I have a OnePlus phone and I know that to fast charge it I need to use a special USB cable.
But Samsung phones, for example, also have their own fast charging cables.
So why can’t those phones fast charge with the other manufacturer’s cables if the cable is able to transfer enough power anyway?
At the end of the day the cables are simply transferring electricity, and the more watts the faster it should charge, no? At least that’s the way I see it
In: Technology
there is actually more to the cable that just wires. many have small IC on the connector that interacts with the charging circuitry on the device. Why/how they don’t work across manufacturer is beyond me. might be intentionally proprietary so you only use a cable that will not damage, or so that you have to buy/use their cable. I think the QuickCharge standard that Qualcomm developed was an attempt at a standard across devices, but it would require the use of a Qualcomm chip or at least the licensing of the technology, so that will only go so far.
> At the end of the day the cables are simply transferring electricity …
Nope, that’s not how it works at all. There are tiny processing chips in the cable. These chips negotiate between the power supply and the device to agree on how much current to provide and at what voltage to provide it.
There are standards, and the more companies that use them the fewer cables you will need. I don’t know about OnePlus, but Apple and Samsung both support the same standard, and require eMarker chips in cables befpre they will fast charge with them.
Could be because of different fast charging stantards. Some may use USB PD or Qualcomm quick charge which use higher voltage (USB PD goes up to 20V) and lower current, therefore they don’t need thick cable. Others just use 5V and high current (Realme uses 5V 6A charging), and you need really thick cable for 5 or 6 amps. So if you try so use cable from a phone that uses higher voltage with a phone than uses high current, it very likely won’t charge at full speed. It should work other ways though.
Any USB C cable used for 60/100 watt charging purposes must be electrically marked as such. Without such a marker the limit will be lower than that.
A cable from any company should work as long as it has the proper rating.
This isn’t old USB where it’s only dumb wires to wires. Modern phones negotiate the power draw with the power source, lots of intelligence built into that system, and your cable and charger need to be smart enough. You can charge a modern phone with a dumb power cable, but it will default to low power draw.
you have to understand several things about usb cables.
a basic cable is just a cable, its just a piece of metal which conducts electricity and signals.
now, depending on what you want to transmit through it, you can have the cable be higher or lower quality.
lets first start with the leads.
The leads can be : (from worst to best)
– Tin
– Aluminium
– Copper coated Aluminium
– Pure copper
– Silver coated copper
– Silver
Tin is cheaper then aluminium, Aluminium is cheaper then copper, Copper is cheaper then silver.
but when it comes to conductivity, silver is better then copper that is better then aluminium that is better then tin. the less conductive the material is, the more resistant it is, meaning more of the electricity is lost to heat dissipation.
Then theres the issue of American Wire Gauge, AWG is the thickness of the cable in inch/X, so a 24AWG cable is thicker then a 28AWG cable (1/24 of an inch is thicker than 1/28 of an inch).
So a 28 AWG cable might be able to carry 2-3 watts maximum while a 24 or 22 AWG cable will be able to carry around 100 watt for a 5 foot distance
Then theres the soldering and connector quality, cheap thin connectors with weak stress relief will break easly, stronger cables are stiffer but worth it, also some USB cables have a small microcontroler inside to control flow and make sure you dont fry anything.
Personally. as long as you check your cables are at least 24 AWG and have decent stress reliefs,you shuld be fine.
you should be more worried about getting quality chargers.
I think you’re confusing the cable and the charger (the part that plugs into the wall).
There’s one universal standard for USB-C cables. There are some cheap knockoff cables that don’t fully implement the spec and won’t correctly charge your phone at high speed. And there are some USB-C cables that are only designed for data transfer and not fast charging. But ALL cables from ALL brands that are designed for fast charging will work.
However, there isn’t just one universal standard for fast charging. Some phones have the ability to charge a bit faster when used with just the right charger.
The charger and the phone do a little “handshake”. The charger says, “hey, can you handle 50V? that’s a lot!” and the phone says, “yeah, I can handle that. bring it on!”. Because that “handshake” isn’t standardized, a OnePlus charger won’t fast-charge a Samsung phone and vice-versa.
If the phone doesn’t respond to that signal, the charger only puts out a normal charging voltage. Or maybe it falls back on a medium charging voltage that’s faster but not the fastest.
Over time this sort of thing tends to get standardized.
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