Yup. Usually the device being charged can scale down the power throughput so it’s not getting 60W+ if it’s not able to handle it.
That’s the core of charging management: The charged device controls the process, not the charger.
Anything else won’t work if you think about it.
In this thread: people who don’t understand what power is.
Power isn’t something that is “pushed” into a device by a charger. Power is the rate at which a device uses energy. Power is “consumed” by the device, and the wattage rating on the charger is a simply how much it can supply, which is determined by how much current it can handle at its output voltage. A device only draws the power it needs to operate, and this may go up or down depending on what it’s doing, e.g. whether your screen is on or off.
As long as the voltage is correct, you could hook your phone up to a 1000W power supply and it will be absolutely fine. This is why everything’s OK when you plug devices into your gaming PC with a 1000W power supply, or why you can swap out a power-hungry video card for a low-power one, and the power supply won’t fry your PC. All that extra power capability simply goes unused if it isn’t called for.
The “pushing force” that is scaled up or down is voltage. USB chargers advertise their capabilities, or a power delivery protocol is used to negotiate voltages, so the device can choose to draw more current and thus power from the charger, as its sees fit. (If the device tries to draw too much, a poorly-designed charger may fail, and in turn this could expose the device to inappropriate voltages and currents being passed on, damaging both devices. Well designed chargers have protections to prevent this, even in the event of failure. Cheap crappy chargers often don’t.)
Great write up! Definitely filled in the info I only know a little about.
In this thread: people who don’t understand what power is.
Oh, please enlighten us, oh wise one. You might want to google “power draw” before you reply.
I guess he should have included the subtitles.
Have you ever heard the story of Darth Plagueis the Wise?
Usually
Is there some exception to USB-C im not aware of? Am i putting myself in danger using high power chargers to charge low power devices?
No, they do a handshake through the USB connection and negotiate the best charging wattage.
And to add : if the handshake fails, or no common voltage can be decided, it will stay at 5v
i charge most things with usb-c. for everything else, there’s mastercard.
I am a usb-pd believer. My phone, laptop, soldering iron, … All usb type-c with usb-pd capability, all running from my laptop charger that can do 5,12,19 and 20v
I’m waiting for a 138kV three phase USB-C for EV instant charging.
I’m waiting for the MagSafe variant myself.
I have a 65W usb c charger that I use for basically everything
Yep, best thing ever, I bought a GaN charger, 100W 3 USB-C and 1 USB-A. It’s small and light. I carry it around everywhere. I even bring it at my client’s office instead of the power brick they gave me since it’s so small.
Just make sure you have plenty of wattage. For instance, my job laptop uses a 65W adapter. If I want to charge this at the same time as my phone, I would need at least 90W to cover everything (65+25). So I have more power than necessary In order to be able to charge everything at once. Also, make sure to. Heck the adapter on how it distributes power trough the ports. My configuration could not be supported on a 3 port if for example they decided to split the power 55+45. But mine is 65+35 with 2 ports so I’m fine.
I charge my headphones with a laptop charger
my laptop charger is round and my phone is usb-c
my laptop has usb-c but it doesn’t seem to charge it
I have a dell laptop. Barrel charging port, but the USB-C port will charge it too… Just very slowly with a 33W phone charger instead of the 130W laptop charger.
My laptop doesn’t even have an usb type c charger
What is that picture?
Explosion
Ah… I thought it was some kind of hamster
It was
Do you charge your hamster with a usb c cable?
I would … after I guy this year’s iPhone … and a new laptop.
Seriously, though, why not? I did get my kid one of the Anker gallium arsenide chargers so he could do exactly that
But I’ll also go the other way - who charges their phone on the lowest power charger? I have a dual charger with total 2.1a, and it fully charges both my phone and watch overnight
I mean, for overnight charging you could probably go as low as 0.5A. Slow charging is better for your battery in the long run, afaik.
I have ACCA installed on my rooted Android phone and have it set to charge at 700mAh, to go easy on the battery. So no matter what charger I use, it always charges slowly lol.
My laptop charger won’t charge the phone at anything other than slow speed. So I tend to still use the phone charger.
But the phone charger is used to charge pretty much everything. I could use it to charge the laptop but the cable’s too short to be practical.
i use my steamdeck charger for the phone and tablet yeah
My phone accepts 60W charging… I charge my laptop with my phones charger.
yeah, from time to time.
i dont have any laptop chargers at home,
but at work everyone has usb c dockingstations.if i forgot to charge my earbuds, or if my smartphone is empty, i charge it at one of the unoccupied ones.
yes
