Anker has some serious quality issues now, or at least it feels like that with fakes on Amazon. It's hard to tell what's geniune Anker anymore, but I've had really bad luck w/ low quality build of some stuff I've bought there. It's not expensive enough to bother sending back, but I used to automatically buy Anker and now I look for other newer brands that aren't potential counterfeits yet due to the copying of the name.
I purchased a different bluetooth speaker from them - https://www.anker.com/products/A3102011 and I really like it too. I use this speaker at home in the kitchen and it's amazing how well it sounds for a 35$ gizmo.
I had the same from Amazon. I've always used Anker screen protectors and have been very impressed but the last time I ordered one I ended up with something that definitely wasn't Anker. May not be Anker's fault but it reflects badly on them.
My understanding of FBA is that each SKU can have multiple suppliers, and stock is assigned to its supplier as it arrives in the warehouse (e.g. 250 Anker chargers with SKU ABC123 from AnkerDirect arrived May 22nd and are stored in warehouse X, unit Y, location Z). An order for a SKU from a specific supplier (e.g. ABC123 charger from AnkerDirect) will be taken from that stock, and the quantity remaining is reduced accordingly.
So, to answer your question: if that all happens, and assuming AnkerDirect doesn't have shady stock, then yes, it should be genuine.
It depends even more on whether there are any sources other than Anker Direct for those branded products. If they're the only source and Amazon is their only channel, then any other seller is either counterfeit or purchased through Amazon and is now trying to resell.
My understanding is that not even that is safe. Amazon mixes stock for the same sku product from all their suppliers, so even if only one of them is selling fakes, you can get one.
Not even "Ship from and sold by Amazon.com" is safe for the same reason I believe.
To clarify: This is based on experiences I've had en AmazonES buying things directly from Amazon (Gillete razors from the top of my head) and them being obviously fake.
Also from previous discussions in HN
I believe Amazon does co-signing when you buy "sold from Amazon". Are you sure they also do so when sold directly through supplier , and not under prime ?
If it's not fulfilled by Amazon, then it's not coming from Amazon's warehouse. It could be subject to counterfeit by the seller, seller's supplier, or possibly even the sellers fulfillment center.
This happened to me with a Steam Controller. Ordered "Ship from and sold by Amazon.com" and received one without retail packaging and accessories and was defective. Had no issues with it getting replaced by Amazon. I assume some sellers use FBA to let Amazon deal with customer service so they can get away with selling bad products.
Really wish they wouldn't mix SKU and stock. Perhaps its cheaper for them and if the customer notices they can replace it and still come out ahead. But it doesn't seem fair for someone who can't identify a fake product.
Amazon has a huge problem with counterfeits. I've noticed that it's especially bad for two things: almost anything that you'd typically find at a place like CVS or Walgreen (e.g. toiletries), and cheap electronic peripherals like USB drives, SD cards, and cables. I avoid buying things from these categories on Amazon whenever possible.
Seriously - it's gotten so bad that I buy those things on eBay of all places. Even though there's counterfeits there too, at least the reviews tend to be better about weeding them out.
Losing that "we are the only source/seller for our branded products" factor is likely to be a downside of expanding to other retailers. If you know you're the only possible source it should make it much easier to detect and shut down any possible counterfeit sales on Amazon.
At the risk of sounding like a glorified Amazon reviewer…
Checking my Amazon order history, I can see purchases for wall socket chargers (mains to 2x USB), a 3-port PCI-E to USB 3 card, and a mains powered SATA to USB 3 adaptor. All used frequently, never had a problem with them. The wall charger is the best one I own: fast charging, reliable, gets the job done. As a computer tech person, their stuff works for me.
[No affiliation to Anker, customer since 2015; all products Fulfilled By Amazon.]
Yeah. Amazon is perhaps the only company in my experience ever, small, big, corporation, mom and pop, where i don't think I've had a situation that has ended poorly. From refunds, to AWS, to two day shipping. It almost always ends up working out incredibly well. Even early on. I love Amazon, and I want to marry a woman like Amazon.
I got some usb cables some time ago. fancy models. both got broken wires in less than a year. their lifetime warranty was taking forever until I updated my 4 star review to a one. got and email instantly saying they shipped new ones to me and if I could change my review to 5 stars. this was via amazon, they even used the same Shipping address as the purchase. never heard from the warranty email.
they did send new ones of an upgraded design that even had a pouch. but why not do that when I contacted via the regular way? that lowered my respect for them.
I had a different experience. I had a charger that stopped working. When I emailed them they immediately sent a new charger (through Amazon) and didn't even ask me to return the non-functional device. Very fast and excellent service.
I'm still waiting for a time when UPS or Fedex will come up with a Prime option where I pay $99 a year for 2-day shipping through them, and all these companies like Anker would ship through major carriers directly. Buying third-party stuff from Amazon is always a hit and miss experience..
The Prime service only works because Amazon is able to negotiate shipping prices due to their volume of pickup. Maybe if you were getting a high volume of delivery everyday, then shipping companies would consider it.
Also because they basically have warehouses and distribution centers in one. Instead of shipping your box to a distribution center and from there to your home, they just put it in the truck that delivers it to your door. At least that's what I've seen in Europe, but wouldn't be surprized that that is what they do in the US, too. I think they have direct 'peering' arrangements with DHL and others, in that the truck actually starts at Amazon or goes there the first thing in the morning.
I would love to see "independent" fulfilment centers. E.g. I order at my favorite company a few cities away, and my local fulfilment center (the former huge amazon warehose) processes it, and I get it next day. I could imagine a shipping flat, for all packages that go through "my" center. Note, I am not thinking "mom and pop" centers, I am imagining local joint ventures beween logistics/delivery companies and these huge warehouses/goods transportation centers. But still a few orders of magnitude smaller than Amazon. (For the Germans: all my Amazon packages go through Bad Hersfeld. Imagine that logistics center would be it's own company, maybe backed by DHL / Schenker / Trans-o-flex / ... I believe it has a critical size to be viable.)
Unfortunately, the free market is not going to bring me that...
This is kind of the idea of Fullfilment by Amazon (FBA). You send your stuff to Amazon in bulk, they keep it in their warehouse, and when you sell an item, tell them where to deliver it to. You can use it even if you don't sell on Amazon.
Prime works because not everyone makes frequent purchases and they get a flat $99 a year. People with prime are going to shop at amazon first because of the sunk cost of prime.
While it is true Amazon does negotiate very good deals for themselves, they have been moving more and more into UPS/FedEx's business of shipping logistics and delivery. If these shipping companies want to survive they need to find a way to support Amazon's competitors.
Amazon isn't moving in on UPS/Fedex really, yet. Their "in house" Amazon Logistics is mostly third party vendors who are doing a terrible job at it too. So much so that I've had to call Amazon enough that they've explicitly flagged my account to never use it as an option for shipping me anything.
One of their drivers called me at 9am telling me to meet them outside on the corner because they couldn't find the apartment building entrance. There are only four sides to the building, not that hard...
Glad I'm not the only one. Every shipment I've had using Amazon Logistics has showed "out for delivery", then an hour later "back at carrier facility". The next day, same thing. They can't find my address, even though it comes right up on Google Maps, as well as Mapquest, Bing, and TomTom.
What's to stop someone from sharing their UPS Prime membership with everyone they know?
Verified address(es) sound like the only answer, and that brings up another set of problems to solve.
Beyond that, just because UPS offers a membership doesn't mean that retailers will have it integrated into their checkout flow/logic. In a lot of cases that would be a re-work and could take a long time before it was practically usable.
Maybe it's strictly associated with the address: every time UPS ships something to your address, it gets flagged for express treatment. Seller doesn't have to know about it at all.
This would actually be significantly harder than you would think - definitely much more difficult than a 'flag' on your address.
Below constitutes my (limited) experience working as an engineer at a company with a big logistics component (not Amazon).
When you run an operation the size of Amazon (or even muuuuch smaller) and are putting out a lot of freight for UPS/FedEx, you batch up your outgoing material based on ship method and 'next hop'. In order to speed up the delivery from a 3-5 day window to a 2 day window, you would have to explicitly purchase the '2 day' shipping option for that customer, or it would get batched in with all of the other 3-5 day goods, which could get sent to a totally different distribution center than the 2 day.
We're talking huge numbers trucks all going to "Indianapolis 2 day" versus "Lexington Ground" or whatever - once it gets on that ground shipping truck, I don't think it matters a ton what your address is flagged, as it's going to go that shipping method.
As andrewflnr said, it would be tied to your name and address, or maybe two addresses (home and vacation/business) and four names (family) the same way USPS offers Informed Delivery[0] based on name and address. It offers the carriers a double dipping (charge shipper standard rate and then charge you subscription fee) but there's definitely a market for it.
ShopRunner is also free, forever, if you ever sign up for one of their free trials - I think they tend to happen around Black Friday.
I signed up for a free 1 year trial 5+ years ago, and it's still active. I don't know if they're desperate to goose their user numbers or what, but I've never heard of anyone's trial expiring.
I use Shoprunner where it's supported, because I get it for free with Amex. My experience is that it's not as good as Prime. Prime is supposed to give you free delivery in 2 days. Shoprunner is supposed to give you free 2-day shipping. These are very different things. Yes, the Shoprunner package is shipped via a 2-day shipping method, but the merchant often takes several days before they ship it. I've had Shoprunner orders take a week or more to arrive. Every once in a while Prime misses its promise date, but it's pretty rare, and usually only by a day. I don't think I've EVER had a Shoprunner order arrive in 2 days. Unless the merchants are all prepared to start passing orders off to the carriers more quickly, a carrier program will have a hard time matching the Prime experience.
This is pretty typical for most not-amazon (or amazon-competitor) stores, I've found. It's why I am so reluctant to use third party sites, even though I know it's for the better if I do.
Newegg I've found to fulfill the Shoprunner "two day" shipping promise pretty reliably. I actually get a lot of stuff the next day due to being relatively close to their Indiana drop-ship partner/warehouse/whatever.
I dunno about the US, but in the UK Anker sells direct through Amazon. I do agree with your overall idea though, but then there's like 3 or 4 major delivery services..
Isn't retail margin usually 50%? Doesn't Amazon use some of their savings from not having a retail store front to subsidize shipping? I assume the Prime fee doesn't actually cover the cost, it simply is a mechanism to lock people into ordering.
We sell a product through Amazon on their vendor program. After all the deductions we come up with about 50% more cash per product than through the one traditional retailer we have. We only make few more percent through our own website as Amazon's own margins are so thin. They offer a much better deal than the rest of retail.
Currently Amazon "owns" the customer, plus it owns very large fullfilment network - i.e. a caching for the physical world - making it's cost per packet the lowest. This is a powerful combination.
Furthermore, if Fedex/UPS will start to find sucsess in this "prime" project, Amazon could instantly change it's software to add a box "only from branded manufacturer's store", or some other software change, and solve this hit and miss experience you speak of.
Amazon 2-day shipping is just regular ground shipping. The trick is they've strategically located products in various warehouses throughout the country and then spent a bunch of effort optimizing the lead time so pickers can get them out as soon as possible.
I feel like I have a hard time justifying Prime because I never need anything that fast. I'm happy to wait until I have 25, 35, or 50 $ (or whatever value) of purchases in my cart and wait a week to get my stuff.
Prime from a customer standpoint is indeed about the shipping. But Prime from a seller standpoint (usually) means Fulfillment By Amazon. That means Amazon stores the product until there's a sale, then they pack and ship the product, and they handle most of the customer service. Those things are quite a ways outside the wheelhouse of UPS or Fedex, I think. You need a proper fulfillment center for those things. There are a number companies providing these services, so theoretically, Anker could use them instead of Amazon already. But alas, Amazon being Amazon is probably too large of a marketplace to ignore.
Oh, wow. They seriously haven't redesigned that site since I helped build it at Studio Archetype in 1998. I swear some of that is still my (very, very dated) HTML, especially all the IMG SRC="1.gif" WIDTH=123 stuff. Yikes!
You know Samsung made it when it's mentioned with Apple in the same sentence as a part of a click bait. Still, Apple is mentioned like 12 times while Samsung only twice...
I do own more than a few Anker products and am happy with them.
Apple will finally have makde it when they get mentioned alongside Samsung in an article about Samsung washers, or apparel, or semiconductors, or cargo ships, or telecom equipment.
Apologies for going off topic but, this trend of hiding the content until you scroll down is getting ridiculous. I stared at that stupid animation for 15 seconds thinking the content was to appear at some point, before realizing I was supposed to scroll down.
It's the Verge, they're one of the one worst offenders of content-hiding web gimmickry. If you haven't seen it already, check out their Apple Watch review for a thorough list of everything not to do with a web page.
I'd say they're one of the worst offenders of tech reporting.
Apparently on their Google IO podcast they complained quite a bit how one of them installed the new developer preview of Android and "none of the new features worked".
Because of course it's as though they expect the new APIs already being used out of the box in a build meant for developers to use. It's not called a "customer preview"...
I purchase almost exclusively Anker. When my cheap Bluetooth headphones had a hard time connecting to my phone they just sent me a more expensive pair. I have their cords, wall charger, battery pack, headphones, outdoor speaker, and indoor speaker. All work well and when they stopped or seemed to function inadequately they just sent a new or updated version.
Bought a Lightning Powerline+ cable 4 months ago. While Apple's Lightning can feel a little premium, Anker's kick their ass. It has a nice thingy to carry it and I know it won't break in the foreseeable future, different from the 5+ Apple cables I already broke in some 3 years. Also, their power banks are really good as well.
One thing that makes Anker stand out to me is that they pay attention to the unboxing experience, which I haven't seen from any other company in a non-premium market like cables and car docks.
My unboxing experience with Anker cables is always "oh they've sent me another pointless faux-suede pouch, I wonder how many tonnes of these have gone on landfill this year".
Apple's own USB-C to external monitor options are horrid. They have an USB-C to HDMI/USB/USBC dongle that is notoriously buggy locking up the new MBP. We ended up with a 3rd party cables to connect to external monitors.
Some balls definitely dropped over at apple's product teams.
Apple doesn't even have an option for connecting to DisplayPort screens. I need it because the UP2414Q runs 4K@60Hz over DP with multistream transport. It will only run at 30 Hz over HDMI.
Apple sells a USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 adapter that looks identical to the mini-displayport connector on my previous laptop but is only thunderbolt, no video modes supported. A lot of unhappy reviews on that one.
They dropped just about every ball possible with monitor hookups. I actually haven't bought a USB to DP cable yet because last time I looked they weren't well reviewed, had gone out of stock, or cost like $40. I'm debating whether I should get one or hold off for the TB3 docks to show up.
Apple sells a USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 adapter that looks identical to the mini-displayport connector on my previous laptop but is only thunderbolt, no video modes supported. A lot of unhappy reviews on that one.
I made that same mistake, but it's also broken the other way around.. turns out you can't use a 2015 iMac as a display using DisplayPort, it has to be a Thunderbolt :-D So now I have two connectors with the same socket but two totally different uses.
MST is a whole separate disaster. That cable advertises support for it at least. On the Windows side, I've had DP to DP cables not work even though they were supposed to. I only have the single DP to miniDP (and my 2011 Air couldn't drive it with MST anyway), but I assume it was a similar boat there. Maybe things are better by now.
Guess I'll snag a cable and try my luck. Looks like they're generally around $15-20 right now, which isn't too bad.
not to mention there's no apple way to connect usb-c to displayport 1.2. Honestly should have been one of the main adaptors they made. HDMI is great but unless it can pump 4k at 60hz it's no good.
Nilay Patel, who's the editor in chief at The Verge, in the comments:
I asked Nick to go write this piece myself, after realizing all my nerd friends all carried around Anker battery packs and charging blocks. "Where did this company come from?" is a pretty good tech story pitch, you know?
Anker may make great products, but their marketing is shit. They have way too many products and no good way to differentiate. Check out this site which tries to explain the differences:
#1 An Anker PowerCore+ powerbank is BETTER and NEWER than Astro Gen 1 or Gen 2 of same capacity.
#2 An Anker PowerCore (without the +) powerbank is BETTER and NEWER than Astro Gen 1 or Gen 2 of same capacity.
#3 Anker PowerCore+ and Anker PowerCore powerbanks exist side by side with PowerCore+ usually having some extra features while PowerCore offers excellent value for money.
The guide tries to make things seem really complex but the reality isn't so bad.. Anker fully replaced their single-tier Astro line with their two-tier PowerCore line.. that's way simpler than the branding situations with the vast majority of consumer electronics companies. The only real cause of confusion here is retailers continuing to sell their older Astro products as if they were the latest models, which is hardly Anker's fault.
> Anker fully replaced their single-tier Astro line with their two-tier PowerCore line.
Where do you see that?
First I want to know the feature difference between Astro, PowerCore, PowerCore II, and PowerCore+. (WTF are PowerIQ, VoltageBoost, QuickCharge, etc.) Next I want to see something that compares product dimensions, weight, and mAh between all of their products. Recharge times would be ideal as well, but I understand those can vary based on ambient temperature and other factors.
It seems like that should be Step 1 for any decent marketing department, but either their website doesn't have this information or it's hidden very well:
https://www.anker.com/products/taxons/107/Batteries
I've never had an issue finding out any metrics about their products from the Amazon page. That includes what all of their trademarked features mean. Having a chart that compares all of them doesn't really make sense when each one has the relevant info.
> The only real cause of confusion here is retailers continuing to sell their older Astro products as if they were the latest models, which is hardly Anker's fault.
It's somewhat similar when you search for their products on Amazon.
I can decide which product is best for me. My family and friends? Not so much.
(They may get "good enough" and put up with it, but e.g. not experience fast/fastest charging that their device can actually support. As one example.)
P.S. Even then, I'd prefer not to sort through so many products / product specs.
I assumed part of this was older product inventories staying up on Amazon. But apparently, the Anker product line is just confusingly diverse and overlapping.
That webpage looks to be an affiliate seller page, so their lack of clarity benefits them if people click on their links to figure out what's really going on. All they need to do is get that referrer cookie set and their job is done; understanding powerbanks is secondary (if that).
Which is somewhere between irrelevant and a good thing because of the way their products are sold. Namely, consumers search "power bank" on amazon and buy something in the top 5-10 results. The more positions on that list Anker can hold (by having slightly different products) the better position they're in.
There are a number of people who won't buy a micro USB cable unless the product has the name of their phone in the name. So you see the exact same product listed multiple times with different names.
If amazon would extend their car parts search functionality -- letting users put in their phone model and then giving a curated list of compatible devices, it would be awesome.
It works pretty well for car parts, although you're at the mercy of the seller to determine compatibility for less prominent things.
Yeah, I'm a fan and own a bunch of their products, but I think it's crazy how inept their own web site and Amazon listings are at just listing the damn specs for the devices or offering useful comparisons.
What input does it draw? Does this support PD, and if so what modes and how fast? Will this cable work for Thunderbolt 3? How much amperage is it rated for?
These are some of the easiest products to quantify in technical terms; make that information easy to find, and give me the marketing pitch afterward.
It's the same OEM with the same basic design, slightly tweaked because the Anker has individual output port protection. Otherwise it's the same basic design produced by the OEM.
Interesting you should post those pics as I am just about to open up an Anker 5 port USB charger as two of the ports have failed (well, one is dead and the other gives out a weird low voltage). Do you know if it's easy to get hold of the output chips or what they are - admittedly I haven't even begun to look at the design/spec yet. Are there any schematics or service manuals out there!?
I have had two (out of 3 purchased) Anker 5-port units replaced within the warranty period, and this one has now failed a couple of months outside of warranty, so I don't particularly rate Anker in any elevated way.
I supposed I should also try contacting Anker first to see if they will stump up a replacement - I think my unit is less than a year old, but was a replacement for another that was about 10 months into its warranty when it died completely.
The output control ICs/MOSFETs are surface mount and quite hard to replace. Even with a hot air rework gun the cramped location and small pitch don't help.
Not to mention that I can't find what type of chip this is from the markings (most likely an integrated overcurrent protection chip with high-power mosfet build in but eh...)
Anker has 18 month warranties. As long as you purchased it from them or an authorized reseller, they will honor it.
I've personally had zero issues with the very few things (literally 1 cable, and the oldest one of all of them; they don't even produce this design anymore) I've had to get warranty on.
How is such a similarity conclusive, though? How do you know Blitzwolf didn't copy Anker? Even if Anker released their product later, how do you know it wasn't an improvement on the Blitzwolf product?
Because that's not how things work in China. An off-brand copy would be a literal copy of the PCB with cheaper and /or missing components (especially EMC-related ones). An "improvement" from a different OEM would have obvious differences in parts like the heatsinks (they are literally the same part, with extremely similar cutting marks) and various other generic interchangeable parts (e.g. the input MOV, the IEC connector, the optical feedback package on the top etc).
They are not the only usb supplies using that design.
Ankers is probably the newest design with the electronic protection, the other designs use fuses.
Two things: (1) of course they don't manufacture their products. Neither does Apple. They use contract manufacturing. (2) if you mean they don't _design_ their products, you have cause and effect reversed.
I've had a ton of issues with USB power supplies and cables not allowing devices to charge properly (Improper wiring, termination, fake specs, etc) and so I started testing everything I got using a USB power meter and test load. Anker is the only brand on Amazon that Ive found to reliably meet spec. Their newer USB battery packs in particular are very interesting because they will ignore the line termination and do a TCP-like ramp on amperage until they get a voltage sag, then pull back slightly and sit there. This is especially entertaining because they'll melt really poorly designed USB supplies :)
Can you recommend a portable USB charger of there's? I sold my wife on getting one when she needed to replace her's because of their solid reputation, only to have it break three months later.
It stopped charging fully and would no longer power any devices. I just tested it the other day while I was getting ready to recycle some other electronics and it was still doing the same thing.
Did you contact Anker? Among the many products I've bought from them, I've had a couple of problematic ones, but have found that in these cases their support has been very helpful and sent me a replacement, even a year or so after the original purchase.
No, but I should have. It broke during a trip out of the country and we needed to replace it then and there. Thankfully, we were in Japan, so we had no shortage of options. I'll keep that in mind if I buy from them again.
You can buy any of theirs that was manufactured in the last 1.5-2 years and you shouldn't have a problem. I wouldn't buy one that was originally made 3-4 years ago just because the cells might have lost a lot of capacity. Like the others said, if you contact them they have great customer support and will often (very anecdotal) send you a free one.
This is why Anker is successful imho. Not because they offer a better battery / charger / cable. But because they free users from having the think about it.
Most people don't want to have to think about USB power delivery handshakes and resistors. And they don't want to research what they need to look for in a USB 3.0 cable vs that USB 2.0 cable they bought years ago.
Anker seems to be technologically on the ball, but above and beyond that it's a "we promise not to @$^# up the accessory we sell to you" guarantee. Which the Chinese fly-by-nights seem incapable of grasping.
In other words, they've cultivated a brand of trust through their product lineup (what they offer vs what they don't offer), product design, and packaging design.
I have their 6-port USB charger in the mudroom of the house. We plug in our phones, tablets and bike lights upon entry. Excellent performance, and yes, I never have to think about it. It just works (at US and Euro line voltage).
I did find the packaging a bit ostentatious for a USB charger. A plain corrugated cardboard box would have been more appropriate for mail-order, though I can see why they might want to "steve-job" the packaging for retail.
> Many suburban American houses have a mud room, a casual, generally secondary entryway intended as an area to remove and store footwear, outerwear, and wet clothing before entering the main house. As well as providing storage space, a mud room serves to increase the cleanliness of a house proper.
Getting Anker products is so much easier and quicker than the old way of trawling through pagefuls of cables trying to find those that appeared spec compliant (thanks, Benson!), reasonable quality, and don't try any scams like "Fully USB 3.1 compatible" thanks to USB 2.0 fallback.
My friend was going scuba diving on an island without power. He bought and tested 5 different brands on Amazon. Anker was the best. He had an extra battery, so I bought it from it. It was worked wonders when I am traveling for the day and need to charge my phone.
"Their newer USB battery packs in particular are very interesting because they will ignore the line termination and do a TCP-like ramp on amperage until they get a voltage sag"
This comment doesn't make sense in the context of the battery pack being used as a charger. Are you talking about when the battery pack is charging?
I read this as "some devices don't correctly signal what amperage they want, so the anker pack ramps up until it detects some change that indicates the device is charging at full speed."
I'm referring to the charge rate of the packs themselves. Amperage doesn't work the same way voltage does. You could hook your phone up to a 1000 amp supply as long as it's 5V so there's no point in starting lower and ramping up the output since the device will only use what it can take.
(for clarification, the principle is V=IR, you could hook a 5V incandescent lightbulb or LED up to that same 1000A supply and it would only draw I=V/R (Current = 5v / series resistance). Yes, there is silicon controlling the battery, but at the most basic level, if the series resistance of all that plus the battery is 5 ohms, it will only draw 1A)
The charger could push more current by increasing the voltage, but that would be dangerous and most likely damage the device--unless the charger could somehow sense the resistance of the charging cable and compensate for the voltage drop, then the output would be >5V at the charger, but =5V at the end of the cable. That would take some sorcery I'm not aware of though.
LEDs use constant current power supplies with variable voltage, and I've seen some hybrid designs with exotic combinations of constant current / constant voltage regulation.
It's incorrect to think of the charger as "pushing" current. Not only in general electrical theory, but also in the context of charging lithium ion batteries. The real 'decision' as to how much current is used is in the management IC for the battery, which converts the 5V from the 'charger' to a variable voltage and current based on the charge state of the battery and its input power specification.
See, for example, this design note from Linear Tech: [0] which describes a 20V adapter, analogous to OP's 5V USB 'charger', that can provide 2A (40W total) to the laptop. If the laptop battery charge management IC says that the battery can use up to 2.2A at 12.6V = 27.7 W, but the laptop computer is using more than 40-27.7=12.3W, it will reduce the charge current to the battery to avoid damaging the 20V 2A adapter. The problem that pdelbarba's USB battery packs are solving is that they can be plugged into various adapters - perhaps a port on a laptop limited to 500 mA, or a 1A 'phone charger' or a 2.1A 'tablet charger'. Some manufacturers solve this by adding resistors to their chargers so that the device can sense the resistance and know it can use up to 0.5, 1, or 2.1A. But everyone uses different resistors.
So Anker does a functional test rather than the electrical equivalent of user-agent-string parsing to set the current limit.
> unless the charger could somehow sense the resistance of the charging cable and compensate for the voltage drop, then the output would be >5V at the charger, but =5V at the end of the cable. That would take some sorcery I'm not aware of though.
That's pretty standard for lab power supplies. It also is used in precision metrology with sensors like load cells. All it takes is a pair of non-current-carrying wires to sense the voltage at the device. The current-carrying wires experience a voltage drop, but the sense wires are only feeding into high-impedance measurement inputs. This is known as a Kelvin connection.[1] With a device that takes an excitation voltage, you'd use a 6-wire connection.[2]
Thanks for detailed reply with references. Knowledge enhanced. :)
Yes, I suppose it's incorrect to think of the charger as pushing current; but with a resistive load, with LEDs, with raw lithium cells, most batteries, and with most loads in general, the current can be expected to increase as the voltage increases. And some power supplies regulate output by current rather than voltage. I didn't know that about lab power supplies, very interesting!
Awesome writeup! Another thing that I should probably have mentioned earlier is that the resistors are across D+ and D-, allowing the device to know that it's A) not plugged into anything it should be talking to and B) what the output of the charger is. This get's really entertaining when you start talking about USB C where if the resistor is used incorrectly, you can start doing real damage to device and charger.
I <3 Anker products, own quite a few of them. You can tell the R&D has been done... Every single product I've bought from them continues to function flawlessly. They're a breath of fresh air: a startup with a focus on quality/price, not flash.
Not sure that Apple really competes in the low-end accessory "game" - I don't think they see it as worth their time/brand value to offer cheap dongles at low margins.
For those that hate Anker's relationship with Amazon, please note: many items Anker makes is also sold first party through Walmart.com now and is even in some Walmarts.
I've got nothing but praise for their battery packs.
EDIT: Previously linked to AUKEY cables that were defective, not ANKER. Sorry about that. Benson has only reviewed two ANKER USB-C cables, and both followed the spec, as far as I can tell:
They aren't, but Anker seems to be the OEM for some Aukey and Ravpower products.
And yes, I mean Anker as the OEM, not sharing Anker's OEMs (because they build stuff like how Apple uses Foxconn (and like literally every single electronics manufacturer does)).
Aukey and Ravpower always seem to be a generation behind, but keep up with Anker quality. So either I'm correct, or what is actually happening is still very similar.
I'm surprised how much love there is for Anker. The only product I have from them is a vertical mouse, which I'll admit looks nice and has a solid feel, but within a week the scroll wheel became nearly useless due to some hardware/software issue. The only reason I still have it is because I was too lazy to go to a USP store to mail the Amazon return.
Why do I but Anker over alternative? Reliability and predictability. I could save some money on a knockoff, but why suffer uncertainty for little in the way of price reward? Just not worth it, to me.
I like to think of Anker, RAVPower, Aukey, etc as high quality generic goods. They aren't dirt cheap like AliExpress goods but not expensive either compared to well known brands. They certainly seem to have decent quality control is helping build their brand/reputation.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 279 ms ] thread[0] https://www.anker.com/products
Some of their products are offered direct. Others are Amazon only.
I'd purchased several PowerLine cables that all died within a month or so of purchase. I attributed it to being a cheap cable.
So, to answer your question: if that all happens, and assuming AnkerDirect doesn't have shady stock, then yes, it should be genuine.
Not even "Ship from and sold by Amazon.com" is safe for the same reason I believe.
To clarify: This is based on experiences I've had en AmazonES buying things directly from Amazon (Gillete razors from the top of my head) and them being obviously fake. Also from previous discussions in HN
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12061288
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13955981
Really wish they wouldn't mix SKU and stock. Perhaps its cheaper for them and if the customer notices they can replace it and still come out ahead. But it doesn't seem fair for someone who can't identify a fake product.
Checking my Amazon order history, I can see purchases for wall socket chargers (mains to 2x USB), a 3-port PCI-E to USB 3 card, and a mains powered SATA to USB 3 adaptor. All used frequently, never had a problem with them. The wall charger is the best one I own: fast charging, reliable, gets the job done. As a computer tech person, their stuff works for me.
[No affiliation to Anker, customer since 2015; all products Fulfilled By Amazon.]
If so, which do you recommend? Would be nice to get rid of the wall warts for the charger blocks.
they did send new ones of an upgraded design that even had a pouch. but why not do that when I contacted via the regular way? that lowered my respect for them.
Edit: they may have asked trying different cables first, now that I think about it
I would love to see "independent" fulfilment centers. E.g. I order at my favorite company a few cities away, and my local fulfilment center (the former huge amazon warehose) processes it, and I get it next day. I could imagine a shipping flat, for all packages that go through "my" center. Note, I am not thinking "mom and pop" centers, I am imagining local joint ventures beween logistics/delivery companies and these huge warehouses/goods transportation centers. But still a few orders of magnitude smaller than Amazon. (For the Germans: all my Amazon packages go through Bad Hersfeld. Imagine that logistics center would be it's own company, maybe backed by DHL / Schenker / Trans-o-flex / ... I believe it has a critical size to be viable.)
Unfortunately, the free market is not going to bring me that...
While it is true Amazon does negotiate very good deals for themselves, they have been moving more and more into UPS/FedEx's business of shipping logistics and delivery. If these shipping companies want to survive they need to find a way to support Amazon's competitors.
It's not as integrated as it could be, but it accomplishes the same thing.
Verified address(es) sound like the only answer, and that brings up another set of problems to solve.
Beyond that, just because UPS offers a membership doesn't mean that retailers will have it integrated into their checkout flow/logic. In a lot of cases that would be a re-work and could take a long time before it was practically usable.
Below constitutes my (limited) experience working as an engineer at a company with a big logistics component (not Amazon).
When you run an operation the size of Amazon (or even muuuuch smaller) and are putting out a lot of freight for UPS/FedEx, you batch up your outgoing material based on ship method and 'next hop'. In order to speed up the delivery from a 3-5 day window to a 2 day window, you would have to explicitly purchase the '2 day' shipping option for that customer, or it would get batched in with all of the other 3-5 day goods, which could get sent to a totally different distribution center than the 2 day.
We're talking huge numbers trucks all going to "Indianapolis 2 day" versus "Lexington Ground" or whatever - once it gets on that ground shipping truck, I don't think it matters a ton what your address is flagged, as it's going to go that shipping method.
The first and largest complaint people will make is that they can't use UPS Prime while on vacation or to ship gifts.
[0]https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.acti...
I signed up for a free 1 year trial 5+ years ago, and it's still active. I don't know if they're desperate to goose their user numbers or what, but I've never heard of anyone's trial expiring.
Newegg I've found to fulfill the Shoprunner "two day" shipping promise pretty reliably. I actually get a lot of stuff the next day due to being relatively close to their Indiana drop-ship partner/warehouse/whatever.
Furthermore, if Fedex/UPS will start to find sucsess in this "prime" project, Amazon could instantly change it's software to add a box "only from branded manufacturer's store", or some other software change, and solve this hit and miss experience you speak of.
https://www.ups-scs.com/logistics/warehousing.html
First I heard of this is when I found out that some "mail order" companies let UPS handle their returns. (I think it was Lands' End.)
I do own more than a few Anker products and am happy with them.
That scrappy, eighty-year-old company has certainly made it.
You know you're somebody when you're basically the mafia running a country.
Apparently on their Google IO podcast they complained quite a bit how one of them installed the new developer preview of Android and "none of the new features worked".
Because of course it's as though they expect the new APIs already being used out of the box in a build meant for developers to use. It's not called a "customer preview"...
I can't recommend them enough.
Good products though.
Some balls definitely dropped over at apple's product teams.
Apple sells a USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 adapter that looks identical to the mini-displayport connector on my previous laptop but is only thunderbolt, no video modes supported. A lot of unhappy reviews on that one.
They dropped just about every ball possible with monitor hookups. I actually haven't bought a USB to DP cable yet because last time I looked they weren't well reviewed, had gone out of stock, or cost like $40. I'm debating whether I should get one or hold off for the TB3 docks to show up.
I made that same mistake, but it's also broken the other way around.. turns out you can't use a 2015 iMac as a display using DisplayPort, it has to be a Thunderbolt :-D So now I have two connectors with the same socket but two totally different uses.
If you plug a Dell laptop into a Mac, would you expect to automatically get to use the Dell's monitor as a secondary Mac display?
2009 and 2010 models supported vanilla DisplayPort, 2011 to 2014 cut that for Thunderbolt only.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204592
I'm still pissed that I can't connect with my 2014 MBP over DisplayPort without knocking out the wifi with interference.
Guess I'll snag a cable and try my luck. Looks like they're generally around $15-20 right now, which isn't too bad.
I asked Nick to go write this piece myself, after realizing all my nerd friends all carried around Anker battery packs and charging blocks. "Where did this company come from?" is a pretty good tech story pitch, you know?
http://www.powerbankguide.com/anker-powercore-vs-astro-the-d...
Let us simplify the situation for you –
#1 An Anker PowerCore+ powerbank is BETTER and NEWER than Astro Gen 1 or Gen 2 of same capacity.
#2 An Anker PowerCore (without the +) powerbank is BETTER and NEWER than Astro Gen 1 or Gen 2 of same capacity.
#3 Anker PowerCore+ and Anker PowerCore powerbanks exist side by side with PowerCore+ usually having some extra features while PowerCore offers excellent value for money.
Where do you see that?
First I want to know the feature difference between Astro, PowerCore, PowerCore II, and PowerCore+. (WTF are PowerIQ, VoltageBoost, QuickCharge, etc.) Next I want to see something that compares product dimensions, weight, and mAh between all of their products. Recharge times would be ideal as well, but I understand those can vary based on ambient temperature and other factors.
It seems like that should be Step 1 for any decent marketing department, but either their website doesn't have this information or it's hidden very well: https://www.anker.com/products/taxons/107/Batteries
In your post. The bit about "BETTER and NEWER".
I've never had an issue finding out any metrics about their products from the Amazon page. That includes what all of their trademarked features mean. Having a chart that compares all of them doesn't really make sense when each one has the relevant info.
It's surely Anker's fault if they list the two generations of products side-by-side on their own website (which, as can be seen at jobu (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14395302 )'s link https://www.anker.com/products/taxons/107/Batteries , they do).
I can decide which product is best for me. My family and friends? Not so much.
(They may get "good enough" and put up with it, but e.g. not experience fast/fastest charging that their device can actually support. As one example.)
P.S. Even then, I'd prefer not to sort through so many products / product specs.
I assumed part of this was older product inventories staying up on Amazon. But apparently, the Anker product line is just confusingly diverse and overlapping.
If amazon would extend their car parts search functionality -- letting users put in their phone model and then giving a curated list of compatible devices, it would be awesome.
It works pretty well for car parts, although you're at the mercy of the seller to determine compatibility for less prominent things.
What input does it draw? Does this support PD, and if so what modes and how fast? Will this cable work for Thunderbolt 3? How much amperage is it rated for?
These are some of the easiest products to quantify in technical terms; make that information easy to find, and give me the marketing pitch afterward.
http://lygte-info.dk/pic/USB%20PS/28%20BlitzWolf%2040W%205%2...
One of those is the Anker, another is Banggood's household brand, Blitzwolf.
I have had two (out of 3 purchased) Anker 5-port units replaced within the warranty period, and this one has now failed a couple of months outside of warranty, so I don't particularly rate Anker in any elevated way.
I supposed I should also try contacting Anker first to see if they will stump up a replacement - I think my unit is less than a year old, but was a replacement for another that was about 10 months into its warranty when it died completely.
Not to mention that I can't find what type of chip this is from the markings (most likely an integrated overcurrent protection chip with high-power mosfet build in but eh...)
I've personally had zero issues with the very few things (literally 1 cable, and the oldest one of all of them; they don't even produce this design anymore) I've had to get warranty on.
Most people don't want to have to think about USB power delivery handshakes and resistors. And they don't want to research what they need to look for in a USB 3.0 cable vs that USB 2.0 cable they bought years ago.
Anker seems to be technologically on the ball, but above and beyond that it's a "we promise not to @$^# up the accessory we sell to you" guarantee. Which the Chinese fly-by-nights seem incapable of grasping.
I did find the packaging a bit ostentatious for a USB charger. A plain corrugated cardboard box would have been more appropriate for mail-order, though I can see why they might want to "steve-job" the packaging for retail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryway
You do messy stuff there, like take off your winter boots, or leave your bike.
No, total agricultural land is less than 1 billion of a total of 2.3 billion acres.
Getting Anker products is so much easier and quicker than the old way of trawling through pagefuls of cables trying to find those that appeared spec compliant (thanks, Benson!), reasonable quality, and don't try any scams like "Fully USB 3.1 compatible" thanks to USB 2.0 fallback.
This comment doesn't make sense in the context of the battery pack being used as a charger. Are you talking about when the battery pack is charging?
(for clarification, the principle is V=IR, you could hook a 5V incandescent lightbulb or LED up to that same 1000A supply and it would only draw I=V/R (Current = 5v / series resistance). Yes, there is silicon controlling the battery, but at the most basic level, if the series resistance of all that plus the battery is 5 ohms, it will only draw 1A)
Edit: math fail
LEDs use constant current power supplies with variable voltage, and I've seen some hybrid designs with exotic combinations of constant current / constant voltage regulation.
See, for example, this design note from Linear Tech: [0] which describes a 20V adapter, analogous to OP's 5V USB 'charger', that can provide 2A (40W total) to the laptop. If the laptop battery charge management IC says that the battery can use up to 2.2A at 12.6V = 27.7 W, but the laptop computer is using more than 40-27.7=12.3W, it will reduce the charge current to the battery to avoid damaging the 20V 2A adapter. The problem that pdelbarba's USB battery packs are solving is that they can be plugged into various adapters - perhaps a port on a laptop limited to 500 mA, or a 1A 'phone charger' or a 2.1A 'tablet charger'. Some manufacturers solve this by adding resistors to their chargers so that the device can sense the resistance and know it can use up to 0.5, 1, or 2.1A. But everyone uses different resistors.
So Anker does a functional test rather than the electrical equivalent of user-agent-string parsing to set the current limit.
> unless the charger could somehow sense the resistance of the charging cable and compensate for the voltage drop, then the output would be >5V at the charger, but =5V at the end of the cable. That would take some sorcery I'm not aware of though.
That's pretty standard for lab power supplies. It also is used in precision metrology with sensors like load cells. All it takes is a pair of non-current-carrying wires to sense the voltage at the device. The current-carrying wires experience a voltage drop, but the sense wires are only feeding into high-impedance measurement inputs. This is known as a Kelvin connection.[1] With a device that takes an excitation voltage, you'd use a 6-wire connection.[2]
[0] http://cds.linear.com/docs/en/design-note/dn194f.pdf
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-terminal_sensing
[2] http://loadcelltheory.com/LoadCellSupportTheoryPDF/ShuntCalR...
Yes, I suppose it's incorrect to think of the charger as pushing current; but with a resistive load, with LEDs, with raw lithium cells, most batteries, and with most loads in general, the current can be expected to increase as the voltage increases. And some power supplies regulate output by current rather than voltage. I didn't know that about lab power supplies, very interesting!
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/11/google-engineer-leav...
Anker has finally arrived.
EDIT: Previously linked to AUKEY cables that were defective, not ANKER. Sorry about that. Benson has only reviewed two ANKER USB-C cables, and both followed the spec, as far as I can tell:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R26RCODZS6VUEF?ref_=glimp_1...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R3DGG0QBAYCT1N?ref_=glimp_1...
And yes, I mean Anker as the OEM, not sharing Anker's OEMs (because they build stuff like how Apple uses Foxconn (and like literally every single electronics manufacturer does)).
Aukey and Ravpower always seem to be a generation behind, but keep up with Anker quality. So either I'm correct, or what is actually happening is still very similar.