What lengths of Poweline(+) III are available?

#1

The product pages on the main site make this impossible to determine. I want to fill out this grid:

+----------------+--------------------+-----+-----+-----+------+
|                | Connectors         | 1ft | 3ft | 6ft | 10ft |
+----------------+--------------------+-----+-----+-----+------+
| Powerline III  | USB-A to Lightning | ✅  | ✅  |     |      |
|                +--------------------+-----+-----+-----+------+
|                | USB-C to Lightning |     |     |     |      |
+----------------+--------------------+-----+-----+-----+------+
| Powerline+ III | USB-A to Lightning |     | ✅  | ✅  | ✅   |
|                +--------------------+-----+-----+-----+------+
|                | USB-C to Lightning |     | ✅  |     |      |
+----------------+--------------------+-----+-----+-----+------+
1 Like
#2

Thanks! I have the 3ft Powerline+ III but this can be super helpful to others.

It would also be easier if they put in the little bio about the cables the lengths the come in.

Also if they had a option like amazon to change the length rather than find a cable of a specific length.

#3

To be clear, I want someone from Anker to fill out the above grid, it is incomplete and possibly incorrect.

Your second point, about them fixing their Amazon pages such that I could go to the “PowerLine+ III” or the “PowerLine III” page and then just select the combination of length and colour I want, they should definitely do that too. It’s a mess (especially since when I search for something very specific like “Anker PowerLine III”, four of the top ten results are “sponsored” instead of what I was very deliberately searching for.)

#4

Nice graph

1 Like
#5

I would love an update on this @AnkerSupport, I’m delaying buying a Lightning to USB-C cable because I need a 10ft cable.

#6

Really? You need a 10ft cable?

Why don’t you buy an extension cord , or cabled charger.

There are downsides to 10ft cables:

  • Power loss is linear on cable length
  • More length of wire to fail
  • longer cables “ring” and transmit more bad signals (you become an antennae)
  • More expensive overall in the long term.

Alternatives:

#7

1’ PowerLine III USB-C to Lightning

I suspect COVID-19 is significantly delaying the releases of many of these various cable lengths. Be patient and they will eventually become available.

1 Like
#8

Yes. My current extension cord is 6ft+ from the couch and has other things plugged into it.

Anker, as far as I know, uses 20 gauge wire for the power connectors in the cable. We can calculate the power loss using the formula Vdrop = IR, where I = current and R = the resistance of the cable. With USB-C PD charging @ 9V 2A, this gives us a voltage drop of 4.51% over 10ft. If a wire with no voltage drop were to exist and charged your phone in 60 minutes, a 10ft wire would charge your phone in 63 minutes.

The overwhelming majority of cable RMA’s are a result of failures at the connection points, not failures along the length of the cable. Using a cable that is shorter than what is required will cause more wear at the connection points verses having a proper amount of relief in the cable.

“Ringing” is only an issue when it impacts data or signal integrity. Since the Lightning to USB-C cable will only be transferring digitally encoded data and power, this makes ringing a non-factor so long as the cable works at all.

Cables with longer lengths are more convenient to use and thus often are used more than shorter cables. This would ensue that your cost-per-use is lower in aggregate.

#9

Great points from both perspectives! :+1:

#10

Cool, a fellow geek.

When you put your USB meter on your existing cables, what was the Wattage drop over your existing cables? There was only a small drop on longer than shorter cables?

What I observed was the VoltageBoost common with Anker would only allow the Voltage to drop a little, from 4.9V to about 4.4V but the current would drop a lot to compensate, it did vary by each individual cable but was consistently worse for longer cables. I

VoltageBoost is an intelligent solution from Anker.

f you’re aware of this issue then fine, what I did was use shorter cables when doing the recharging part of a device then longer cables for keeping items charged.

The upside of shorter cables is you can use cheaper ones. My longer thicker cable cost about 8 times the cost of my shorter cable, for the same resulting Watt measured.