Charging power capacity of various bricks and cables?

Setup: We use only Anker cables, other than a couple Apple original cables that haven’t failed (yet). We have a variety of charging bricks, Apple, Anker, and others that have arrived with various products, e.g. Kindles, BT headsets, and a couple AC power strips that have USB ports as well. They all appear to charge at very different rates that are not necessarily meeting their stated power capacities.

Question: what’s the smart way to test which bricks are providing what level of power to charge our devices? I can see that some bricks seem to take longer, e.g. to charge our Anker backup batteries and iPhones. Trying to understand if there’s a real difference in the power output of those bricks. I can see the amperage ratings, I’m trying to learn the actual flow, not the rated flow. We can use the same Anker cable to test, to knock out that variable.

Is there an iOS app? Or a reliable affordable device? I searched but can’t tell if what I see is on point. Thanks much.

You’d want a USB power meter, something like this.

Ah ha, that’s the idea I was looking for. I need usb A input, this specific one looks like C only. But there’s a similar product that appears to have both. Thanks for the direction.

1 Like