on iPhone 16 and a Samsung I cannot recall. Batteries are only an issue for field devices subject to excessive cold or heat.

Unless you’re trying to keep the thing going 5 years, you’re likely seeing marginal benefits.

Meanwhile me with a 100 W charger for my OnePlus 13...

How do you manage that with magsafe/qi 2 chargers if you want to benefit from the greater efficiency and magnetic alignment? They’re all USB-C, and you can’t trivially buy USB-C chargers that are good for only 5W.

My current thinking is that the phone shouldn’t negotiate a higher wattage than it wants. Hypothetically, you could bolt it to a 1000W charger, and if it only asks for 30W, that’s all it’ll get.

I believe current battery technology is optimized for fast charging. You are incurring damage every time your battery goes below 20% or exceeds 80% (see current EV charging recommendations).

Even LinusTechTips did a video that showed the length of charging doing more damage than fast charging. For the concern about thermal damage, most phones will throttle their charge if they become too warm.

Personally, I feel my wireless charger in the car does the most damage. It generates more heat and holds the battery in a charging state for longer

Wireless charging is undoing all the gains of low charging speed because it's so much higher temp.

If it doesn't get hot you're good, I would say.

That's something you can override in the accessibility options, both in Chrome and in Firefox.

IMHO, it should be the default, I have never been in a situation where it caused a problem, but I have been in plenty of situations where it helped.

A workaround: Long press on image, "open image in a new tab"

turning the desktop mode on in the browser always worked for me to bypass such limitations on the mobile browser. just tested it and the pinching and zooming works fine.

I am able to pinch to zoom fine on my iPhone

From the article:

> The thermistor monitors the internal temperature and dynamically adjusts the power level to reduce output power when the temperature rises.

My guess is that it's dependent on the ambient temperature, but that's just a guess! I can't imagine what the restriction on peak power would be other than temperature rise, though...

I have a generic slim GAN charger that does a similar stepdown, 65W -> 45W. Different form factor, but same 80g weight.

Peak power tends to last about 10 minutes or so.

18 mins

https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/1nfhctl/hands...

I believe it’s around 15 minutes.

I have this laptop and this is so frustrating. I am hoping that they can fix this with a firmware update.

They’re doing a handshake with the adapter to see it’s not an HP charger, Dell does this too on its docks

Apple make an excellent UK 20W charger with folding pins.

Physically the design is pretty much the same as this new 60/40W version, so I would expect them to eventually offer a 60/40W folding pin UK charger too.

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MUVT3B/A/20w-usb-c-pow...

What's interesting about it is that it supports SPR AVS, which is a new USB power delivery spec. I'm not aware of any other chargers that support this.

https://www.chargerlab.com/complete-pd-3-2-spr-avs-specifica...

> There doesn't really seem to be anything interesting about this.

Agreed. Seriously, am I missing something or are the compact chargers from various other companies at least as compelling as this? I've got a nice one from Lenovo with high output and a smaller form factor than this. (Several other manufacturers have a similar size and output so nothing special about Lenovo here). The Apple one, while maybe smaller then their usual, is still bigger and appears to be short and "fat" which can limit where you can plug it sometimes.

Or is just another "but this time it is from Apple" kind of thing. (All the vapor chamber talk from a few days ago had me scratching my head too.)

Does Apple even design their own chargers? I know previous chargers have been built by Samsung, Flextronics, and other power electronics companies.

Apple sells Anker chargers from within their online store and possibly retail too so I figured they threw in the towel long ago. Honestly it seems quite overpriced when you can get a similar Anker GaN charger for much less.

And no, this isn't 2004 anymore, non-OEM chargers are outstanding as long as they're not $2 crap off AliExpress.

When Apple stopped including the charger in the box with iPhone as a sleazy money grab, it was a tacit admission that non-OEM chargers reigned supreme. Still didn't stop the pious and devout from shelling out an extra $25 though.

Quality, yes. Extremely compact, no.

Something like the Anker Prime 100W GaN charger is far more compact than any charger Apple has shipped.

Now, granted, many compact chargers lie about how long they can provide sustained power. That's exactly what this "dynamic" charger is doing, except that it's being more up-front about the fact that it's not a 60W charger, it's a "60W until it's inevitably too hot" charger.

Why would it have to be GaN? a 40W charger wouldn't suffice at a hotel?

I use a tiny 15 watt charger for my laptop.

It can just about charge the laptop whilst web browsing, but if anything CPU heavy happens then the battery discharges a bit.

But over a whole workday I find the charger is enough, and I prefer a smaller lighter charger over the ability to run a game 24x7.

I was mildly impressed until it got to the wall of slack-jawed selfies featuring titles like “gen-streamer” and my scam alarm bell started ringing.

Would you bother to explain your motivation?

There really aren’t any nuances to be aware of here. If the charger can provide 45W or more, it will charge your iPhone 17 Pro as fast as it can go. If you have an older iPhone, you don’t even need that much.

The Apple charger is mildly interesting because they made a slightly smaller than usual one that displays a dynamic behavior where it boosts up to 60W. That’s it.

(If you actually mean efficiency of energy delivered, and not time efficiency… the energy efficiency of charging your own personal phone is completely irrelevant to anything. You could save many times that amount of energy per year by switching to a heat pump water heater, or a heat pump clothes dryer, but most people haven’t.)

I write on mine with a marker. Ugly, but useful.

Didn't see that, but they do tend to look that way after some real-world usage.

This criticism seems fair of devices with consumable parts, like batteries. But of a charger? How can this be anything other than waste once it's no longer useful?

Exactly! Shameless plug: we do a repairable design for e-bike battery which uses no glue (https://gouach.com)

It eventually loaded for me. Alternatively: https://archive.is/tOC9a

For me, it triggered the Google Safe Browsing blocklist (I'm using NextDNS).

i was already sad the link wasn't righto.com when it's about chargers, and then it completely disappointed by not loading :)

and it's barely past 10 votes.

I thought that. they look hand-wound. I'm sure they can't be, unless this is a prototype that escaped somehow

AVS was created by the USB PD specification team (the USB Promoter Group/USB-IF), not Apple. AVS was introduced as part of PD 3.1 in 2021, albeit for >100W only. I believe Google was technically first out of the gate with a charger that supports the PDS 3.2 flavor of AVS.