[HN Gopher] Apple MagSafe Battery Pack
___________________________________________________________________
Apple MagSafe Battery Pack
Author : kondro
Score : 151 points
Date : 2021-07-13 17:46 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| sib wrote:
| Here are the FCC materials (but the data related to capacity is
| in the confidential sections):
|
| https://fccid.io/BCGA2384
| historyloop wrote:
| A Canyon 5000 mAh is of comparable size and costs $12. It's not
| MagSafe, but frankly the cable is not a problem at all.
|
| I'm an iPhone/Mac user, but this thing costs $99 and they didn't
| even bother to write out the damn capacity on the page
| (reportedly less than 4000 mAh).
|
| I like Apple, but their accessories are truly reserved for people
| with either too much money, or too little intelligence.
| arihant wrote:
| So as I understand it, I'd have to choose between this and
| MagSafe charging setup I've invested in? This does not seem to
| have magnets/coil on the outside so I can't keep my phone with
| this attached on the MagSafe charger it seems. I wonder if I
| detach them can I keep the isolated pack on MagSafe to charge?
|
| This is more confusing than it needs to be. At least there is
| reverse charging so I don't have to choose between charging and
| CarPlay.
| umisays wrote:
| Giraffes are great
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Hm? The battery pack charges with Lightning, which is a point
| of contention in your fellow top-level comments.
| Unklejoe wrote:
| I would have rather had a new Smart Battery Case with a MagSafe
| coil on the outside.
| manifoldgeo wrote:
| Would anyone else just be fine with a thick phone that had a
| better internal battery? I would prefer that. To me, this battery
| pack is a symptom of a systemic design flaw. Consumers and
| companies are obsessed with thinner, sleeker devices, but the
| costs are obvious-- slimmer phone, smaller battery.
|
| When the Xbox 360 came out, it was substantially smaller than the
| original Xbox. But, most of the space savings came from moving a
| huge chunk of the power supply unit into the power cable! So now
| you had a massive cable and a smaller device, so it was really
| just for show. The overall system itself was still the same damn
| size!
|
| Another consequence of thinner phones is less protection. Drop
| your phone once, and the chances you shatter the screen are high.
| There's an entire protection economy around phones-- everything
| from insurance to cases to glass screen protectors. All of these
| expenses and "opportunities" could be circumvented if they just
| made a fat, ugly, functional phone.
| _ph_ wrote:
| The answer to your question lies in the number of people who
| are buying the MagSafe battery pack. If it is a large amount of
| all iPhone customers, the phone should be just thicker with a
| bigger battery, if it is a small fraction of all customers, the
| battery is probably fine except for some high workloads.
| Personally, I am fine with the battery capacity (iPhone Pro
| Max), I wouldn't mind a little bit more of thickness for a bit
| more reserve, but it shouldn't get much thicker.
| conscion wrote:
| > Would anyone else just be fine with a thick phone that had a
| better internal battery?
|
| I think you miss the point of maximizing the customization of
| the phone. Because phones have to be in a single unit, user
| customization can only be done through external peripherals
| (vs. desktop PC where individual components can be customized).
|
| To make the external peripherals as non-invasive as possible,
| the phone should be as small as possible while still being
| usable for most use cases. For example, if battery is your
| priority, get a case that has a built in external battery; many
| exist. Then you can have your extended battery, while a user
| who doesn't care about it, can have a smaller phone.
| mmebane wrote:
| I would love having a slightly thicker phone. The iPhone 12 Pro
| Max is good enough for most days, but having around 25% more
| battery would be welcome, especially for weekends when I'm not
| sitting at a desk with a charger. Just make the entire phone
| the thickness of the camera lenses, and that would probably be
| sufficient.
| notimetorelax wrote:
| I got iPhone 12 Pro Max a few months back, and I must say I
| don't see a need for another battery pack. It easily lasts me a
| whole day of heavy usage.
| lowercased wrote:
| agreed 100%. but the move to thinness keeps a 'wow' factor
| going every year or so.
| leppr wrote:
| _> Another consequence of thinner phones is less protection.
| Drop your phone once, and the chances you shatter the screen
| are high._
|
| How does thinness decrease screen protection? On the contrary a
| reduction in thickness also usually involves a reduction in
| weight, which decreases the impact force from a drop.
|
| Personally, I'm fine with protection through external,
| replaceable accessories. No matter how sturdy, scratches on the
| screen are inevitable. With a glass screen protector, you can
| throw your $500+ device around carelessly, and replace the $15
| protection after a few years or if it breaks.
| ot wrote:
| For me it's more of a weight issue. Current iPhones are already
| heavy enough to be slightly uncomfortable when scrolling for
| long times, I definitely wouldn't want anything heavier.
| andrepew wrote:
| I agree, I'd rather just have a bigger phone with a better
| battery.
|
| Although I don't think bigger inherently means more
| durable/more protection. Bigger means when dropped, whatever
| part of the chassis hits the ground first has a lot more energy
| to absorb.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| No. My hand still gets tired from the weight of the iPhone 12
| (weights a lot more than a Kindle), and I already downgraded
| from the 11 Pro (weights a lot more than a non-Pro) even though
| I love photography.
|
| But anyone with a purse can just stick this battery in their
| purse and make sure their phone lands next to it when they put
| it away, gaining the benefits of the extra battery with none of
| the drawbacks of having to hold the extra weight most of the
| time. I would expect it's not quite thin enough for men's jeans
| pockets to tolerate this use case (and so this will be
| completely overlooked by all reviews and press), but this is
| definitely an object that looks designed for purses rather than
| pockets.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| It would be my choice to have a _slightly_ thicker phone, but
| as somebody who is looking to move to the iPhone after a decade
| on Android, I like the option to have this in a bag or
| something for the days that I have more heavy usage.
| BluePen8 wrote:
| Not really, ever since phones got so big, they're hard to use
| one handed. Thickness just exacerbates the issue.
|
| When I accidentally broke my original iPhone SE, I switched to
| an X and ended up having to use it caseless just to make it
| easier to use with one hand.
|
| Hated the size of the X enough I bought an iPhone Mini the
| first day it came out, my first brand new iPhone purchase since
| 2013.
|
| I have no interest in adding even a mm of size to my phone. The
| battery lasts all day and it can fast charge anyways.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| I wish Motorola wouldn't cancel their superb Z line of phones.
| MotoMods were a great idea, which worked especially well for
| batteries. I never had to worry to run out of power for the last
| 4 years I use these devices.
| eugeniub wrote:
| After looking at the specs, I'm really disappointed. MagSafe by
| itself already heats up my iPhone 12 mini tremendously compared
| to a normal wired charger, which can charge up to 20W instead of
| just 15W (or 12W for my mini). But this battery doesn't do even
| 12W/15W when not plugged in, it only goes to 5W, the same as the
| Anker battery, which is less than half the price. Also it only
| comes in white.
| samatman wrote:
| I don't see any compelling reason to choose this over the Anker
| battery either, but some people don't even consider off-brand
| accessories and Apple is happy to charge them double or triple
| for the privilege.
|
| I think 5W is a deliberate design choice, though, for exactly
| the reason you mention: heat. You can slap the battery on and
| stick it back in your jeans without roasting your thigh, and
| the point is to keep your phone working, not to make the
| battery meter go back to green ASAP.
| ValentineC wrote:
| Looks like Apple is once again doubling down on Lightning,
| because the battery pack gets charged with one, instead of with
| micro-USB or USB-C.
|
| I like how it also works as a MagSafe charging pad, but it's a
| shame that they didn't use a single bidirectional USB-C port, and
| have a way to allow other devices to be charged from that port.
| cududa wrote:
| I REALLY want Apple to switch to USB-C, but having one cable
| for a battery pack stuck to your phone and one for the phone
| itself would be obnoxious
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I can kinda see how this would make sense in the case, as long
| as the iPhone has Lightning, you will have to bring that
| charger anyway. Though this might be a good way to ease people
| in by selling two versions.
| mvanaltvorst wrote:
| As a sidenote, does anyone know whether something like an
| "optimal" Qi charging wattage exist, as in highest efficiency?
| Power lost due to resistance increases with current squared.
| Therefore I would imagine charging <5W would be best for high
| efficiency. However, Qi is based on quickly alternating magnetic
| fields. Does the circuitry involved make Qi charging inefficient
| once the power gets low enough? Or is Qi charging at 0.1W
| preferable over 2.5W?
| deregulateMed wrote:
| Just commenting on the copywriting since Apple is a master of
| marketing (according to my MBA program).
|
| There are 4 messages about being able to buy this on
| credit/monthly payments.
|
| Veblen goods don't target the wealthy, but they need to appear
| to.
|
| I feel like this has mixed messaging, or maybe this is a
| necessity to make the sale.
| kevinpet wrote:
| Apple products are not Veblen goods. They are primarily bought
| for their utility.
|
| The wikipedia page for
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good is interesting. It
| talks about wastefulness, but then excludes "ethical goods"
| from consideration as being wasteful. Apparently we are never
| allowed to ask whether a cottage farm in Portland is wasteful
| compared to an efficient mechanized farm. Only intent matters.
| jabedude wrote:
| I think the messaging is to encourage people to open an Apple
| Card account
| tshaddox wrote:
| This meme about Apple products deriving most of their demand
| from being status symbols is a decade or two out of date. For
| many years, iPhones have had comparable tech specs and pricing
| to competing flagship smartphones. Also, even if they are
| status symbols to some extent, they almost certainly are not
| Veblen goods. Do you think Apple would sell fewer iPhones if
| they dropped the price of every model by 25%? No way.
| spoonjim wrote:
| iOS has 60% market share in the US, which is also the
| percentage of people who could scrape together $1,000 in an
| emergency: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/11/just-39percent-of-
| americans-... .
|
| iPhones are not simply Veblen goods like Hermes handbags
| (although there might be that element to them), they are also
| in many ways the best smartphone you can buy, for lots of
| different reasons. I buy all of my clothes at Costco and I have
| an iPhone. It is a mainstream product targeting mainstream
| Americans, many of whom consume on credit.
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| I feel like this wealth concept is a bit dated, have you seen
| the news the last month.
|
| For the ultra wealthy, their lives are completely dependent on
| loans and debt.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Are you really shocked that given Apple's massive market
| penetration, they have enough customers in lower socioeconomic
| brackets that financing options are a viable revenue stream?
| morley wrote:
| I think you're anchoring to the idea that Apple produces Veblen
| goods, and trying to work backwards from there.
|
| The more straightforward explanation is that Apple just wants
| to make it easy to buy on credit.
|
| I disagree that Apple products are Veblen goods in the same way
| that, say, Prada products are.
| samatman wrote:
| Apple's brand is affordable luxury, as such, they aren't
| marketing themselves as a purveyor of Veblen goods.
|
| Whether you buy into the marketing or not, the pitch is this:
| the latest iPhone is the best phone in the world, and if you
| can make the monthly payment, you can have it. It's like
| Warhol's observation about Coke: you can't pay more for a
| better iPhone, even if you're a prince or a celebrity.
|
| You can pay extra for exactly two things: storage, which is
| invisible, or a red one.
|
| Apple does make a few products which appear to exist to anchor
| the "luxury" part of this branding, such as a $999 monitor
| stand, or the AirPods Max, Hermes-branded Apple Watches and so
| on.
|
| But their bread and butter is affordable luxury.
| ValentineC wrote:
| > _There are 4 messages about being able to buy this on credit
| /monthly payments._
|
| I'm guessing it's also a US-specific thing. The MagSafe battery
| pack listings for non-US stores don't have this:
|
| UK: https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MJWY3ZM/A/magsafe-
| batt...
|
| Singapore:
| https://www.apple.com/sg/shop/product/MJWY3ZA/A/magsafe-batt...
| dbbk wrote:
| It's $99, I wouldn't say it's for 'the wealthy'.
| krferriter wrote:
| It's like 12x the price per energy unit compared to other 3rd
| party battery packs from high quality brands like Anker.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Considering it's only accessory to a $1000+ device, it seems
| like it isn't really for poor people, either.
| scarface74 wrote:
| 1. Hardly anyone in the US pays for their phone outright.
| It's a combination of interest free payment plans and
| subsidies/rebates
|
| 2. The iPhone 12 mini is $699
|
| 3. Half of the US is not "rich". But somehow they manage to
| have iPhones.
| [deleted]
| stalfosknight wrote:
| The iPhone 12 starts at $699.
| ggpp wrote:
| The iPhone 12 starts at $729. You get a $30 rebate if you
| sign up for a new phone plan.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| My mistake, I'm thinking in CAD and the starting price is
| $979.
|
| To me that still seems like a lot of money.
| hu3 wrote:
| My friend paints houses 4 days a week average for $25/h. No
| fancy stuff just wall painting.
|
| He's always packing the latest iPhone Pro.
|
| If iPhones are a status symbol, I'm not sure to whom.
| umisays wrote:
| Well above the $7.25/hr minimum wage then, and still
| above the $15-20 estimated average hourly wage for US
| workers.
|
| So iPhones are a status symbol for people like your
| friend, who are making more money than the average
| citizen, if that clears it up for you.
| i1856511 wrote:
| I'm confused about this: You can also charge both
| if you attach your MagSafe Battery Pack to your iPhone,
| then plug your iPhone into a power source. You might want
| to charge this way if you need to connect your iPhone to
| another device while charging, like if you're using wired
| CarPlay or transferring photos to a Mac.
|
| Does this imply... if you MagSafe this to your phone, and then
| connect the Lightning cable to the Battery Pack to charge, the
| Lightning port on the iPhone cannot be used for CarPlay? Does it
| get turned off?
| vlozko wrote:
| It means if you're using CarPlay, you can charge the phone and
| the MagSafe. It's trying to say that it's safe to charge your
| phone while plugging the cable in for purposes other than
| explicit charging.
| bitcoinGod88 wrote:
| it doesn't say how much battery life it adds...
| mholm wrote:
| Likely varies too much to give a fair estimate. I'd guess this
| is somewhere around 3000-4000mah, then minus the wireless
| charging inefficiency? So it might give the 12 Mini a full day,
| but only half a day for the 12 Pro Max.
|
| EDIT: Apparently just under 1500mah, so likely half a day for
| the mini, and a few hours for the max? I'd be curious too.
| kylemh wrote:
| very critical miss
| jonplackett wrote:
| Has anyone else found that battery packs with wireless charging
| kinda suck?
|
| I lost my non-wireless one so just bought a new 10,000 Anker one
| with wireless charging.
|
| I was expecting that to keep my phone going for a few days easily
| but it was dead after 1 and a half wireless charges.
|
| Is this just the inefficiency of wireless or am I doing something
| wrong?
|
| Is this what MagSafe is trying to make better? Better alignment =
| less wasted energy?
| techrat wrote:
| Inefficiency at several steps.
|
| Battery voltage to charging voltage is a step.
|
| Charging method (wireless) adds a step.
|
| Input voltage to battery voltage is a step.
|
| Plus you have the extra circuitry of Wireless to power.
|
| Nothing runs straight off 5v of USB or 3.7v (nominal) of LiPo.
| There's little converters for everything, every step of the
| way.
|
| This is why you'll never see a 3.7-4.2v battery pack delivering
| 1:1 charge to a smartphone over 5v USB. I did the math a long
| time ago and the capacity conversion is around 74% to 84%. So
| if you have a 10,000 mAh battery, expect it to charge about
| ~8000mAh worth of your phone.
|
| For wireless, it's even worse.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| I should get at about 2.16 charges then (based on 8000) got
| only 1.5 which seems pretty dire! I'll take a cable next
| time!
|
| The other thing I found was I couldn't use the phone while
| changing. That seems to be a weird oversight for
| wireless/MagSafe charging in general.
| techrat wrote:
| That puts it pretty damn close to the 50-55% wireless
| efficiency figure I keep seeing thrown around. Yay!
| Wireless!
| danso wrote:
| Am I missing the tech specs section? I see that it can charge 15W
| wireless when plugged in, but how big is the battery?
|
| For comparison's sake, here's the Anker 5,000 mAH magsafe battery
| pack for just $45. However, it doesn't appear to charge above 5W
| even if plugged in. I bought one during Prime Day but haven't had
| much need to use it. It definitely looks beefier than the Apple
| version.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Magnetic-Wireless-Portable-Powe...
|
| OTOH, at least it comes with a USB-C cable!
|
| edit: the Anker pack has a standard USB-C port, which you can
| charge directly from far more efficiently. The Apple charger
| appears to charge via lightning port...I'm assuming there's no
| way to directly wire charge your phone from it, nor power any
| other non-magsafe device
| kondro wrote:
| I can't find the source right now but I believe it's around
| 12Wh.
| vernie wrote:
| It's visible in one of the photos (11.13Wh)
| ni-hil wrote:
| 1460 mAh
|
| https://imgur.com/1khiiEj
| cbsmith wrote:
| Damn, talk about reading the fine print.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| To note, that it's 7.62V (i.e., 2S), so it's equivalent to
| most ~3000mAh packs. Still not great for the money, but not
| as bad as it sounds.
| skavi wrote:
| Why did the mobile industry decide to use mAh instead of
| Wh.
| stevenpetryk wrote:
| I think that's just the battery industry. Whenever I shop
| for batteries for robotics or RC vehicles they're in mAh
| too.
| foobarian wrote:
| Maybe it's slightly more convenient because the same
| value applies no matter how many cells are in the battery
| pack. So it helps distinguish the packs by electrical
| current output capacity which we can't get from a power
| value because power combines two different measures.
| notatoad wrote:
| mAh doesn't change as you add cells to the battery pack?
| i'm pretty sure that's not correct.
| samatman wrote:
| This depends on whether they're wired in series or in
| parallel.
|
| Wired in series, mAh won't change, wired in parallel,
| it's additive.
| foobarian wrote:
| Most commonly RC battery packs are referred to as "1S,
| 2S, 3S," etc. indicating how many single cells there are
| in the pack wired in series. Those are also individually
| rechargeable via a low-current charging cable.
| atomwaffel wrote:
| My e-bike's battery on the other hand is in Wh.
| skavi wrote:
| laptops are always Wh in my experience.
| ksec wrote:
| Mobile Industry standardise on 3.8V, so you have two
| number to present to consumers, Wh or mah. Since Wh is a
| smaller number, marketing decided to use mah. Once that
| got traction, others that were previously using Wh had to
| follow. And now we end up having _billions_ of consumers
| using mah as a unit and when they use it defaulting to
| 3.8V.
|
| It is all too late now. Sigh.
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah, it doesn't get worse than rock bottom.
|
| 5000mAh compact is around $20, 10,000mAh $40 for good
| devices.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| You're not really comparing features to features if
| you're comparing to a boring 5000mAh brick with wired
| charging.
|
| Closest I can find is probably the Anker Qi magnetic
| brick: https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Magnetic-Wireless-
| Portable-Powe...
|
| 5000mAh, only 5W Qi charging, and $45.
|
| Again, not defending the Apple tax here, but it's not as
| far fetched as it sounds.
| bserge wrote:
| Only 5W? What makes Apple's 5W better (no, it's not 15W
| when portable)?
|
| But yeah, OK, you can attach it with magnets to the back,
| that's worth double the cost. Oh wait, make that triple,
| since you need the case.
|
| I better stop now, shitting on Apple was a favorite
| pasttime of mine.
|
| I mean, as someone looking to manufacture and sell a
| premium product, I'm pretty happy with it, people will
| pay anything for imaginary benefits.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| I missed that it doesn't support 15W charging when
| portable. That's erodes quite a bit of the benefits then.
| No reason you need the magsafe case, as far as I can tell
| though.
|
| Also, the Anker device does have magnets. Looks like they
| operate just like the magsafe.
| historyloop wrote:
| > You're not really comparing features to features if
| you're comparing to a boring 5000mAh brick with wired
| charging.
|
| So wired charging is boring and magnetically attached is
| exciting?
|
| You know, this is not like AirPods, which are completely
| disconnected from the phone. It's a lump attached on your
| phone that you may also unintentionally disconnect and
| drop on the floor while taking videos of something.
|
| I'm way more "excited" by the cable, especially given the
| price (you can find pretty good 5000 mAh bricks for as
| little as $12).
| DeRock wrote:
| "mAh" are useless here without voltage. Its like using
| 50KM/hr as the towing capacity of a truck.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's actually very useful. Ah is the best way to compare
| battery capacity.
| vizzier wrote:
| I think the idea is that watt-hours (Wh) serves the same
| purpose and doesn't miss information about capacity if
| voltage is omitted. Technically though the units in watt
| hours should cancel out to be Joules which may be the
| best unit.
|
| Are amp hours in some way better due to the varying
| voltage across the charge profile of a draining battery
| perhaps?
| samatman wrote:
| I'd argue that the undecomposed watt-hour is in fact the
| superior unit for batteries.
|
| Because what I want to know about a battery is exactly
| how many hours I can use it at a given wattage. The
| voltage is determined by application, and the only amp-
| related stat I'm interested in is maximum current, which
| is more useful to me in watts anyway.
|
| So a 50 Wh battery which I'm going to draw at 10 watts?
| five hours of use time. 20 watts? 2.5, and I can do this
| in my head all day. Joules are less convenient because
| going from seconds to hours is too annoying to do as
| mental maths.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's mostly because the voltage is assumed to be constant
| across the discharge profile (even if it isn't), and Ah
| is taken to the point that you can safely discharge the
| battery to. So you compare two batteries with the same
| voltage on their Ah, and systems in terms of Wh (and then
| the voltages are irrelevant).
|
| One problem here is that what looks like a battery on the
| outside is often a system under the hood, so the output
| voltage is not necessarily the voltage at which the
| battery operates due to for instance DC-DC convertors and
| other electronics embedded in the battery housing.
| coaksford wrote:
| It's only useful if you know the voltage of the battery,
| so that you can calculate watt-hours, or if you at least
| know that two batteries you're comparing are the same
| voltage so you're comparing like to like. It's not useful
| if you're comparing batteries of different voltages
| unless you're adjusting for voltage in which case you
| want to use Wh anyway, which is why using Wh here is more
| useful.
| beervirus wrote:
| It's only useful if the batteries have the same voltage.
| When, as here, they don't, you have to do some arithmetic
| to compare the capacities.
|
| So it's actually probably the worst way to compare
| battery capacity.
| Tagbert wrote:
| Yes, this new Apple pack holds less charge than that Anker one,
| but it is much slimmer and attaches with magnets. It's meant to
| give you some extra battery life in a sleek form that fits on
| your pocket. If you are going to be away from a power source
| for days, the Anker might be a better choice but if your just
| looking for some extra juice on a long day of use and don't
| want something bulky to carry around, this would fit the bill.
| laurent92 wrote:
| Thank you for the explanation. I'm already frustrated that
| the iPhone doesn't include enough battery for a full day of
| work (when the iPhone 7 could last several days initially), I
| find it amusing that Apple proposes an additional "short-
| term" battery.
| billyhoffman wrote:
| Apple has had smart battery cases since the iPhone 6/7 era.
| I think it depends on usage. In my home city, my phone goes
| all day no problem. On business trips to NYC with all the
| tall buildings and taking more ride shares than normal, the
| battery gets hammered and dies. I had a smart battery case
| for years that I just used on trips. The simplicity of
| Apple's design was (to me) worth the premium. (no extra
| wire from battery to phone. no turning the battery case on
| and off, one wire to charge both, etc)
| Someone1234 wrote:
| The linked Anker one also attaches via magnets.
| layer8 wrote:
| > it is much slimmer
|
| Apple neither states the dimensions nor provides a picture
| with a 90deg side view, so I'm wondering how slim it really
| is.
| gimmeThaBeet wrote:
| Yeah, kinda bizarre that they don't specify, that's like...
| _the_ spec.
|
| Sites have said it's 11.13Wh (~comparable to a iPhone 12), but
| then even at that, how efficient is the Qi charger itself? How
| much of that capacity do you actually get?
| arcticbull wrote:
| Qi charger efficiency is roughly 50% right, I suspect that
| should be a good approximation.
| addaon wrote:
| This seems a bit low, do you have a source? While I haven't
| worked with the Qi standard directly, I've used 200 kHz
| inductive power transfer in other contexts, and efficiency
| numbers in my experience are in the 75% - 85% range for
| well-aligned coils. The total efficiency will be a bit less
| than this (moving charge in and out of a battery is pretty
| good, but not 100%), but I'd be surprised to see 5W
| transfer with a total efficiency much less than 70%.
| arcticbull wrote:
| This article is a bit sensationalist, but they claim to
| have gotten mid-60s efficiency [1]. I think I misread
| them initially when they said "47% more power" - I took
| that to mean 47% efficiency, but on re-reading it's
| closer to 66%. My bad!
|
| [1] https://debugger.medium.com/wireless-charging-is-a-
| disaster-...
| exabrial wrote:
| I'll move to Apple and iPhone as soon as they have USB-c. This
| lightning connector nonsense is getting ridiculous.
| macintux wrote:
| I would wager you'll never see it: either it'll stay with
| Lightning indefinitely, or they'll drop the charging port
| entirely (which would be unfortunate).
|
| The keep rolling out new devices like this with Lightning. If
| they were going to start a transition, this or the AirPods
| would have been the logical place to begin.
| cududa wrote:
| This is highly likely. They'll probably just include a
| magsafe charger and run data over it for dev purposes. But
| knowing Apple the data magsafe will cost more/ be an add-on
| tqx wrote:
| Yeah, we'll never see an Apple device with USB-C, besides all
| of their laptops. Those chargers are great for Android
| phones!
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Also the iPad Pro :)
| remir wrote:
| The iPad Pros and 4th Gen have USB-C. Not sure why the
| iPhone doesn't at this stage.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Because Apple wants to make more money on lightning
| cables.
| [deleted]
| otterley wrote:
| Why would they move quickly from a cable connector that has a
| massive installed base and that works well for most people (or,
| as you put it, "nonsense") to one that doesn't have nearly as
| much market penetration?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| In the past, Apple was happy to make forwardlooking decisions
| regardless of today's market penetration (remember the floppy
| to CD uproar? And the removal of DVD drives?). It's kinda
| humorous that today my MacBook Pro's plug-in accessories
| (dongles, chargers, headphones, etc) work better with my
| Android phone than they would if I was totally bought into
| Apple's ecosystem
| artursapek wrote:
| The market would follow their move pretty damn fast.
| wil421 wrote:
| If I can help from destroying another iPhone I will wait it out
| until USB C. I was pissed last year when I had to buy another
| iPhone with a lightening port.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| Does the 15W magsafe powerbank even exist?
| frakkingcylons wrote:
| I hope this works well. I backed the Kickstarter for an external
| swappable iPhone battery case (CoBattery [0]) and I loved the
| thing. It was bulky and looked weird, but it was so nice having
| such long battery life. They shut down a while ago but it was
| great while it lasted.
|
| [0]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cobattery/cobattery-
| nev...
| stordoff wrote:
| I've got an Apple Smart Battery Case[1] for my iPhone 11, which
| is a similar idea, and the extra battery life can definitely be
| handy. Doing it with a swappable battery is a neat twist though
| - I haven't seen that done before.
|
| [1] I picked up a cheap used one - they're rather expensive at
| full price (PS129). It can charge my iPhone from 10% to 60%
| though, so it's current capacity roughly matches its design
| capacity.
| frakkingcylons wrote:
| Yeah the ability to swap was what made it so great. I haven't
| found anything else with the same capability.
| turtlebits wrote:
| Same- the Cobattery was great (except for the bulk). I actually
| never wall-charged my phone and just had several battery packs
| (relatively inexpensive Samsung packs) that I kept topped off
| and just swapped out.
| bserge wrote:
| With fast charge being common these days, why not just carry a
| portable battery (or two or three, for less than $99)?
| dbbk wrote:
| There are lots of battery cases on Amazon. They work great.
| frakkingcylons wrote:
| I edited my post to be more explicit, but the batteries in
| the CoBattery case were swappable. That was the killer
| feature for me.
| asciimov wrote:
| This sure is a garish looking device. They also are trying to be
| clever and not show how thick it is.
| inlikealamb wrote:
| As a dumbass that always forgets to charge their phone until I
| need to go somewhere, I could imagine using this (as long as I
| can remember to keep it on the charging pad).
| neither_color wrote:
| How strong is the magnet, can you pick the phone up by the
| battery pack or vice versa? Seems less practical than the battery
| case that doubles as protection for the device and charges faster
| too.
| mholm wrote:
| While I can't speak for this one in particular, all the magsafe
| accessories I've used so far have been more than enough to
| support the entire weight of the phone, without any wiggle.
|
| I'd much rather have this than a battery case, as this is much
| more convenient to just slap on and slap off, rather than
| removing/applying a full phone case. More storage efficient
| too.
| passivate wrote:
| How often do you need to remove a phone case? For people who
| purchase one, I don't think its all that common to do so.
| xattt wrote:
| What is the physics textbook math behind this? Is there a
| certain magnetic force needed to induce a coefficient of
| static friction that prevents wiggle?
| mholm wrote:
| For the accessories I've used, it's been the texture of the
| materials providing most of the static friction,
| leather/rubber both have high static friction combined with
| the amount of force pressing them to the back glass.
|
| I have a magsafe car mount, and I'm pretty sure I could get
| in a car accident without it moving, but with a fairly
| simple twist I can pull it right off.
| skohan wrote:
| How efficient is wireless charging?
|
| As a pandemic hobby, I've gotten into building batteries to power
| light vehicles, and it's an interesting problem to try to fit the
| maximum capacity you can into as small a package as possible.
| Efficiency is a huge concern here, as the more energy you lose
| to, for instance, a voltage conversion, the bigger your battery
| has to be to meet the required use-case.
|
| So this kind of wireless charging is neat, but if there's a
| significant efficiency difference to just plugging in a power
| bank, it would be hard to feel like it's worth it.
|
| This might be cool for something like a camera, where hot-
| swapping batteries faster has a major benefit to the use-case.
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah, tbh, the hardest thing for building a custom E-Bike
| battery pack is the ridiculous prices and downright
| unavailability of cells!
|
| Best I can get are 32700 LiFePO4 6000mAh cells for 5 Euros
| each... A prebuilt Li-Ion Chinese pack with an extra 2Ah is
| just 30 Euros more than the cells I would need alone
| (housing+BMS cost not included). Just sad.
| skohan wrote:
| Idk, cells are commodity priced, so currently I think you
| just have to bite the bullet and shell out a couple hundred
| bucks if you want to build a battery.
|
| Used cells are also an option, and there's some really good
| ones out there.
|
| Anyway Li-ion and LiFePO4 cells are going to seem cheap once
| solid-state cells hit the market.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Nah, cells aren't commodity prices, not even 18650 and
| certainly not anything LiFePO4. If you establish a
| relationship with the factory or a supplier you can send
| prices crashing down.
| namibj wrote:
| Maybe because typical Li-Ion 18650 cells are significantly
| cheaper per Wh than LiFePO4?
| bserge wrote:
| Sadly, no, 18650's cost the same for half the capacity.
| Likely because they're in high demand right now and car
| manufacturers have hogged up the best of them.
|
| Hence, LiFePO4, heavier, lower voltage, less capacity, but
| also safer tbh.
| [deleted]
| jacquesm wrote:
| Heat management during fast charging cycles is the reason why
| you end up with a less dense structure than the theoretical
| maximum.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > How efficient is wireless charging?
|
| Not efficient
| jmkni wrote:
| How do you even get started building a battery? You should blog
| about it, I'd read it :)
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I've done it too, honestly there's not that much to write
| about it I thin.
| sithadmin wrote:
| Not especially efficient in practice. In general you can expect
| in the ballpark of a 50% loss in efficiency with consumer
| electronics. This is mostly due to design/usability compromises
| though. In theory you can get 90+% efficiency with ideal
| conditions.
| arcticbull wrote:
| It's just a transformer right so under ideal-ideal
| circumstances you could get 99% or more. Large power
| transformers are ~99.7% IIRC.
| a_conservative wrote:
| Can you tell us more about what kind of vehicles you are
| building? Are they big enough for people? I'd love to hear more
| about your experiences around this!
| skohan wrote:
| I'm actually not building the vehicles, just the batteries
| for aquatic applications. I've got a small zodiac, and I've
| been experimenting with powering a small electric trolling
| motor.
|
| The thing is, most trolling motors for a boat this size run
| on 12V, because lead-acid batteries are the standard for
| marine batteries. The energy density of lead-acid batteries
| is terrible, so you need a pretty big battery for a little
| tiny boat which doesn't make a lot of sense. You can do a
| little bit better with a lithium-iron-phosphate battery, but
| since these are the "new" tech in marine batteries, you pay a
| really big premium for these which is absurd when you look at
| the price of the cells themself. So you are paying like 3-5x
| the price of materials just to get it in a waterproof case.
|
| Also LiFePO4 batteries have a pretty poor energy density when
| compared to lithion-ion batteries, which are the current
| standard bearer. The problem with li-ion batteries is that
| there's not a great way to get them to 12V. Depending on the
| configuration, you can get a voltage nominal of 10.8V, or
| 14.4V, both of which put you a little outside the range of
| what's optimal to power most 12V motors when you're close to
| min or max voltage. Also there's some advantages to building
| a 24V battery instead of 12V. Also you have to be _really_
| careful about waterproofing, since li-ion batteries are
| extremely volatile.
|
| So those problems are solvable, and I managed to make a
| battery which is about the size of a box of tissues, and can
| power my boat for up to a couple of hours, depending on how
| many people I bring with me. It's pretty fun to do, and I
| have all the stuff now, so I'm thinking about doing an e-bike
| or electric scooter next.
|
| Also I'm thinking about trying to drive the boat with a
| brushless aquatic thruster, since the trolling motor itself
| is not that efficient by current standards. But there's a lot
| of fabrication involved there which I would still have to
| teach myself.
| a_conservative wrote:
| I really love hearing about your personal experiences with
| this, and I think a lot of other people do too.
|
| if it were low power electronics you were powering, I would
| suggest taking the battery to 14.4v and using some diodes
| to drop the voltage down a little bit. There would be some
| power dissipation in the diodes and that would increase
| with current, so it's probably not a great solution.
|
| It might not be that bad to run the motor out of spec a
| bit. It sounds like you have a good solution. Did you
| consider putting the lead acid battery in a towable
| floatation device of some sort?
| namibj wrote:
| The energy density of LiFePO4 shouldn't be an issue in that
| application, unless you're having to carry a lot of them on
| foot or scratch on weight limits.
|
| Regarding the motor, I'd suggest to look at enthusiast RC
| hardware, which tends to be efficient by necessity: great
| power density at these sizes is a question of cooling,
| which is easier if the components are highly-efficient.
| skohan wrote:
| Yeah where I am boating, I have to go a couple hundred
| meters by foot to get to the water, so optimizing for
| weight was one of my primary design constraints. Also it
| was partially just out of interest to see how small I
| could go.
|
| And I have been looking at RC motors! The main challenge
| there would be figuring out how to mount it - those are
| the skills I think I need to level up a little bit.
| seryoiupfurds wrote:
| That sounds like an incredible project, if you have a
| write-up I'd love to read it.
| skohan wrote:
| Thanks! I haven't documented it yet, but I will have to
| get around to it.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Also LiFePO4 batteries have a pretty poor energy density
| when compared to lithion-ion batteries, which are the
| current standard bearer.
|
| In comparison to generic, consumer LiCo, they are better,
| much better.
| [deleted]
| verytrivial wrote:
| Is there some Apple induction charging magic which removed the
| something like 40% wasted energy that occurs when using fields
| instead of conductors to charge? If anything this would surely
| matter _more_ if you 're carrying around the charge instead of
| parking it on your night-stand.
| minimaxir wrote:
| I recommend reading the support document because it is weird:
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212174
|
| - 15W charging when plugged into the battery (effectively serving
| as a MagSafe charger), but 5W when not (effectively the same as a
| normal 3rd-party battery)
|
| - It may only charge to 90% (with the workaround being to put the
| iPhone into Low Power mode?)
|
| - If plugged into the phone, it can charge the battery (is this
| the first use of "reverse charging" for the iPhone?)
|
| It also requires iOS 14.7 which isn't out yet; the RC was
| released today so will likely be out next week.
| etempleton wrote:
| But wait, why would I plug in a cable to the battery instead of
| directly to the phone to achieve faster phone charging? I
| suppose if I only had a 5 watt charger on hand? But if that is
| the case, why does it not charge at 15 watts when not plugged
| in?
| [deleted]
| stu2b50 wrote:
| You could charge the battery pack and the phone at the same
| time. Saves you a cable/brick when you need to charge both.
| Closi wrote:
| > But if that is the case, why does it not charge at 15 watts
| when not plugged in?
|
| Presumably because of the power draw on the battery, which
| doesn't matter if it's plugged in.
| [deleted]
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| > is this the first use of "reverse charging"?
|
| It's not, the Pencil does it, too.
|
| Various other accessories are also bus-powered.
| minimaxir wrote:
| Edited to clarify for the iPhone (since the Pencil is a fair
| counterexample for iPad)
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| You can also charge the pencil from an iPhone. It's just
| another Lightning device.
| minimaxir wrote:
| The second generation Pencil is inductive only.
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211019
| nofunsir wrote:
| I prefer to charge my pencil via my lightning earpods.
| skavi wrote:
| First use of Reverse Wireless charging on an iPhone. Also,
| the iPad charging is one way.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| Ah, I misread. From the context on the help article it's
| clear. I thought it referred to connecting phone and
| battery pack with Lightning.
| bserge wrote:
| Just as it should be, why would a tablet with it's huge
| battery charge something else? That's the job of the small
| phone!
|
| But seriously, someone fucked up with the circuit design
| here.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| iPad doesn't have any induction coils to support reverse
| wireless charging, but you can use it as a USB-C phone
| battery
| popz41 wrote:
| The iPad Pro will charge a phone plugged into it via a
| USB-C to lightning cable.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| It can only do 5W charging from the battery pack, but the
| charging coils can passthrough line power up to 15W.
|
| Charging the battery pack and also the device connected via
| MagSafe simultaneously is stated to require a USB-C power
| supply _greater_ than 20W.
| skavi wrote:
| To clarify the first bullet point:
|
| When the battery pack is plugged into an outlet, it will
| function more or less as a standard 15W wireless charger. When
| unplugged from the wall and drawing from it's own energy, it
| will only provide 5W of power.
| bloggie wrote:
| > - If plugged into the phone, it can charge the battery (is
| this the first use of "reverse charging"?)
|
| Now that's cool. It's certainly the first wireless reverse-
| charging that I've heard of.
| skavi wrote:
| This has been a feature on at least higher end Samsung Galaxy
| devices for some time now. There it is less restricted, and
| you can basically use your phone as a standard Qi wireless
| charging pad.
| eganist wrote:
| Confirmed; I've routinely used mine to charge my iPhone in
| a pinch when the only charger I've got is for my Galaxy
| device.
| xeromal wrote:
| Yup, I've noticed my headphone case battery was empty and
| placed it on top of my phone at the gym. Sometimes it's
| enough to get juice for a 15-20 minute jog.
| yeahbut wrote:
| The first time I saw it mentioned was a Huawei phone in 2018.
| Samsung quickly followed, and there are LOTS of Android
| devices with it now.
| bserge wrote:
| So it has a <4000mAh battery? Those are some expensive magnets.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| It's got a 1460 mAh 2S/7.4V battery (so ~2920 mAh in the
| typical 1S 3.7V form factor). And it connects via inductive
| coupling, which is inefficient, so you won't get all of that
| charge into the phone.
|
| There are some sensible justifications to those metrics for
| battery health and charge efficiency. Stopping charging at
| 90%, limiting battery-based wireless power transfer to 5W
| instead of 15W, limiting charge levels when the devices get
| warm, charge management software to protect battery health
| when plugged in for long periods of time, charging more
| slowly when you don't need a fast charge, and charging the
| iPhone before the battery pack are all features with good
| technical reasons for doing them instead of technical
| limitations.
|
| The naive approach of always providing 4.2V at as much
| current as the cell can take is bad for batteries. Apple has
| the required vertical integration and ecosystem controls to
| do some of these things that may be confusing.
|
| I'm not disagreeing that it's not an order of magnitude more
| expensive than a comparable USB battery pack with larger
| specs.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| >The naive approach of always providing 4.2V at as much
| current as the cell can take is bad for batteries.
|
| More on-point with what I think you meant, cellphone fast
| chargers are usually putting 1C into cells below 75% when
| thermal conditions are met, which many consider to be
| stressful to li-ion chemistry. I do think this is ignoring
| that 1. Better charge standards like VOOC have higher
| efficiency and so lower thermal load, and 2. cell
| chemistries have improved iteratively to reduce internal
| resistance, again reducing heat.
|
| Where manufacturers differ is how they deliver and convert
| that voltage inside the phone/device. Some of the designs
| (qualcomm quickcharge) dump a lot of heat stepping down a
| higher voltage while the earlier mentioned VOOC tries to
| match everything inside to meet a desired rate of charge.
|
| Temperature is the big enemy followed by dwell time in the
| saturation zone. (over 80% state of charge, getting worse
| over 90%).
| throwanem wrote:
| You jest, but I believe radial magnets genuinely are costly
| to make due to their complex process requirements. Granted,
| that raises the question of whether this is a product that
| makes any sense at all, but I suppose we'll have to see what
| the market says there.
| jhorman wrote:
| I bought a magsafe radial magnet car mount on AMZN for $15
| throwanem wrote:
| Or maybe they're marking this thing up more than usual
| for some reason.
|
| I genuinely don't know - the only magnetic charging I
| have on my 1st gen SE is through a dinky little adapter
| that plugs into the Lightning port, and since those
| adapters also come in USB-C and mini-B I can't imagine
| Apple ever getting close to the kind of interoperability
| they provide. I'm sure I'll have an iPhone that can do
| inductive charging at some point, but God alone knows why
| I'd ever bother using it.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Same and it comes with charger, albeit 7W only. It's
| weird almost 1 year later there isn't actual magsafe 15W
| car mount.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Samsung gave me a wireless-charging 10,000mAh battery pack
| for free a few years back. Expensive magnets indeed.
| mvanaltvorst wrote:
| Wondering whether iOS 14.7 also unlocks reverse Qi for other
| devices, e.g. AirPods. People previously assumed that there was
| a piece of circuitry missing for reverse charging, but this
| product disproves that.
| sigjuice wrote:
| What might happen if both the phone and the battery are plugged
| into power?
| krferriter wrote:
| The power draw from each to the other reaches equilibrium and
| neither charge. They just trade electrons back and forth
| forever.
| _jal wrote:
| Maxwell's tennis match.
| progbits wrote:
| Am I just unable to find it or are the dimensions not listed on
| the page (or the listed support page)? The pictures also avoid
| any side-on view, giving just a very shallow angle picture with
| lighting that makes it hard to estimate.
|
| How thick is it? And how heavy?
| layer8 wrote:
| They seem to withhold that information on purpose, so I guess
| the pack is not very slim. We'll know in a week or so.
| egypturnash wrote:
| I like how it comes in a bunch of colors that _don 't_ match the
| range of colors the phones come from, nice job guys.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I like how it comes in a bunch of colors
|
| I'm not seeing any color options besides white. What are you
| seeing?
| Ashanmaril wrote:
| I'm guessing they scrolled down to the generic MagSafe promo
| above the product info section and thought the MagSafe
| wallets (that have been out for a while) were battery packs
| egypturnash wrote:
| Ah, yeah, that's what I did. I haven't had any reason to
| ditch my 6s so I don't keep up with this stuff too much.
| Ashanmaril wrote:
| To be fair, it's not a great design choice to shove an ad
| in between the purchase section and the
| product/compatibility info
| thefounder wrote:
| >> Just plug a Lightning cable into the MagSafe Battery Pack
|
| 2021 still not usb-c...greed has no limit
| Tagbert wrote:
| No greed here. Apple is making this so the argument that they
| get money for lightning cables is irrelevant. The phone uses
| lightning. It would be weird if the battery pack used something
| else.
|
| You can make an argument that Apple should switch their phones
| to USB-C but they seem to be heading toward a cable-less
| solution instead. If they were to change to USB-C tons of
| people would scream that Apple were doing this just to sell new
| cables. That is exactly what happened when they switched from
| the 30-pin connector to lightning. I would like to see them
| switch on the Pro model phones, at least. That market is likely
| more ready to switch.
| EarthLaunch wrote:
| Moving to cable-less is a good idea, but these chargers and
| batteries themselves still need to be plugged into something.
| I guess that should be USB-C, but USB-C confuses people.
| Perhaps Apple should move to some kind of solid-state
| approach like docks built for certain situations (home,
| travel, car). Abstracting away "plugging in" as much as
| possible.
| arihant wrote:
| Apple makes good money from MFi program, of which lightning
| connector seems to be a vital cog. The day they shift to
| USB-C manufacturers will stop paying them for lightning
| accessories.
| nexuist wrote:
| Why would the battery pack use USB C if the actual phone
| doesn't?
| umisays wrote:
| Why should they sell USB-C power adapters then? Shouldn't
| they be lightning adapters?
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