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
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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