Thanks for sharing. I can’t tell from the photo but it cannot be Alu right where the Qi ring is as wireless cannot get past metal, but if they did metal everywhere other than the ring, and the ring is ceramic or plastic then that is an intelligent design. Metal to conduct heat away fastest apart from the ring.
Thinner + wider is a good way to go for better combination of heat making with heat hating, but it would make it heavier.
Anker state
But their error rate is pretty high on Amazon specs.
the charging plate is ceramic and the rest is cast aluminum. I inquired about it being cast or some other metal and was informed it was cast aluminum. I did take it apart to check and verify their claims, but j lost the pictures from when i did this
I recall seeing this before from you.
Looks an intelligent good design, Anker could learn from it. I expect it is heavier but if you’re just moving it from surface to surface as a travel charger the weight isn’t important.
I agree. Love the concept but why wasn’t the USB-C made In/Out?
We agree this is poor first attempt, but I can see reasons why. There’s more electronics and more heat to do what you ask. Heat from wireless fights Wattage and electronics. They’d have add cost and weight of,say, a large metal plate with a ceramic hole for the loop to compensate, the cost would go up.
I think they could have instead just had power thermally regulated so as it gets hotter it turns down Wattage. This would manifest as, say 10W initially and dropping after a while.
We’re all just agreeing they could do so much better. And probably will eventually. Shame they don’t ask us at the design stage.
I keep wanting @AnkerOfficial to jump in here to say that this is just the prototype. And that the production model will support USB-C in/out and that the wireless would support up to 10W.
No it’s on Amazon and is so being released.
Some here may be under NDA on prototypes and cannot declare themselves.
I don’t know if 10W is going to be viable, it would take a prototype and testing. So I don’t know, but I suspect they just didn’t try and it was all done on cost basis, 3-4 year old technology chosen for cost reasons. If that theory is correct it’s because they doubt people would pay more.
In my case I want to encourage innovation, I don’t own any wireless recharging devices other than my smartwatches on their proprietary pucks, and I’m waiting on my existing devices to break before I buy and then probably they’ll have wireless charging and by then I’ll be buying pads. The pads I bought in the past were from RavPower and Choetech, because Anker didn’t make them then.
If wired chargers can do 18W wireless out, why can’t a portable charger?
And there are already 10W portable ones out. Metal. >$100.
The hotter a battery gets above room temperature, the worse they perform.
The hotter a battery gets the faster it ages.
Wireless is less efficient than wired, but the gap is closing.
Inefficiency manifests as heat. So a wireless charger makes more heat. If you put a cell right next to that higher heat coming from wireless vs wired you worsen the cell.
When your energy to a wireless pad comes from a wall socket, there is no cell within the wireless charger, so the heat it experiences does not impact its aging or efficiency, but when your energy comes from cells within the wireless pad it does.
The production of the required DC is done external in a wired pad, while in a pad + cell combo the cell’s voltage which drops with capacity is buck-boost DC-DC converted within the same physical device so you have two sources of heat with a combined unit. A Powercore without a wireless pad only has the heat from the DC-DC conversion not also the wireless loop heat.
For these reasons, efficiency and aging, you’d expect for any given class of technology for a combined pad + portable charger to either die faster or be slower.
Of course technology improves, wired gets better, wireless gets better, but a combined product will always suffer from having to be that bit more of a compromise on Wattage.
Personally I think this heat issue would be better solved with a thermal regulator so you get a quicker charge first few minutes. That suits the pick-up/down usage style.
You see a similar related problem with the Powercore Fusion, the 18650 5000mAh cell in the same case with the AC/DC converter is why it’s so physically big and why it’s Wattage output is lower than chargers without cells within.
We discussed we saw these combined products as inevitable as for 10% cost increase, no size increase, no weight increase you can add a bit more usefulness. The issue is they didn’t do that.
I did my own efficiency calculation last month and I got a view 7.5W is viable so surprised its as low as 5W.
Of course you can make a less reliable product with higher Wattage, but then suffer the warranty issues. As @Tank showed, you can design around this via a more conducting outer case which spreads the heat from wireless over a greater area for more radiating or conducting dissipation.
So Anker can certainly make a better product, but it would cost more, but there is a truth independent on the designer that a combined product as it serves two masters, capacity and efficiency has to be worse than serving one.
I think this product will sell well, 12W is good enough for many phones, 5W is good enough for a portable charger, it will sell well like the Fusion sell well as it’s not the best at any one thing but it affords simplicity and that usually succeeds. I just think it needs more effort, they certainly can make its wired in+out when wireless not used at least 18W, they do that at low cost already and they can certainly make a higher initial cold wireless output which drops as temperature rises.
I keep seeing you mention cost, the one I have is selling for $20.99 right now, when it first came out it was $27.99.
So if this company can make and sell something like this two years ago, surely Anker can get it together and do the same
I estimate adding a Qi loop is about $3 cost.
Adding a metal case for conducting heat, about $0.50 cost.
So take a non-Qi 10000 and add about $3.50.
We agree it can be done, takes more effort than they prepared to do. I also think Anker has spread itself very wide with the Eufy and Soundcore and the Powercore, Powerport have been noticeably meh.
Yup, I agree they have taken kind of a backseat to the other brands. But hopefully they listen and actually make what users want and not just what their limited testing group says they want.
So you don’t like the soundcore and eufy brands?
I agree. They should pay more attention to the fan base as a whole, rather then just beta testers
I would’ve been willing to pay more for it if it had better specs
They should be able to take the Powercore 20000 PD Essential and add 10W Qi pad. Cost would raise from discounted £25 to £29.
We’d have to accept a weight increase but not size increase. So a slightly heavier 18W PD in+out wired 10W wireless.
If they wanted to make it, see it appear on FCC next couple of months.
The thermal challenges can be fully solved by both a metal chassis with a ceramic hole for the Qi ring, and thermally regulated output. Consumers would need good marketing words to explain why, say, 15W drops to 5W, after 20 mins, or whatever is required to keep the cells below say 30C.
Portable chargers come with both unique challenges but unique opportunities to solve them, e.g a portable charger being always with you means you don’t have to be the fool who leaves phone to nearly flat and then need it wireless fast charged quickly you can be the wise one who take earlier opportunities to put the phone on the portable wireless charger or uses wired for fast charged from empty.
Phone designers have been doing thermal regulation for years, e.g they reduce their Wattage input when phone screen is on to keep the cell within the phone below a 2 year battery life temperature threshold.
Hopefully they read this and decide to make one like this. They should be pushing the boundaries and releasing top of the line products instead of playing it safe and releasing products with not so great specs
3 reviews are up the last few days
I have been reading on the Qi standards.
So for Anker to implement Thermal Regulator, they’d have to sense itself getting too hot, turn off the Qi transmitter and then either wait til the temperature drops or come back on and broadcast a lower Wattage. Seems the receiver determines how much it takes of what is on offer.
So to make an intelligent thermally regulated portable charger wireless is going to take a bit of smarts on Anker’s side.
I can see a Powercore Essential 20000 PD with wireless 10W being very viable this year, but above 10W is going to take some proper research on Anker’s side.
This is an interesting read, 5 years old
62% efficiency.
And why you’d not want a case.
