crackjack

If that is the case, I would question that ‘reputable’ descriptor…

The iPhone 13 had a 3,224mAh battery; 27,000 / 3,224 = 8.4x, before inefficiencies. Oops.

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they referenced the iPhone 13 family, the 13 mini specifically, so 27,000 /2,406 * 80% efficiency? Still shady.

Look at Anker’s 747 95Wh (25,600 mah) one for what to expect from this class:
iPhone 13: 5x
Galaxy S20: 4.3x
MBP 13 2020: 1.2x (if M1, that’s ~70Wh, meaning a claimed 75% efficiency at higher voltages thru the USB-C port… interesting.)

On a related note on USB-C power banks, my Nitecore NB-series gave up the ghost. Should be getting a replacement from them; Nitecore is one of those who really deserve the ‘reputable’ tag, given their single-cell business, so hopefully my old one was just a dud.

aww3583

I bought this same power supply/adapter. So far, so good!

With a small laptop, a MiFi Jetpack, an iPhone, and an Apple Watch Ultra all plugged in, the device did get very warm and my laptop displayed a "slow charger" notification.

The device either throttled itself due to the high temps, or it was pulling so much power that it warmed up significantly.

StuckInYYZ

I don't think the math works out like that...

So assume the power bank is rated at 27,000 (before wear and tear).... So * 0.8 = 21,600... that would be divided by 3,224 so approximately 6.7 times for an iphone. of course, that would also slowly go down based on the charging cycles (so at approximately 3 years) you're looking at 5.36 times (assuming the iphone doesn't lose capacity either)...

crackjack

Agreed. Just pointing out the ‘Nine times claim’ couldn’t even be achieved if they had 100% efficiency and were doing just the simple calculation.

As I noted earlier, true output efficiency can easily be below 80%; even the Anker I mentioned looks like it is in the 7x% range.

StuckInYYZ

That's why I'm not a very good sales person.... at least in that way. A lot of marketing people want to shine the best light on their product, even if it's flexing the truth a tad much.

LIH Prem

Tried one of these usb-c powered hubs, it does power delivery to the laptop, but apparently doesn't provide enough power to the usb-c ports to even drive two SSDs properly or something else made it not work well in my limited testing. I returned it.


why doesn't anybody make a reasonably priced usb-c to usb-c hub that provides power to each port?

-David

StuckInYYZ

I would probably try some of the bigger name brands. The one in the link above is one of those chinese copycats. I found this in the

crackjack

My guess is the reason is that a hub just doesn’t have the power available.

There is ~15W being set aside just for the hub itself; even if one uses a 100W USB-C charging adapter, that’s ~85W remaining (and a 60W charger can be used too, 45W available). Then the laptop will take a good chunk out of that. After that, the maybe 4 peripherals plugged in all have to compete for the 20-40W left.

Hubs are also meant to be portable, so not as sturdy / robust, in build or design as docking stations (and therefore also lower cost). Perhaps diverting the majority of the power to the host device is the cheapest solution.
(Though, to be clear, the USB-A and USB-C ports must still supply some level of power - flash drives, drives, speakers, etc all require some power if no other supply / battery.)

A USB-C docking station, on the other hand, will normally* have a much larger AC/DC adapter (e.g. Anker’s are 180W) giving more headroom for the ports, and probably more circuitry internally too. Maybe the advent of USB PD EPR / 240W might change that? (But then, you’d have to limit the power to the laptop to divert some to the ports.)

(*I see that Plugable does have some docks with 100W power bricks, but they make no claims on USB port power except the 60W to the laptop. Anker also has this one with 100W adapter, 60W to laptop, 20W to 2nd port, claims to charge ‘small devices’ on USB-A, $120: https://www.anker.com/products/a8394)

On price: if the competition could build docking stations to a lower price than currently seen, I expect they would have…

LIH Prem

Maybe I'll have better luck with the Caldigit Soho dock than I did with their Element Hub.

Meanwhile I'm going to give the Anker 565 a try, but I have a question into Anker support about how much power is provided to the 2 USB 3.2 ports (one c and one a).

As an aside, I wonder if all these hubs that support 100W input and 85W PD to the host are all using the same chipset?

-David

crackjack

In case anyone is looking for a USB-C-only multi-device charger, this Satechi one seems to have done well in testing (at least that specific unit):
(AllThingsOnePlace is doing a good job on the charger testing. Very thorough and well thought out. Does seem to be stuck on the fact that most/all 60W chargers do not have PFC tho…)

roastpuff

I ended up buying too many power banks! Here's the two that I currently have in my possession (the RAVPower PD Pioneer 60W 20,000mAh is being sent back).

Will probably keep the Anker and sell the Baseus to my friend, I'll let you guys know how it goes on my trip.

Baseus Blade 100W 20k vs Anker 737 PowerCore 24k (Anker 533 Powercore III 10K for scale comparison)

Top down view - banana for scale


Side view - the Anker is narrower than either but more than twice as tall.


Powercore 10K weight



Baseus Blade weight


Anker 737 weight


PBR to Banana scale

LIH Prem

It arrived today, and with the caveat that I had to reboot and remove the SSD from time machine and added it back and it seems to be working with 1 SSD attached to the usb-c port. I'm not trying 2 drives. The reason for removing it, and adding it back was that when I first unmounted and connected everything back, time machine hung on connecting to the disk. So I had to force a reboot, then unmounted the time machine drive, checked it, mounted it and no problems yet other than that.

I wrote to Anker support and they gave me a simplistic answer and said 7.5W to each of the USB 3.2 gen 2 ports. But that leaves nothing for the rest of the device, so I guess they meant "up to". I didn't really press them on it. I decided that by using the hub for power delivery and one external SSD, that frees up one usb-c port I need so I don't need to swap drives in and out anymore when I'm home.

-David

pseudoswede

What reasons are you using for keeping the Anker versus the Baesus?

roastpuff

Power, shape and size, basically. The flat plate style is less packable (my opinion) and the extra 4k mAh and wattage headroom is a little more reassuring for me when I use it to power my travel CPAP

KRSW

I'm still using Ankers.. I have the at my desk, and the on the counter between the kitchen & living room. Even when charging multiple 26,800mAh batteries, the 10-Port stays nice & cool. I did have problems with Anker's 5-port chargers dying after a year or so, but Anker replaced them and the replacements held.

I've accumulated multiple 10-Port & 6-Port chargers over the years, which came in handy after the hurricane. So many people needed to charge phones and so few outlets. These easily handled that.

I'm still mostly USB-A to USB-C. 90% of the time I'm using USB to charge devices. Other than a laptop's higher current needs, I don't see the benefit of going USB-C to USB-C. I don't want to fast charge my phone or any other device with a sealed battery; I prefer not to cook my batteries. My still aren't made in C-C, only A-micro and A-C. I've only come across one rental car (Mercedes E) which only had USB-C ports in it.