Why is Power Delivery, and USB-C significantly more expensive?

#13

It will drop to $80 soon I’m sure and the brief times to about $65-$70 if you’re patient over next months.

I always carry a spare tiny charger as backup anyway so that functions as extra ports if i need them. Anker’s 12W serves that role nicely ( I don’t own that but something looking identical from Aukey)

This 100W charger looks so huge to me I’d be seeing it as a home / office desk tidier, for say when there is only 1 or 2 power sockets available. I’m far from clear if I’d ever travel with computing devices so large and power hungry to benefit from 100W. A 45W-60W 5 port similarly intelligent version, smaller, much less expensive, would be my preference. I do know if i wait such an item will arise eventually.

#14

I’m relatively new here, although I’ve had Anker products fro I think over 4 years (my oldest one is a replacement battery for a laptop that was made in 2005). Do prices usually drop after 2-3 months after new releases?

#15

No, they drop like from the moment in stock to 2-3 weeks after release by 20% and then stay there, then if you wait a couple of months you begin to see 30%-40% discounts like on Black Friday offers. That $100 number is just so make the future $80 show 20% discount so you think ooooh a discount.

I’d hazard a guess that $80 will appear between next week and about end of February to 1st week of March.

2 Likes
#16

ok thanks :slight_smile:

#17

Bear in mind I agree with @joshuad11 there is a suspicious lack of mentioning of GaN in the Atom 4 Amazon link compared to its right up there with the Atom 1.

image.png1530×658 214 KB

image.png1543×591 207 KB

The Atom 4 is

Size: 4.1 × 3.3 × 1.3 in (main body)
Weight: 383 g (main body)

Vs Atom 1 is

Size: 1.61×1.37×1.50 in (main body)
2.08 ounces / 59g.

So for 3.3x the wattage you are 6.5x the weight and 5.3x the volume. So there is a kind of doubling going on more than logical. While I know that heat is going to be harder to escape in a bigger charger so you’d expect it to be a little larger, the shape of the Atom 4 is inherently more heat-releasing in a more flat shape then the Atom 1’s more square shape, so, still, there’s something oddly huge about the Atom 4.

Heat: the surface area of the Atom 4 is 46.3 sqin, the Atom 1 is 13.35, so 3.5x surface for 3.3x the energy, so its as if they deliberately it so big to just dissipate heat?

On the other hand, if you compare with say the 60W PD model been out for over a year (now plastic, before metal)

image.png1483×672 268 KB

It is

4.1 x 3.1 x 1.1 in
8.5 oz

So if you scaled up 60W using basically the same technology you’d get something similar in size to the 100W. 4.1x3.1x1.1=14cuin, 14 x 100 / 60 = 23cuin. Atom 4 is 17cuin. So its not as large as it could be. The ports in and out would be same size but the AC/DC conversion should be larger. If you assumed 20% of the volume is tied up with the common components of C19 port and USB ports you’d get 14x (0.8 * 100/ 60 + 0.2) = 21cuin > 17 cuin.

Hmmm, you do reckon if you wait a smaller version will come out? Even at $80 (my prediction soon) or $65-$70 (the brief shorter discounts later in the year) it is a tall ask of $ for something suspiciously large.

3 Likes
PowerPort Atom PD 4 wattage?
#18

Yea $25 for each port, hmm I don’t know if my wallet will like that

1 Like
#19

Now if it was 4 USB-C ports then I’d happily pay the price… If they each could output at a minimum 45 wats each

2 Likes
#20

Eventually yes when we get more USB-C items yes a 4 port USB-C would be nice. You can imagine a USB PD phone, tablet, buds, Powercore = 4 ports.

Anyhow the expense of PD has made me make my last big gadget expense of a 18W tablet so I’m likely sitting PD out for >year, I only have my Thinkpad needing some kind of PD but I’m not sure I’d buy something so expensive and cross fingers it worked.

Another mystery with the Atom 4 is unlike say the PowerPort II PD which has PD and IQ2 ports, the Atom 4 has PD and IQ, not IQ2. If you were to put all of 100W in one product and intelligent spread it you could spread out 18W instead of 10W to the Type A ports. So a mystery of why so large and so expensive. That tells me unless you’re in an urgent need, probably not too many months off a better product?

#21

Oooh, a discount! :heart_eyes: :rolling_eyes:

319A3790-FD67-48DB-94A8-96A1CBE388DF.jpeg1668×2224 993 KB

2 Likes
#22

Clearly it is not expensive enough,
it has been out of stock for months now!
I guess they never made enough units.

Anker%20100%20Watt%204%20port
Anker 100 Watt 4 port.jpg2196×952 323 KB

#23

Id say you need to look at the increased benefits that usb-c gives comes at a relatively higher cost in complexity

Understand that PD basically allows the charger to send a LOT more energy to devices than USB has done before. Meaning that not only do you have to provide protection to the charger itself, but also to downstream devices. Because you know you ‘probably’ dont want to send 20V down the usb-c line to your phone (hint that is very very very bad). Depending on the device you have to properly detect whats on the other side and send it the correct voltage.

And as you deal with higher power outputs, the protections you need to deal with it also increase complexity as well. A lot of hte complexity in lithium ion batteries is in fact the circuit board hidden inside that tells the charger “please stop sending me 2A because otheriwse i might go into thermal runaway” kind of thing. If you’re wondering why ‘cheap’ batteries have a tendency to explode on people, well lets just say they may ‘skimp out’ on such thermal protections and such.

Which is also why now usb-c cables market is a lot pricer than yhou might think given how all other usb cables are basically dirt cheap. that’s because a bad usb, microusb, cable really at worst doesnt really matter much. Meaning skimping out on the spec doesnt really do much harm. But a bad usb-c cable can fry your laptop. What did you want to save 0.5 cents to not have a pulldown resistor to ground? Enjoy 20V across the data line! As a bonus you get to know what us Electrical Engineers call ‘Magic Smoke’. All electronics is actually powered by “Magic Smoke” (Intel and Moore’s Law are lies, we’re just learning to cram more magic smoke into electronics) . But remember you can’t put magic smoke back into your electronics. So if you saw ‘magic smoke’ come out, sorry your stuff is dead.

1 Like
#24

I’m holding in my hand a phone which cannot handle more than 18W and a Powercore 10000 PD slim which cannot output more than 18W

Simply letting the cable charging 9V would suffice.

#25

Bad cables can do really really things now that were basically not really issues before usb-c

Also if this happens

Me: hey im sorry but i see you’re charging your iphone 11 pro. Can I charge my really old iphone 6 please? I’m so despreate
you: Of course friend-o!

iphone6: Hi im a lowly iphone 6
charger: Yeah well you’re on usb-c so here’s 9V
iphone6: wait im an iphone 6! what is 9V? This is too much!
charger: Look you’re on usb-c here’s 9V just like go Super Saiyan or something and maybe you’ll turn into an iPhone 11 pro
iphone 6: really could I be like my newer brethren? HRRRRAAAAAHHHHHHAAAAHHHAH
20 episodes later
iphone6: HRAAAAAAAA poof
charger: see that totally worked

#26

Still the case it costs more. Why?

Example today these two are identical functionality, only the USB port is different.

image

#27

I looked up pricing for the individual connectors since these really seem similar in every way but the connector. USB-C is still about 10-15% more expensive than USB-A, so factoring that plus the almost 3 times the contacts and maybe this explains the cost difference. They are starting to get cheaper I think but it probably takes time.

1 Like
#28

Three times the contacts is a significant overstatement.

USB 3 has 9 unique points. USB-C has 16 unique points - more, but not triple. The repeated Grounds and vbus and other duplicates should be internally connected, so that cost should be covered in the connector cost.
And for USB-2 or charging, you can leave a lot of those wires in the USB-C connector out. You have a few more to support the PD communication, but not the entire set for high speed comms.

I think the higher prices today are a combination of factors - USB-C PD really is a little more expensive for parts and manufacturing. And the products that include them are newer and shinier, so command a premium even above that for the moment. Which helps balance out the R&D work that goes into making the new products. It will eventually settle out as just the cost difference probably.

2 Likes
#29

At a guess, patent or license fees for USB-C…

#30

Also might just be demands as well. They know they can get people to buy it even at the increased price

#31

image

image

So that’s 0.0002% of their revenue as cost for the license.

So it’s not that reason.

Possibly, so then that is our fault for paying the price?

I doubt there’s more R&D these are just physically connected differently, it’s just different pins?

So on balance @ktkundy may be right, we pay more because we pay more.

#32

I wish it wasn’t like that but it seems to be the only thing I can figure out. For example the 2 pack of nylon usb c cables that people could have won on the amazon live streams that they did cost abou $13 in silver color way. Mean while the same cable in silver in the lightning format is $26 probably do to the demand of the lightning cable with so many iPhone users. At least that’s what I could come up with to justify the price difference there, in other cases I really think it is what they think they can get us to pay for. Which is why so many products start high and then have various discounts. They want to find the sweet spot of what gets people to buy while still making them a nice profit