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After being mislead by 150+ 4.3 star avg reviews on Amazon into buying some junk EasyAcc branded "charge cables" I decided to find a better way to sort out marketing from performance. I now have cables of varying lengths made by Aukey, Anker, Tronsmart, EZO, PowerAdd, & generic eBay cables, as well as 3 wall chargers (Anker/Tronsmart), and 2 car chargers (Anker/Aukey). All of these chargers are Quick Charge 2.0 compatible. I'm actually pretty happy at the moment, I rely heavily on charging my phone in the middle of the day at work, in the car, etc. and I've found some charger/cable combos I like.
Unfortunately I don't have much experience with electrical systems, and don't really have enough energy to educate myself & try to create a repeatable test which I'd probably overlook some aspect of anyway..
So far I've tried an ammeter app called Ampere, and another called Galaxy Charging Current. These apps seem to be adequate to compare cables to one another on the same device under the same conditions, but don't seem to offer a universal measurement. That is, the measured current seems to be affected quite a lot by variables like device type and load, which are hard to control for. I'd like to get results which are useful to other people, as well as myself, if I'm going to do all the work required. Right now, the apps seem most useful in rating cables in accordance to one another/charger combo. The results are absolutely not repeatable enough for me to feel comfortable with sharing, one day a particular cable/charger would measure 1010mA, the next 750mA, etc.
If possible & fairly easy to do, I'd like to create a tomshardware/anandtech style shootout test which would:
-isolate the amperage reading from the load of the device (turning off wifi/gps/bluetooth etc. affects results)
-factor in changes in the charge cycle if necessary (I'd guess that a battery at 0% and 70 degrees F will charge at a different rate than one at 98% and 105 degrees F)
-be able to be broken up into different days (I'd rather not test 10-20 cables at once on different chargers..) so it would need to be repeatable, maybe if I got an inline ammeter I could test the amperage of charging with the phone off(?) that might be the best way to isolate all the background power draws/variables
-sort out the conflicting opinions about 'charge only' vs 'charge & sync' cables. Some say that many chargers themselves short the pins which the cable would otherwise short, some say the charge only cables are indeed faster
-point out any wild differences in cable gauge performance. I'm not really interested in this. I figure that A) manufacturers will wildly misrepresent this info, B) cable insulation is much cheaper to bulk up on than wire, and an easy way to misrepresent quality C) I'm not interested in cutting up $10-20 in cables right now to actually look at wire quality, which I'm in no position to judge accurately anyway.
Resources I have access to:
-Note 4, Adaptive Fast Charge/Quick Charge 2.0 compatible
-Note 2
-Bunch of chargers & cables of various brands
-probably <$25 to make a simple experiment.
I know that inline USB ammeters exist for $5-15, but I don't know if they would help to find better/more reliable readings. I think I need a better method of testing before jumping to equipment anyway.
Any insight is appreciated. For those wondering: so far I've compared Aukey, Anker, and EasyAcc cables to one another on 3 different chargers; the Aukey/Anker cables blow the EasyAcc out of the water, no comparison, as-in, roughly 400mA vs 1000mA. I haven't tried the Tronsmart/PowerAdd/EZO yet because I figured I should find a better way of testing before doing that. Also a 10 foot cable performed better than a 7 inch cable, there seems to be a lot of misinformation regarding Quick Charge 2.0 compatibility, resistance, etc. Not saying the rules of electricity are not applying, just suggesting that the factors some people tout as being extremely important may not have as much of a real-world impact as they might assume when other variables are taken into context.
If you have any ideas about posting to other forums which may be better suited for this subject I'm all ears, this is mostly for my personal interest and irritation with the lack of quality information available.
Unfortunately I don't have much experience with electrical systems, and don't really have enough energy to educate myself & try to create a repeatable test which I'd probably overlook some aspect of anyway..
So far I've tried an ammeter app called Ampere, and another called Galaxy Charging Current. These apps seem to be adequate to compare cables to one another on the same device under the same conditions, but don't seem to offer a universal measurement. That is, the measured current seems to be affected quite a lot by variables like device type and load, which are hard to control for. I'd like to get results which are useful to other people, as well as myself, if I'm going to do all the work required. Right now, the apps seem most useful in rating cables in accordance to one another/charger combo. The results are absolutely not repeatable enough for me to feel comfortable with sharing, one day a particular cable/charger would measure 1010mA, the next 750mA, etc.
If possible & fairly easy to do, I'd like to create a tomshardware/anandtech style shootout test which would:
-isolate the amperage reading from the load of the device (turning off wifi/gps/bluetooth etc. affects results)
-factor in changes in the charge cycle if necessary (I'd guess that a battery at 0% and 70 degrees F will charge at a different rate than one at 98% and 105 degrees F)
-be able to be broken up into different days (I'd rather not test 10-20 cables at once on different chargers..) so it would need to be repeatable, maybe if I got an inline ammeter I could test the amperage of charging with the phone off(?) that might be the best way to isolate all the background power draws/variables
-sort out the conflicting opinions about 'charge only' vs 'charge & sync' cables. Some say that many chargers themselves short the pins which the cable would otherwise short, some say the charge only cables are indeed faster
-point out any wild differences in cable gauge performance. I'm not really interested in this. I figure that A) manufacturers will wildly misrepresent this info, B) cable insulation is much cheaper to bulk up on than wire, and an easy way to misrepresent quality C) I'm not interested in cutting up $10-20 in cables right now to actually look at wire quality, which I'm in no position to judge accurately anyway.
Resources I have access to:
-Note 4, Adaptive Fast Charge/Quick Charge 2.0 compatible
-Note 2
-Bunch of chargers & cables of various brands
-probably <$25 to make a simple experiment.
I know that inline USB ammeters exist for $5-15, but I don't know if they would help to find better/more reliable readings. I think I need a better method of testing before jumping to equipment anyway.
Any insight is appreciated. For those wondering: so far I've compared Aukey, Anker, and EasyAcc cables to one another on 3 different chargers; the Aukey/Anker cables blow the EasyAcc out of the water, no comparison, as-in, roughly 400mA vs 1000mA. I haven't tried the Tronsmart/PowerAdd/EZO yet because I figured I should find a better way of testing before doing that. Also a 10 foot cable performed better than a 7 inch cable, there seems to be a lot of misinformation regarding Quick Charge 2.0 compatibility, resistance, etc. Not saying the rules of electricity are not applying, just suggesting that the factors some people tout as being extremely important may not have as much of a real-world impact as they might assume when other variables are taken into context.
If you have any ideas about posting to other forums which may be better suited for this subject I'm all ears, this is mostly for my personal interest and irritation with the lack of quality information available.
