00:00SPEAKERWhat's your favorite breakfast sandwich, Brad?
00:01SPEAKERMy favorite breakfast?
00:02SPEAKEROh man.
00:03SPEAKERGosh, let's start with the bread.
00:05SPEAKERYeah.
00:06SPEAKERWell, the bread is negotiable.
00:07SPEAKERYou like a muffin?
00:08SPEAKERYou like a biscuit?
00:09SPEAKERDo you like a croissant?
00:10SPEAKERI like muffins a lot.
00:11SPEAKERBut those are all fine.
00:12SPEAKERLike an English muffin?
00:13SPEAKERI'll take any, I'd say.
00:14SPEAKERBut in the home, it's usually a wheat bread or occasionally a bagel.
00:18SPEAKEROkay.
00:19SPEAKERI'm a straight up biscuit or English muffin guy.
00:21SPEAKERWell, biscuit is the ideal, but you can't.
00:23SPEAKERIt's a special occasion.
00:24SPEAKERDo you not bake biscuits?
00:25SPEAKERI think biscuits like twice a month probably.
00:27SPEAKERBiscuit?
00:28SPEAKERReally?
00:29SPEAKERYeah.
00:30SPEAKERBiscuits are very tricky.
00:31SPEAKERI could teach you how to make biscuits.
00:32SPEAKERYou got a family recipe?
00:33SPEAKERLook, I got an ancient family recipe from, it was passed down from generation to generation
00:38SPEAKERthrough Good Eats.
00:39SPEAKEROkay.
00:40SPEAKERSure.
00:41SPEAKERIt's that ancient font of wisdom.
00:43SPEAKERWe went down a little bit of a biscuit hole recently, in the last couple of years, looking
00:48SPEAKERat different types of flour, and I don't mean wheat versus-
00:52SPEAKERWhite Lily is what you want.
00:54SPEAKERBut specifically, it's just like different types of proteins in the flour and people
00:57SPEAKERanalyzing what types of, you know, the water from different localities that you're putting
01:01SPEAKERin there.
01:02SPEAKERIt's right up there with bagels in terms of you need every variable to be exactly right
01:06SPEAKERto get exactly the biscuit you're looking for.
01:08SPEAKERSo there was a New York Times article about biscuit flour a month ago, maybe two months
01:14SPEAKERago.
01:15SPEAKERThe knowledge is spreading.
01:16SPEAKERThere's a White Lily, there's an underground railroad for White Lily flour to bring it
01:21SPEAKERto the West Coast.
01:22SPEAKERWow.
01:23SPEAKERAnd people will bring bags in their suitcases when they go to South Carolina or Tennessee.
01:27SPEAKEROoh, traveling with bags of flour seems dangerous.
01:29SPEAKERMy parents brought a couple of sacks for me.
01:30SPEAKERI guess if you like double bag it, you're probably safe.
01:32SPEAKERPut it in a Ziploc, it's fine.
01:33SPEAKERYou do not want a bag of flour exploding in your luggage.
01:36SPEAKERIt's better that than a bag of shampoo, a thing of shampoo.
01:39SPEAKERI guess so.
01:40SPEAKERYou think the shampoo would be self-cleaning, but it turns out it's not.
01:43SPEAKERNo, probably not.
01:44SPEAKERBut washing the flour out, getting flour wet, not-
01:47SPEAKERIt's probably fine.
01:48SPEAKERAnyway, okay.
01:49SPEAKERBiscuits are great.
01:50SPEAKERWhatever, any kind, I'll take just about any kind of bread.
01:53SPEAKERYou got your biscuit, you got your bread, whatever.
01:55SPEAKERHonestly, I am pretty meat and potatoes as far as the contents of a breakfast sandwich.
01:58SPEAKERYou like a scrambled egg?
01:59SPEAKERYeah, like an egg, meat, and cheese.
02:01SPEAKERYou can do like a runny fried egg in there?
02:04SPEAKERYeah.
02:05SPEAKERI like to break the yolk.
02:06SPEAKERHave you ever done the kind of over easy fried egg in a sandwich without breaking the yolk
02:10SPEAKERand then you take a bite and just hot molten yolk shoots out across the room?
02:14SPEAKERNo, I want it to shoot right into my mouth.
02:17SPEAKERAiming the yolk is a little tricky.
02:19SPEAKERGina does this thing that really disturbs me where she puts the egg in and she fries
02:24SPEAKERit and she gets it like half fried and then she just stirs it all up in the pan.
02:27SPEAKERYeah, I've done that.
02:28SPEAKERIt's unholy.
02:29SPEAKERIt's not okay.
02:30SPEAKERThat's the safe way to go.
02:31SPEAKEROh no.
02:32SPEAKERSausage, bacon.
02:33SPEAKERWhat's your meat on there?
02:34SPEAKERI'm going to say a ham.
02:35SPEAKERIt's nice and flat.
02:36SPEAKERHam?
02:37SPEAKERHam is flat, stackable, and easy to-
02:38SPEAKERI don't know why we're friends.
02:43SPEAKERI'm not going to lie.
03:12SPEAKERWelcome to Fred and Wil, Made of Tech.
03:13SPEAKERHi, I'm Wil.
03:14SPEAKERHi.
03:15SPEAKERHello, Wil.
03:16SPEAKERIt's early in the AM here.
03:17SPEAKERYeah.
03:18SPEAKERHigh energy today though.
03:19SPEAKERI noticed.
03:20SPEAKERYou said last week we were a little low energy.
03:21SPEAKERSo let's pump it up.
03:22SPEAKERWe're caffeinated.
03:23SPEAKERYeah.
03:24SPEAKERI put some coffee on the table.
03:25SPEAKERWe're good to go.
03:26SPEAKERYou went to bed late.
03:27SPEAKERI woke up early, but let's, yeah.
03:28SPEAKERNever the twin shall cross today.
03:29SPEAKERSo a few months ago, one of the first things we talked about was batteries.
03:31SPEAKERBatteries, it turns out, are complicated.
03:32SPEAKERYes.
03:33SPEAKERYou know what's even more complicated than batteries?
03:34SPEAKERI'm afraid.
03:35SPEAKERI am afraid.
03:36SPEAKERThis week.
03:37SPEAKERI'm afraid to ask.
03:38SPEAKERChargers.
03:39SPEAKERYeah.
03:40SPEAKERBecause things are better now than they were 15 years ago when every device had its own
03:44SPEAKERcustom plug.
03:45SPEAKERAt least now everything has like one of the 20 different flavors of USB physical connectors
03:49SPEAKERon the end.
03:50SPEAKEREverybody has a drawer or had a drawer full of Motorola and LG and a bunch of-
03:55SPEAKERNokia.
03:56SPEAKERNokia had like 20 different connectors at one point.
03:57SPEAKERYes.
03:58SPEAKERThey didn't even use the same ones within the product lines.
04:00SPEAKERYeah.
04:01SPEAKERIt was madness.
04:02SPEAKERYes.
04:03SPEAKEROkay.
04:04SPEAKERThings are better.
04:05SPEAKERThanks to the EU for fixing that.
04:06SPEAKERBecause you know, they said, "Hey, look, everything has to have a USB port."
04:07SPEAKERLike 15 years ago.
04:08SPEAKEROkay.
04:09SPEAKERAnd everybody but Apple stuck with that.
04:10SPEAKERYeah.
04:11SPEAKERHowever, even though the physical connectors have gotten pretty straightforward, the way
04:17SPEAKERthat the electrons travel through the wires and into your batteries has gotten more complicated.
04:22SPEAKERIt is remarkable to me how complicated it is and how poorly they convey that information.
04:26SPEAKERIt is not communicate.
04:27SPEAKERI had to do a lot of reading to figure this stuff out.
04:30SPEAKERYeah.
04:31SPEAKERLike if one cable looks just like another, but it might have completely different capabilities.
04:33SPEAKERExactly.
04:34SPEAKEREven up to the present, we've talked about how shitty even USB-C is.
04:37SPEAKEREven now, you would think USB-C would be the one where they fixed it all, but no, it got
04:43SPEAKERworse.
04:44SPEAKERWell, so, okay, here's the things that are good.
04:46SPEAKEROne is that the charging controllers, which are usually in the device, not on the charger
04:50SPEAKERside anymore, will keep whatever charger you're using from messing up your batteries.
04:56SPEAKEROkay.
04:57SPEAKERThat actually was probably going to be my first real question is, is it actually possible
05:00SPEAKERto damage devices?
05:01SPEAKERAlways, but probably not by charging it.
05:05SPEAKEROkay.
05:06SPEAKERThere are exceptions.
05:07SPEAKERIf you have homemade drones where you have big lipo battery packs that do not have electronics
05:12SPEAKERon them, they're just lipo battery packs, and then you want to make sure you use a charger
05:15SPEAKERthat's compatible with those battery cells so you don't light them on fire and burn your
05:19SPEAKERhouse down and fill it with white lithium smoke.
05:21SPEAKERThat's a different kind of damage than I had in mine, but okay.
05:24SPEAKERYeah.
05:25SPEAKERHowever, in consumer electronic stuff, normal consumer electronic stuff, even commercial
05:29SPEAKERdrones, like DJI drones and stuff like that, the reason those batteries are expensive is
05:33SPEAKERthat they have the charging, the controller circuits, so that on that regard, you don't
05:38SPEAKERhave to worry about that.
05:39SPEAKERAnd the nice thing about what USB has done is it's given a base level of charging compatibility
05:46SPEAKERthat you can rely on.
05:47SPEAKEROkay.
05:48SPEAKERSo real quick, what are, what would be the terms for supplying too much or not enough
05:51SPEAKERpower?
05:52SPEAKERUnder volt, over volt, or those?
05:53SPEAKERIt depends on the, boy, that's a good question.
05:55SPEAKERI don't know that.
05:56SPEAKEROkay.
05:57SPEAKERI just like jargon, but the reason I ask is so is I've always worried that not supplying
06:01SPEAKERenough power to something might be enough to somehow cause some issue, but is that,
06:05SPEAKERis that the case or no?
06:07SPEAKERUnder supply is not a problem.
06:08SPEAKEROkay.
06:09SPEAKERSo that's why...
06:10SPEAKERYou're never going to actually hurt anything.
06:11SPEAKERI know you might not charge properly or at all, but you're not going to actually...
06:14SPEAKERYou shouldn't damage it.
06:15SPEAKERPermanently damage anything.
06:16SPEAKERPresumably.
06:17SPEAKEROkay.
06:18SPEAKERYeah.
06:19SPEAKERUnless you're doing something, unless something really weird happens.
06:20SPEAKERBecause that's something that comes up all the time now that you have a drawer full of,
06:22SPEAKERinstead of proprietary chargers, you've got a drawer full of iPhone bricks, iPad bricks,
06:26SPEAKERor Android equivalents.
06:27SPEAKERYou know what I mean?
06:28SPEAKERLike you've got a bunch of bricks that all have USB ports on them, but they don't all
06:31SPEAKERsupply the same amount of power.
06:33SPEAKERSo you might be plugging, say an iPad into an iPhone charger, and it's not going to do
06:36SPEAKERany good for you, but I didn't know if it's actually going to hurt anything.
06:38SPEAKERWell, so the nice thing about USB is that it is established essentially a least common
06:42SPEAKERdenominator for charging, and that is what USB one delivered, which was 500 milliamps
06:48SPEAKERor half an amp of power of energy at five volts, which gives you a max wattage of 2.5
06:55SPEAKERwatts.
06:56SPEAKEROh boy, here we go.
06:57SPEAKERWe're going to do some weirdness.
06:58SPEAKERHold on.
06:59SPEAKERShould we explain what this stuff is?
07:00SPEAKERLet's do this again.
07:01SPEAKERMilliamp hours.
07:02SPEAKERI see that you didn't put VAC on here, but I want to ask about that as well.
07:05SPEAKERI don't know what VAC is.
07:06SPEAKERI don't know.
07:07SPEAKERIt's volt.
07:08SPEAKEROh, it's alternating current voltage, right?
07:09SPEAKERYes.
07:10SPEAKERIt's volt.
07:11SPEAKERYes.
07:12SPEAKERBecause that's how my UPS measures consumption, and I don't know how to do the calculation.
07:15SPEAKEROh.
07:16SPEAKERBut oh well.
07:17SPEAKERYeah.
07:18SPEAKERWe're not going to get into that.
07:19SPEAKERThat's too much.
07:20SPEAKERToo early for that.
07:21SPEAKEROkay.
07:22SPEAKERSo volt.
07:23SPEAKERSo if you imagine that electricity flows through wires like water flows through a pipe, the
07:27SPEAKERamps is the diameter of the pipe.
07:29SPEAKERSo that's the amount, the total width of the total amount of volume of electricity that
07:34SPEAKERcan go through the pipe at once.
07:35SPEAKERThat can go through.
07:36SPEAKERThat can.
07:37SPEAKEROkay.
07:38SPEAKERThe volts is the pressure on the pipe.
07:39SPEAKERThat's how much is actually going through?
07:40SPEAKERThat's the pressure of the water.
07:41SPEAKERThat's how much is actually going through?
07:42SPEAKERNo.
07:43SPEAKERAnd watts is the total amount of water that's traveling through.
07:45SPEAKERSo watts is power.
07:48SPEAKERThat's energy over time.
07:51SPEAKERAnd volts and amps describe that in a different way.
07:54SPEAKERSo then the other thing we'll talk about is milliamp hours, which is like, it's the size
07:58SPEAKERof your bucket.
07:59SPEAKERSo milliamp hours is what you use to measure battery, the battery capacity, and it's basically
08:05SPEAKERthe bucket for electrons that are in play for activating your devices.
08:10SPEAKERAnd in phones, we're talking about like 2,000, 2,500, 2,800 milliamp hour batteries.
08:17SPEAKERIn cars, we're talking about kilowatt hour batteries.
08:21SPEAKEROkay.
08:22SPEAKERAnd that's what's on your power bill, right?
08:23SPEAKERIsn't that what the power company measures?
08:24SPEAKERYeah, that's what your power company charges.
08:25SPEAKERKilowatt hours?
08:26SPEAKERIn this case, since we're talking about batteries, we're talking about DC, direct current, not
08:29SPEAKERalternating current.
08:31SPEAKERI don't remember how to do conversions for that stuff off the top of my head.
08:35SPEAKERIt's been 20 years since I had to do that.
08:37SPEAKERAnd I feel like the energy is the same.
08:39SPEAKERThere's loss in conversion because your transformers heat up and stuff like that.
08:44SPEAKERBut I don't think that, fundamentally, this stuff works the same.
08:49SPEAKERPeople will write us letters to let us know.
08:51SPEAKERYes.
08:52SPEAKERLet's just run with that assumption.
08:53SPEAKERYeah.
08:54SPEAKERI wrote this in here, I don't remember why, but I said maybe don't use strange USB ports
08:57SPEAKERor cables to charge your stuff.
08:59SPEAKEROh, right.
09:00SPEAKERThat's right.
09:01SPEAKERSo because the controllers are on the batteries and not on the chargers, the battery controllers
09:07SPEAKERand the chargers have to talk to each other.
09:09SPEAKERSo there has to be a data connection to get more than the base level, five volts, half
09:14SPEAKERmilliamp, 2.5 watts that the USB one provides.
09:17SPEAKERSo are you saying you could be plugging into a dumb charger that is just putting out a
09:20SPEAKERconstant flow?
09:23SPEAKERLike if, for example, we have an iPad charger that we use to run our audio recorder here.
09:29SPEAKERAnd if this was a power only USB cables, because the trick is USB is power and data, right?
09:36SPEAKERSo if you cut the data lines and only leave the power lines connected, the Zoom and the
09:41SPEAKERpower brick won't know how to talk to each other to negotiate whatever power the Zoom
09:46SPEAKERcan support.
09:47SPEAKERSo does that mean the power brick is just going to keep putting out its maximum output?
09:49SPEAKERNo, it's going to only do the five.
09:50SPEAKERIt's only going to get the five volts, 2.5 watts.
09:53SPEAKERSo even there you're not going to damage anything.
09:56SPEAKERYou're just not going to get what you want.
09:57SPEAKERIt defaults to the safe thing, but what will happen is on like a higher draw device like
10:02SPEAKERyour iPad, if we plug your iPad into that, your iPad will drain.
10:06SPEAKERIf you use your iPad while it's plugged in, it will drain faster than it charges.
10:11SPEAKERSo that's why we need these higher standards.
10:16SPEAKERAnd that's why you can't just use what people call USB condom, but it's basically a no
10:20SPEAKERdata USB cable to charge like a modern smartphone or a switch or something like that.
10:26SPEAKERSo as a general rule, I recommend against plugging your USB devices into like lift driver
10:33SPEAKERchargers.
10:34SPEAKERAnd because a lot of the phone security is based on not having physical access to the
10:38SPEAKERdevice.
10:39SPEAKERAnd when you're plugging in your random device to a random charger, you're giving them physical
10:43SPEAKERaccess to the device.
10:45SPEAKERUsually you still have to press a confirmation or something, but that's not guaranteed in
10:47SPEAKERa world where there's a bunch of rootkits out for all the phones.
10:50SPEAKERThat's a good reasons not to do that.
10:52SPEAKERCarry a battery.
10:54SPEAKEREverybody should have a battery.
10:55SPEAKERYeah.
10:56SPEAKERThey're cheap now.
10:57SPEAKERYeah.
10:58SPEAKERAnd we talked about it in the disaster preparedness note.
10:59SPEAKERIt's a bucket for electrons.
11:00SPEAKERYou want that?
11:01SPEAKERYeah.
11:02SPEAKERAnd so there's two parts of this, I think for me.
11:04SPEAKEROne is how you charge over a wire.
11:08SPEAKERAnd then since I got an iPhone 10, the wireless charging pads have become available for those
11:14SPEAKERphones.
11:15SPEAKERAnd I love them.
11:16SPEAKERTotally.
11:17SPEAKERThey're the business.
11:18SPEAKERBut I'm not into the underlying tech of wireless charging because I have an iPhone eight, which
11:21SPEAKERis not quite as fancy, but you know, it's the same year you were on the same model,
11:25SPEAKERbut I will say when I bought it, the wireless charging was the last feature on the list
11:29SPEAKERthat I thought I would care about.
11:30SPEAKERIn fact, it has turned out to be the thing that I love about that phone the most.
11:34SPEAKERIt is so incredibly convenient.
11:36SPEAKERI haven't plugged my phone in, in years at this point, probably the only time I will
11:39SPEAKERplug it in as if I'm in a situation where it's like, Oh, it's a 10% and I got to go
11:43SPEAKERsomewhere in half an hour.
11:44SPEAKERI'm going to plug it into the iPad charger and get it as juiced as possible as fast as
11:47SPEAKERpossible.
11:48SPEAKERBut otherwise, for just day to day, like the wireless is the way to go.
11:51SPEAKERSo we'll get there.
11:52SPEAKERYeah.
11:53SPEAKERSo, so we'll talk about that toward the end of the show, but right now we're gonna talk
11:55SPEAKERabout what USB does.
11:57SPEAKERSo we talked about 500 milliamps, five volts for 2.5 Watts.
12:01SPEAKERAnd you, you, you calculate this by tight, by multiplying the number of amps, not milliamps
12:06SPEAKERby the number of volts and that equals Watts.
12:09SPEAKERSo it's yeah, you don't have to know that maybe I'm not sure if I should mention this
12:14SPEAKERnow or at the end, but amps seems to be the way that most chargers label themselves.
12:20SPEAKERIs that right?
12:21SPEAKERYeah.
12:22SPEAKERFrom what I've seen, like if you're looking at the tiny print on the bottom of an iPad
12:24SPEAKERcharger or whatever, it's going to be an a right.
12:26SPEAKERThat's the unit that you typically are looking at.
12:28SPEAKERYeah.
12:29SPEAKERSo like this one is a, is a five amp charger.
12:31SPEAKERI think, I think most of your little iPhone bricks will be like a one.
12:35SPEAKERYeah.
12:36SPEAKERThis is a nine amp charger actually.
12:37SPEAKERI think.
12:38SPEAKERYeah.
12:39SPEAKEROkay.
12:40SPEAKERI'm like, that's good to know.
12:41SPEAKERRight.
12:42SPEAKERCause it kind of tells you how, how much juice you're going to get out.
12:43SPEAKERIt's the same way that milliamp hours tells you how much battery, how much capacity the
12:47SPEAKERbattery bucket has.
12:49SPEAKERAmps tells you how fast you can push energy toward the phone because just like, just like
12:55SPEAKERwith water, the size of the pipe and the pressure independent of each other.
13:00SPEAKERDon't tell you anything.
13:01SPEAKERRight.
13:02SPEAKERThey just tell you how much, how much theoretical capacity you have and how much water pressure
13:05SPEAKERyou have, but not how much water is full.
13:07SPEAKERLike amps is the amount of water flowing through the pipes, the gallons per minute.
13:11SPEAKERRight.
13:12SPEAKERSo in terms of USB out of the box, USB one and USB two.
13:17SPEAKERWell, okay.
13:18SPEAKERAll USB offers this cause it's all backwards compatible, but USB one and USB two offer
13:22SPEAKER2.5 Watts.
13:23SPEAKERSo five milliamps, five volts.
13:26SPEAKERThat's it.
13:27SPEAKERUSB three added some new stuff.
13:29SPEAKERSo they added higher, higher amps at five volts.
13:33SPEAKERYou can do five volts at 500 milliamps or 900 milliamps for up to 4.5 Watts.
13:39SPEAKERThe USB three came out way after the iPad, Apple had been doing some proprietary stuff.
13:43SPEAKERWe'll get to that in a minute.
13:44SPEAKERYeah.
13:45SPEAKERYeah.
13:46SPEAKERI actually have a question about the lightning connector, but I'll save it until we get there.
13:48SPEAKERThat's a, that's a whole other whole other.
13:51SPEAKERYeah.
13:52SPEAKEROkay.
13:53SPEAKERThe point is USB three was enough to charge like phones at the time kind of, but even
13:57SPEAKERby then we were getting phones that were, the batteries were too big to charge it for
14:01SPEAKERat nine amps or 4.5 Watts for more than, you know, it just wasn't fast enough.
14:07SPEAKERSo you're looking at like eight hours to charge your phone or something like that.
14:10SPEAKERAnd that's not, that's not, or charge your tablet.
14:12SPEAKERAnd that's ridiculous.
14:13SPEAKERYes.
14:14SPEAKERUSB 3.1 when they added USB-C and USB PD, which is the USB power delivery spec is when
14:22SPEAKERwe started seeing laptops that had power bricks that were USB-C power bricks.
14:26SPEAKERYeah.
14:27SPEAKERI have to say it's seeing Mac books that only have USB-C ports on them.
14:31SPEAKERAnd I guess I'm sure there are other makers out there doing the same thing now.
14:34SPEAKERIt's bonkers.
14:35SPEAKERThat was the, yes, that was a very much a, wow.
14:36SPEAKERWe have crossed the threshold.
14:38SPEAKERThis is, this is a profound future moments of this laptop has no explicit dedicated power
14:43SPEAKERport on it anymore.
14:45SPEAKERThey have a data standard now that can power a whole laptop.
14:48SPEAKERAnd like, it's funny.
14:49SPEAKERI don't know that anybody expected this to happen with USB.
14:52SPEAKERYeah.
14:53SPEAKERRight.
14:54SPEAKERLike if you think about it, when, when people launched USB, it was like, Hey, we have a,
14:56SPEAKERthis is going to replace your serial ports.
14:58SPEAKERRight.
14:59SPEAKEREverybody was thinking about it just as a data thing.
15:00SPEAKERAnd then the fact that it delivered power at the same time was just an added bonus for
15:05SPEAKERthings like, like small portable laptop drives, hard drives, storage and stuff like that.
15:11SPEAKERYeah.
15:12SPEAKERIt was, it was so like USB thumb drives could get power to work.
15:14SPEAKERSo they didn't have to have a battery on them and stuff like that.
15:16SPEAKERRight.
15:17SPEAKERSo, but, but then the EU basically said, look, everybody has to use a universal power connector
15:23SPEAKERon all the phones.
15:24SPEAKERAnd it's going to be USB.
15:25SPEAKERIt's going to be micro USB that, that kind of turned a key for USB charging.
15:31SPEAKERAnd, and some people suddenly were like, Oh, this is a thing.
15:35SPEAKERAnd this is a cable everybody has and the cables are dumb.
15:38SPEAKERSo you don't have to do anything special to make them work.
15:40SPEAKERRight.
15:41SPEAKERLet's just make this the, let's just make this the standard and it's worked out.
15:44SPEAKERHow does Apple get around that requirement?
15:46SPEAKERSo they provide a dongle in Europe that is a micro USB to lightning dongle, I think.
15:53SPEAKEROkay.
15:54SPEAKEROr maybe it's the other way.
15:55SPEAKERYeah.
15:56SPEAKERI think you plug a micro USB into a dongle that makes it a lightning adapter, lightning,
16:00SPEAKERa male lightning.
16:01SPEAKERYeah.
16:02SPEAKERSo they provide an adapter.
16:03SPEAKERGot it.
16:04SPEAKERI don't know if they have to do that anymore.
16:05SPEAKERThat's how they used to do it.
16:06SPEAKEROkay.
16:07SPEAKERSo USB 3.1, which is USB-C the, the, the flip, the cable you can flip either way.
16:11SPEAKEROh, yes.
16:12SPEAKERMaybe this is demystifying something I never understood about USB 3.1.
16:16SPEAKERIs it, is it other than the shape of the connector?
16:18SPEAKERIs it the same standard?
16:19SPEAKERIs that what you're saying?
16:20SPEAKERSo USB-C describes the physical standard USB 3.1 describes the protocol and electrical
16:25SPEAKERstandard.
16:26SPEAKEROkay.
16:27SPEAKERSo let me, let me back up my, my whole experience with 3.1 is that my motherboard has a single
16:31SPEAKER3.1 port on it.
16:32SPEAKERAnd instead of a blue port, which is what USB 3 ports typically come in, it's red.
16:36SPEAKERYeah.
16:37SPEAKERAnd is it tall too?
16:38SPEAKERNo, it's the same shape.
16:39SPEAKERIt's the same size.
16:40SPEAKERIt's backwards compatible with any old USB port or cable.
16:41SPEAKERYeah.
16:42SPEAKERBut I've never used it.
16:43SPEAKERI didn't know what special capabilities 3.1 had over 3.0, but are you saying that like
16:47SPEAKERit is essentially electrically and in terms of data, it's the same as what's going over
16:51SPEAKERUSB-C cable.
16:53SPEAKERSo USB-C cables is just a physical spec.
16:55SPEAKERRight.
16:56SPEAKERSo if you're a USB-A that has the red cable, if you plug in USB 3.1 cables, that's what
17:00SPEAKERa 3.1 cable into that and a USB 3.1 device into the other end, you should get the full
17:05SPEAKERUSB 3.1 experience.
17:06SPEAKERThey're functionally equivalent.
17:07SPEAKERThat's my understanding.
17:08SPEAKERFor the shape of the connector.
17:09SPEAKEROkay.
17:10SPEAKERThat's good to know.
17:11SPEAKEROkay.
17:12SPEAKERSo 3.1 adds five to 20 volts at 500 milliamps, 900 milliamps, 1.5 amps, three amps, and five
17:17SPEAKERamps, which gives you, if you do that math, 20 times five is equal to 100.
17:22SPEAKERSo you can power a 100 watt device.
17:24SPEAKERYeah.
17:25SPEAKERA hundred watts is a good chunk.
17:26SPEAKERThat's a lot.
17:27SPEAKERIt's like a laptop.
17:28SPEAKERIt's an ultra, most any ultrabook that doesn't have a dedicated GPU can be powered off of
17:32SPEAKERthat at this point.
17:33SPEAKERI want to say this is just a random data point, but my older MacBook, I bought an extra charger
17:39SPEAKERfor it.
17:40SPEAKERI think it's like an 84 watt charger or something like that.
17:42SPEAKERMy 13 inch MacBook Pro was a 80 watt charger.
17:46SPEAKERRight.
17:47SPEAKERSo like that is a hundred watts is absolutely in the ballpark of where laptops run.
17:50SPEAKERAnd just to be clear, like this is magic because in the old days I went on a trip one time and
17:54SPEAKERforgot my laptop charger before MacBooks and that like I had a weird Dell and I was just
18:00SPEAKERbasically boned.
18:02SPEAKERThere was no, like I could, the only way I could get a charger was to order one from
18:06SPEAKERDell.
18:07SPEAKERIt's not like I could go to Best Buy and buy a charger for some random laptop.
18:09SPEAKERForget grousing that you have to go buy an extra charger.
18:13SPEAKERYou just can't go buy an extra charger.
18:14SPEAKERYeah.
18:15SPEAKERThere's there was no option.
18:16SPEAKERNot around.
18:17SPEAKERI ended up actually posting on Twitter and a fan lonely a charger for three days, which
18:21SPEAKERwas amazing.
18:22SPEAKERNot an option that everybody has.
18:23SPEAKERI know that's not a normal, normal result, but but yeah, so this is a big deal because
18:28SPEAKERit means you can go buy like an Anker power brick and a USB-C cable and plug your ultrabook
18:32SPEAKERin and it's just going to work.
18:33SPEAKERWell, yes, but even then you still need to kind of know what you're looking for in terms
18:36SPEAKERof how much it'll put out.
18:38SPEAKERYou got to get into the specs.
18:40SPEAKERYes.
18:41SPEAKERAnd that's, that's where this is kind of rough.
18:43SPEAKERWell, I guess that's, I guess that's the idea behind USB PD is to have a standard that you
18:47SPEAKERcan say, yes, this will do everything.
18:49SPEAKERThat is the idea.
18:50SPEAKERThere, there, I think one of the early devices was the switch.
18:53SPEAKERThere's laptops that support it.
18:56SPEAKERThere's a bunch of phones that support it.
18:57SPEAKERIt's it's a neat spec because it and like power bricks and stuff like that.
19:01SPEAKERSo like battery backups and stuff like that.
19:06SPEAKERIt's neat because power goes both ways.
19:08SPEAKERI didn't realize this, but like if you plug in your phone to your co to your laptop in
19:13SPEAKERa USB-C port and your, your computer needs to draw power on the phone, I don't know if
19:20SPEAKERthat's the best idea, but sure.
19:21SPEAKERI mean, it's probably not a great idea, but, but it means that if you plug a battery backup
19:24SPEAKERin and then your GPU spins up in the laptop and it needs a little more draw than it's
19:28SPEAKERgetting from whatever other source, it can pull up from the other, from the outside.
19:32SPEAKERI did not know that.
19:35SPEAKERBecause it can provide up to a hundred Watts.
19:37SPEAKERYou don't need external wall works for like USB hard drives and stuff like that, unless,
19:42SPEAKERunless you want them.
19:43SPEAKERSo they're not pulling power from your battery the whole time, but it's nice when you're
19:45SPEAKERlike traveling and you want to plug in your external hard drive, that stuff just works.
19:49SPEAKERSo you can charge a laptop using a cable, using the same cable that you use for the
19:55SPEAKERdisplay to an external monitor.
19:58SPEAKERSo like docking station's less important now.
20:00SPEAKERI will say this is kind of tangential to this whole thing, but I really miss MagSafe and
20:04SPEAKERI wish that there were MagSafe USB-C cables.
20:07SPEAKERYou can get those.
20:08SPEAKEROh, really?
20:09SPEAKERYeah.
20:10SPEAKERSo there's a whole...
20:11SPEAKEROh, you would need an adapter, right?
20:12SPEAKERCause it's not built into the laptop anymore.
20:13SPEAKERWell, so there's, there, there are people that make, there's tons of them.
20:15SPEAKERYou can find them on Amazon.
20:16SPEAKERI'll, I'll, I'll, I'll put the link in the show notes.
20:19SPEAKERI was actually looking at some no-name ones the other day, but whenever you're looking
20:22SPEAKERat any no-name accessories that involve power are always a little bit unnerving.
20:27SPEAKERSo people use them on VR controllers for charging because like that's, that's the first place
20:33SPEAKERI saw them.
20:34SPEAKERI usually look on Amazon for reviews and I go straight to the one star reviews and see
20:38SPEAKERhow many people are complaining that these things killed their things.
20:41SPEAKERAnd if it's like 50, then that's a pass for me.
20:44SPEAKERBut if it's like one, I just assume that's probably one or two.
20:46SPEAKERThat's probably just a crank who made a mistake.
20:49SPEAKERBut yeah, so usually they're like little, it's just like the stumpy part of the connector
20:55SPEAKERthat you jam into the slot.
20:57SPEAKERAnd then there's a MagSafe type connector snaps on and breaks away.
21:02SPEAKERThe problem I have with those often is that they don't sell the dongles separately.
21:07SPEAKERSo like I have like 10 different VR controllers in my office right now.
21:12SPEAKERIt would be really nice to just buy 10 of the plugs, plug those in and then have like
21:16SPEAKERtwo cables.
21:17SPEAKERI don't need 10 cables for the, anyway, I told you, I mean, it's really nice.
21:23SPEAKERSome of those are not fast chargers though.
21:25SPEAKERSo like you have to look at the specs on the cables because if it's only a USB two cable,
21:29SPEAKERthen you're not going to get the, and, and like there's a weird situation where a lot
21:32SPEAKERof the USB-C cables are actually USB two cables with USB-C connectors.
21:40SPEAKERWhy would anybody have ever made that?
21:41SPEAKERWell, because for power transfer, it's fine.
21:44SPEAKERSo for fast charging, those work fine.
21:46SPEAKERBut for example, if you need actually a USB 3.1 throughput for the Oculus link on the
21:51SPEAKEROculus quest, you mean data throughput, then, then those won't work.
21:55SPEAKERI see.
21:56SPEAKERSo, cause everybody was like, Oh, I have a, when the, when the Oculus quest announced
22:00SPEAKERthat you could plug it into the PC and it would be a PC headset, everybody's like, Oh,
22:04SPEAKERit comes with a really long USB-C cable.
22:06SPEAKERThis is perfect.
22:07SPEAKERYou plugged it in and, and it doesn't work because it's a USB two cable.
22:10SPEAKERIt doesn't have the bandwidth.
22:11SPEAKERAnd like I've mentioned, I feel like I'm beating up on raspberry PI a little bit here, but
22:14SPEAKERthey had that issue with the first, they fixed it.
22:16SPEAKERIs it fixed?
22:17SPEAKERYeah.
22:18SPEAKERThe new versions have a full support.
22:19SPEAKERI can finally buy one of those things where I wish I had looked this up cause it's complicated,
22:25SPEAKERbut it's specifically, it's cables that have all USB-C audio capability.
22:30SPEAKERI forget what the spec is called for that.
22:31SPEAKERYeah.
22:32SPEAKERIt's called, it's like an E cable or something like that.
22:33SPEAKERDoes that bring about seems right?
22:35SPEAKEREssentially what was happening was the PI was seeing those cables as an audio device.
22:41SPEAKERAnd then like refusing to put out power because it thought it was connected to an audio, something
22:44SPEAKERalong those lines.
22:45SPEAKERI might be making a little bit, maybe it was something like that's why I mean, Oh yeah.
22:49SPEAKERYes.
22:50SPEAKERYes.
22:51SPEAKERBut point being, there are even more gradations of USB-C cables out there that don't advertise
22:55SPEAKERwhat they are.
22:56SPEAKEROh yeah.
22:57SPEAKERPhysically.
22:58SPEAKERIt's a nightmare.
22:59SPEAKERLike you could have a stack of cables and they could all have different capabilities
23:00SPEAKERand limitations and you could not know what any of them are.
23:03SPEAKERDo you label your cables?
23:04SPEAKERNo.
23:05SPEAKERSo I usually just haven't really had a need to because USB three is good enough about
23:09SPEAKERnot being blue that you could kind of tell.
23:11SPEAKERWell, that's true.
23:12SPEAKERAnd I don't have enough USB-C cables yet.
23:13SPEAKERI have like one.
23:14SPEAKEROh, so I don't have a lot of need for it.
23:16SPEAKERSo I have one that came with my external GPU dock.
23:20SPEAKERThat's like a foot long.
23:21SPEAKERCause that's how long they could be.
23:22SPEAKERWhen I bought that external GPU.
23:23SPEAKERYou have one of those.
23:24SPEAKERYeah.
23:25SPEAKEROh, I've always been fast.
23:26SPEAKERI'm sorry.
23:27SPEAKERExternal external GPU dock.
23:28SPEAKERLike you're talking about like I have a box.
23:29SPEAKERI've been fascinated with that concept since Thunderbolt came about 10 years ago and it's
23:36SPEAKERfine.
23:37SPEAKERIs it not as great as you think?
23:38SPEAKERThe problem is that the, in order to hold like a real GPU, they have to be huge.
23:43SPEAKERYeah.
23:44SPEAKERSo like I don't fans and stuff.
23:45SPEAKERYeah.
23:46SPEAKERI don't have a carry on that's big enough to carry it onto the plane.
23:48SPEAKERWell, I don't think most people are going to travel with.
23:50SPEAKERObviously you have a use case for this case.
23:53SPEAKERYeah.
23:54SPEAKERLike the cool use case to me.
23:55SPEAKERAnd this turned out to maybe not be the best idea because laptops CPUs are usually pretty
23:59SPEAKERweak, but I always thought it would be a cool idea to just have a laptop and this external
24:03SPEAKERGPU that you plug into at home to play games on.
24:05SPEAKERI have that.
24:06SPEAKERRight.
24:07SPEAKERAnd in practice, that's not as cool as while we're talking about this stuff.
24:10SPEAKERIt's better than not having a laptop that can play games, but it's not, it's not ideal.
24:14SPEAKERIt's not a desktop replacement.
24:15SPEAKERIt does make the laptop a lot quieter though.
24:17SPEAKERCause it turns off the GPU in the laptop.
24:19SPEAKERInteresting.
24:20SPEAKERSo like all the, the, the, the massive cooling apparatus in the laptop has to cool as the
24:24SPEAKERCPU at that point.
24:25SPEAKERAnd it's much more manageable.
24:26SPEAKERIt's cool if they make that, even if it's not at all that I thought it would be cracked
24:29SPEAKERup to be.
24:30SPEAKERYeah.
24:31SPEAKERIt's a neat, it's a neat thing.
24:32SPEAKERI got the GPU dock for free when I bought the laptop.
24:34SPEAKERSo like it wasn't.
24:35SPEAKERThat's cool.
24:36SPEAKERAll right.
24:37SPEAKERLast question, since we're just talking about random stuff here about lightning cables that
24:40SPEAKERI mentioned earlier.
24:41SPEAKERYeah.
24:42SPEAKERWhy are those still limited to USB 2?
24:43SPEAKERBecause isn't lightning configurable on the lightning end?
24:46SPEAKERThat is, I have no idea.
24:48SPEAKERI didn't look at that.
24:49SPEAKERI didn't, I didn't actually get into that.
24:50SPEAKERI assume that that's because Apple is just using them for power at this point.
24:53SPEAKERYeah.
24:54SPEAKERLike, like I think, I think you're in, I mean, my guess is that their data shows that nobody
25:01SPEAKERtransfers data over lightning cables anymore.
25:04SPEAKEROkay.
25:05SPEAKERI do.
25:06SPEAKERYeah.
25:07SPEAKERDo you back up?
25:08SPEAKERI put music on there.
25:09SPEAKERWow.
25:10SPEAKERYes.
25:11SPEAKERI know.
25:12SPEAKEROld man Brad is at it again.
25:13SPEAKERI know.
25:14SPEAKERI'm going to ask you about monitors at the end of the show.
25:15SPEAKERYeah.
25:16SPEAKERI mean, I, I, well, I don't know if I want to get into it.
25:18SPEAKERI found an app that plays, I guess, chiptunes is the best, like dumps of, of console music
25:24SPEAKERfor like SNES, Genesis, NES roms, like those formats.
25:27SPEAKERLike you can just load the roms up and it plays the music from them?
25:29SPEAKERWell, you don't even need the full roms because people just dump the music from them, which
25:33SPEAKERis a fraction of the size.
25:34SPEAKERIs it like a MIDI or something?
25:35SPEAKERIt's, it's, it's the same concept as a MIDI.
25:36SPEAKERIn fact, the player I'm using right now also supports general MIDI.
25:40SPEAKERSo I've got, this is, so does it have like a MIDI, maybe embarrassing to admit, but I
25:44SPEAKERhave like the doom soundtracks and MIDI on my phone and like I have the entire library
25:49SPEAKERof like NES and Genesis and super Nintendo music and like, it all takes up like tens
25:54SPEAKERof megabytes because they're all like, every game is like 500 K. So, so hold on, it's like
25:58SPEAKERreal time synthesizing the music, but the, the, the, the, the little, the little dinky
26:01SPEAKERlittle app I'm using to do that needs to, you have to transfer, Oh, actually they take
26:04SPEAKERthat back.
26:05SPEAKEREven that thing has an FTP server built into it.
26:07SPEAKERSo even, even there, you don't have to transfer it to you.
26:10SPEAKERCan you like, does it model the, the sound chips on the consoles?
26:15SPEAKERRight?
26:16SPEAKERYeah.
26:17SPEAKERReally?
26:18SPEAKERWell, you know, I'm sure you could probably put the wave forms next to each other and
26:19SPEAKERpick out tiny differences, but, but as far as I can tell, it's, it's pretty accurate.
26:23SPEAKERMike Mica would be like, this, this, this was a C sharp and this should be in a C flat.
26:27SPEAKERI'm out.
26:28SPEAKERYeah.
26:29SPEAKERThis is a mellow phone, not a mellow.
26:30SPEAKERYeah.
26:31SPEAKERBut it's close enough.
26:32SPEAKERIt works pretty well.
26:33SPEAKERAnyway, back to the exciting business of USB chargers, literally tens of people interested
26:39SPEAKERin this topic.
26:40SPEAKERI'm sure.
26:41SPEAKERUh, I thought this was like, just to be clear, we talked about this and I was like, this
26:44SPEAKERis, this seems really boring and then I got into it and it's like, it is surprisingly
26:48SPEAKERcomplicated.
26:49SPEAKERBut the sexy stuff comes with the contactless charging in a minute.
26:52SPEAKERYes.
26:53SPEAKERThe number of stuff is, uh, it's easy to get lost in the weeds, but when you get into the
26:55SPEAKERpractical lessons of like, here's which cables you can use with what, and here's how fast
26:59SPEAKERthey go and stuff.
27:00SPEAKERThose are good things to know.
27:01SPEAKERSo, okay, there's some proprietary specs too, that happened, I think mostly because USB
27:07SPEAKERwas like, the USB moves slow.
27:10SPEAKERSo it takes a while in terms of the consortium, in terms of decision-making well, in terms
27:15SPEAKERof the consortium and in terms of like rolling out products, because once the specs are ratified,
27:19SPEAKERit takes you like years for products to come out.
27:21SPEAKERRight?
27:22SPEAKERWell, the products come out pretty fast, but it takes years for the products to get in
27:24SPEAKERthe market.
27:25SPEAKERSo like you think about from the time USB three was announced to the time you had all
27:28SPEAKERUSB three devices at your house was like five years probably.
27:31SPEAKERYeah.
27:32SPEAKERUm, it's so, uh, Qualcomm for phones that use Qualcomm chip sets, there's this thing
27:37SPEAKERcalled quick charge Qualcomm quick charge.
27:40SPEAKERThere's four or five versions of that now.
27:43SPEAKERUm, basically Qualcomm quick charge 3.0, which is the, the, I think the important one, uh,
27:50SPEAKERgoes up to 36 Watts.
27:51SPEAKERSo it's like a third of USB 3.1, um, and that's probably going to be the majority of Android
27:57SPEAKERphones, right?
27:58SPEAKEROr at least a huge chunk.
27:59SPEAKERIt's Samsung.
28:00SPEAKEROkay.
28:01SPEAKERIt's not Google.
28:02SPEAKEROkay.
28:03SPEAKERSo everybody that uses a Qualcomm chip shots, chip set can, I believe use that.
28:07SPEAKERBasically the newer versions Qualcomm quick charge four and four plus are basically just
28:12SPEAKERUSB PD, uh, with a little bit of a Qualcomm implementation layer on top of them.
28:17SPEAKERThey also, the quick Qualcomm quick charge shows up in weird places.
28:21SPEAKERLike my vibe wireless kit uses a battery pack.
28:23SPEAKERThat's a Qualcomm quick charge three battery pack.
28:26SPEAKERSo if you're, if you're vibe wireless battery pack dies, you don't have to buy the $80 one
28:29SPEAKERfrom HTC.
28:30SPEAKERYou can buy a $30 one from monker.
28:32SPEAKERUm, that's, that's pretty much it.
28:35SPEAKERUh, Apple has its own thing for fast charging for iPhone, which started with the iPhone
28:39SPEAKEReight, the 10 and everything newer, even know that and it delivers 29, 61 or 87 wise, depending
28:45SPEAKERon which brick you're using.
28:46SPEAKERI don't know anybody that has an 87 watt Mac book brick cause it's the big Mac book.
28:50SPEAKEROkay.
28:51SPEAKERBut I assume that if you plug an iPhone into that, it's going to charge in like 60 seconds.
28:55SPEAKERThat's amazing.
28:56SPEAKERI bet it gets real warm.
28:57SPEAKERYeah.
28:58SPEAKERI mean, yeah, but even that that's even that's not enough to damage the thing.
29:02SPEAKERThe phone's not going to take the phone is not going to let the charger give it more
29:05SPEAKERthan it can take.
29:06SPEAKERIt knows what it can handle.
29:07SPEAKERThat's exactly it.
29:08SPEAKEROkay.
29:09SPEAKERAnd then the switch is another example of its own weird thing.
29:12SPEAKERIt is on paper, kind of a USB PD implementation.
29:17SPEAKERUm, it can charge at either seven Watts with any USB C brick, which just to be clear, not
29:23SPEAKERfast enough to charge it while you're playing games.
29:25SPEAKERUm, that will stem the bleeding of, of your battery though.
29:29SPEAKERRight?
29:30SPEAKERLike it'll slow down.
29:31SPEAKERYou'll at least get more time out of it.
29:32SPEAKERYeah.
29:33SPEAKERAnd, and, and, um, it'll charge at 39 Watts.
29:36SPEAKERIf you plug it into the official connector, you have to have 39 Watts for the doctor work.
29:41SPEAKERYeah.
29:42SPEAKERThe doc doesn't work with less than that.
29:43SPEAKERYes.
29:44SPEAKERUm, switch is definitely the most dramatic, I think, real world example of this stuff
29:48SPEAKERbeing complicated because you have that huge wave of people frying their switches with
29:52SPEAKERthird party docs.
29:53SPEAKERWell, that was to do, I think right too.
29:55SPEAKERRight.
29:56SPEAKERI wasn't charging.
29:57SPEAKERI'm not sure that it was ever actually deduced exactly what was, what was killing the switches.
30:02SPEAKERI've never gotten video out of a switch other than using the official doc.
30:05SPEAKERIt is maddening.
30:06SPEAKERMy understanding is it's video output is also super nonstandard.
30:10SPEAKERThat makes sense.
30:11SPEAKERWhich, uh, it's kind of Nintendo's thing.
30:13SPEAKERUm, I know that there are battery backups that you can use with the switch that will
30:18SPEAKERcharge at the 39 Watts.
30:20SPEAKERUh, there's, there's a, a product I've had my eye on for a while.
30:23SPEAKERThat's not out yet called the Genki covert doc.
30:26SPEAKERIt was kick-started.
30:27SPEAKERIt's sneaky.
30:28SPEAKERYes.
30:29SPEAKERIt's, uh, I think they're close to, they might, I think they're maybe starting to ship it
30:32SPEAKERto the earliest backers right now, but it's a little power brick.
30:37SPEAKERYeah.
30:38SPEAKERUh, probably the size of like your iPad charger or a little bit bigger that has a USB-C port,
30:42SPEAKERa USB three, a USB, a 3.0 port and a, an HDMI port.
30:47SPEAKEROoh.
30:48SPEAKERIt comes as a switch doc in addition to being a charger for, for all of those ports and
30:52SPEAKERit can do video out.
30:53SPEAKERYes.
30:54SPEAKERSo like you would plug your switch in with USB-C.
30:57SPEAKERIt's literally just a wall plug.
30:58SPEAKERLike I said, it's tiny and it purports to be a fully functional video out switch doc.
31:02SPEAKERThis sounds fabulous.
31:03SPEAKERI am super excited.
31:04SPEAKERI really want to try it out when it's actually ready to go.
31:07SPEAKERI literally spent 80 bucks.
31:09SPEAKERSo on a second switch doc, so I could stream switch games without having to move my doc
31:13SPEAKERback and forth price, but it's so tiny and it will function as a charger for all your
31:17SPEAKERother devices in your bag.
31:19SPEAKERYeah.
31:20SPEAKERLike you literally make it your power brick that you roll around with and it also just
31:22SPEAKERhappens to be a functional switch doc.
31:24SPEAKERThey claim they have fully done their homework on all the switch power and video standard
31:28SPEAKERstuff and that it will be totally safe to use.
31:31SPEAKERThat's awesome.
31:32SPEAKERWe will see.
31:33SPEAKERYeah.
31:34SPEAKERSee how many switches they kill.
31:35SPEAKERThat remains to be seen.
31:36SPEAKERYeah.
31:37SPEAKERBut would you, would you use your switch on that?
31:38SPEAKEROh, probably.
31:39SPEAKERShould be the first switch to plug in.
31:40SPEAKERYeah.
31:41SPEAKERKeep it on.
31:42SPEAKERThat's why, that's why I'm keeping an eye on.
31:43SPEAKERWatch this space.
31:44SPEAKEREarly backers getting their hands on it, but I would love to, I want to try that thing
31:46SPEAKERout.
31:47SPEAKERYeah.
31:48SPEAKERYou know, the one thing I wasn't able to find out is if the Switch Lite uses a different
31:50SPEAKERpower since it's newer hardware, if it uses a more, more standard power implementation,
31:55SPEAKERcause there's no, there's no video out on the USB-C for the Switch Lite as I understand
31:59SPEAKERit.
32:00SPEAKERThat's right.
32:01SPEAKERSo they took that hardware out.
32:02SPEAKERYeah.
32:03SPEAKERPresumably it should be simpler, but I don't know.
32:05SPEAKERAnd that's it.
32:06SPEAKERSo if there's one key takeaway from everything we just talked about in terms of just straight
32:10SPEAKERup best practices, what would you say?
32:11SPEAKERYou want some actionable information that people can apply to their life?
32:14SPEAKERPeople like action items.
32:15SPEAKEROkay.
32:16SPEAKERSo if you want to know how to charge your, your business, the fastest, go look up your
32:22SPEAKERdevice, find out which version of USB or Samsung Qualcomm quick charge it supports and then
32:29SPEAKERbuy bricks that support that standard.
32:31SPEAKEROkay.
32:32SPEAKERAnd if you do that and your cables are right and you plug them in, it will charge the fastest
32:36SPEAKERit can.
32:37SPEAKEROkay.
32:38SPEAKERIt's never as clean as you would like.
32:39SPEAKERIt's never, they don't have like cute branded ways for you to tell what that stuff is.
32:42SPEAKERYou're still going to have to eyeball capacities and output and stuff like that.
32:45SPEAKERNo, you shouldn't.
32:46SPEAKERSo if you, so like if your device supports USB three power, just a delivery PD or Qualcomm
32:52SPEAKERquick charge, or if you buy Apple stuff, get devices that just support that stuff and chargers
32:57SPEAKERand you should be good.
32:58SPEAKERAnd now there are power bricks on the market, like power, like battery backups and power
33:01SPEAKERchargers and stuff like that from people like Anker and third parties that literally support
33:05SPEAKEReverything.
33:06SPEAKERSo like there's an Anker brick that supports Qualcomm quick charge for USB PD.
33:12SPEAKERBut I think it even fast charges the switch, but I'm not sure about that people, people,
33:16SPEAKERit seems like when I looked at those pages on Amazon, it looked like maybe at some point
33:21SPEAKERthey said it would charge the switch on the product description because there's questions
33:23SPEAKERabout it in the comments and the reviews and, but I couldn't find any mention of the switch
33:28SPEAKERon the page.
33:29SPEAKERSo maybe there was some sort of firmware update or something on the switch that jacked up
33:31SPEAKERtheir support for that, but yeah.
33:33SPEAKERSo if you get the highest spec for everything, your stuff should just work and that's, that's
33:37SPEAKERpretty actionable.
33:38SPEAKERThat's better than it used to be.
33:39SPEAKERBut you know, some things are never easy and sometimes it's nice to layer another level
33:43SPEAKERof complexity on top of an already complicated task in, in ironically, in pursuit of convenience.
33:49SPEAKERSometimes convenience is better than speed.
33:51SPEAKERYou can have a good, faster, cheap, convenient, faster, cheap, which is pick two.
33:55SPEAKERAre we talking about wireless charging?
33:57SPEAKERLet's talk about wireless charging.
33:58SPEAKEROkay.
33:59SPEAKERCause like you, when they announced this, I was like, this is dumb.
34:01SPEAKERI don't need this.
34:02SPEAKERI can plug in a cord.
34:03SPEAKERYeah.
34:04SPEAKERI mean, I never thought it was dumb.
34:05SPEAKERI just didn't think it was something I would care about.
34:06SPEAKERI didn't care.
34:07SPEAKERI actively thought it was silly.
34:08SPEAKERI was like, this is the, this is really incredibly lazy.
34:11SPEAKERAnd then I went to a conference and one of the chach things in the bag was one of those
34:15SPEAKERAnker tilted contactless chargers.
34:19SPEAKERIt's like a phone stand.
34:20SPEAKERYes.
34:21SPEAKERI own, I bought two of those.
34:22SPEAKERThose things are the business.
34:23SPEAKERThey're super cheap.
34:24SPEAKERThey're like 15 bucks.
34:25SPEAKERThey don't come with chargers.
34:26SPEAKERYou do have to supply your own brick.
34:27SPEAKERBut we all have bricks.
34:28SPEAKERBut you can also, there are plenty of like Samsung and they're 30 to $40 ones on the
34:32SPEAKERmarket that do have bricks.
34:33SPEAKERLook, I'm going to tell you what you should buy.
34:35SPEAKEREveryone should have on their desk, like a six port USB charger.
34:38SPEAKEROkay.
34:39SPEAKERBecause like a, like a, like the Anker has ones that have a cable that drops down and
34:43SPEAKERit's just like a rectangle rectangular box that has just like six USB ports and maybe
34:47SPEAKERone C port on the front.
34:49SPEAKERSo yeah, everybody should have a USB, a multi-port USB charger on their desk.
34:53SPEAKERThey cost like 25 or 30 bucks.
34:56SPEAKERGood to have.
34:57SPEAKERThey charge all of your devices when you need to plug in like your PlayStation controller
34:59SPEAKERor your wireless mouse or whatever, it will talk to the mouse and it will know, Hey, I
35:05SPEAKERcan charge faster than anything else.
35:07SPEAKERSo the multi, this is one of those places where the off-brand like the, the, the third
35:11SPEAKERparty ones are better because the third party ones support everything.
35:14SPEAKERWhereas the charger you get from Samsung is just going to support Samsung.
35:18SPEAKERSure.
35:19SPEAKERSure.
35:20SPEAKERThe charger you get from Apple probably only talks to Apple stuff.
35:21SPEAKERI like Anker.
35:22SPEAKERI like Anker.
35:23SPEAKERGenerally trustworthy.
35:24SPEAKERAnker is the one I have not been burned by Anker and like the Anker USB cables I bought
35:28SPEAKERhave been unbelievably reliable.
35:31SPEAKERJust to be clear, we'd have zero relationship with these companies.
35:33SPEAKERWe're just talking about our experiences here.
35:35SPEAKERI'll put links in, they might have affiliate links.
35:37SPEAKERI tend to lean toward their stuff.
35:40SPEAKERI think I've got a, what is it called?
35:41SPEAKERRav Power is another fairly common brand.
35:43SPEAKERI've got one of their bricks and it seems pretty good too.
35:46SPEAKERLike, again, there are so many kind of no name or gray market ish power accessories
35:50SPEAKERon Amazon these days that some of it is a little bit frightening.
35:52SPEAKERSo I don't, I think those two seem pretty trustworthy.
35:55SPEAKERThose are both legitimate companies.
35:56SPEAKERI think I don't buy generic power bricks just because I fix it a few years ago, did a breakdown
36:03SPEAKERof like a knockoff Apple power adapter and a real Apple power adapter.
36:07SPEAKERAnd they're like, okay, here are the six ways that this would never pass UL testing.
36:12SPEAKERGreat.
36:13SPEAKERAnd like that made me squeamish about buying stuff that's not UL certified and all of the,
36:17SPEAKERlike if it's a real vendor, there'll be UL certified.
36:19SPEAKERWhere electricity is involved, it's not worth saving the three to five bucks.
36:22SPEAKERDon't burn your house down to save a dollar.
36:26SPEAKERWireless chargers are neat.
36:27SPEAKERThey use this technology called inductive charging, which if you ever had a Sonicare
36:32SPEAKERtoothbrush in the nineties, they use the, you know, it's a contactless charger.
36:36SPEAKERIt's been around that long.
36:37SPEAKERIt's been around for a long time, but those things were essentially coming in actual physical
36:40SPEAKERcontact.
36:41SPEAKERI mean, they still come in physical contact, but now you're going through phone cases and
36:44SPEAKERstuff like that.
36:45SPEAKERLike there, there's a little bit of separation there.
36:47SPEAKERSo I wasn't thinking, you know, we're going to get into this, but inductive charging is
36:50SPEAKERsubject to the inverse square law, do you know what the inverse square law is?
36:54SPEAKERTotally.
36:55SPEAKERYeah.
36:56SPEAKERI recite it to myself every morning.
36:57SPEAKERThat's a good idea.
36:58SPEAKERIn case, in case the idea of the inverse square law is that with radiated energy, whether
37:05SPEAKERit's sound or a magnetic field or light or whatever, the amount of power you can deliver
37:11SPEAKERis inversely proportional to the square of the distance that you're delivering the power.
37:16SPEAKERSo that means that it, you know, no centimeters, you deliver a hundred percent of the power
37:20SPEAKERat two centimeters, you deliver one quarter of the power that you do at one centimeter
37:24SPEAKERat 10 centimeters, you deliver one, one hundredth of the power that you do at one centimeter.
37:29SPEAKERAccurate to say there's an exponential fall-off.
37:31SPEAKERThat is exactly what that means.
37:33SPEAKERAs distance increases.
37:34SPEAKERAs distance increases, the amount of power decreases exponentially.
37:37SPEAKERYes.
37:38SPEAKERSo basically you want these things to be close.
37:41SPEAKERAnd that's, and to be, to clarify what you, the law that you just laid out, that's through
37:46SPEAKERthe air, right?
37:47SPEAKERThat is that, that wouldn't take into account going through physical objects, like a wire,
37:52SPEAKERfor example, conducts electricity better than is a direct connection.
37:56SPEAKERSo that, that I'm talking in the context of wireless charging.
37:59SPEAKEROh, the reason I ask is, the reason I ask is I've seen YouTube videos out there of people
38:02SPEAKERtesting like, Oh, I want to try to install this charger through my wooden desktop surface.
38:06SPEAKERLike what I mean is like that stuff is surely is going to further interfere with that output,
38:11SPEAKERright?
38:12SPEAKERIt depends.
38:13SPEAKERSo like there's a lot of stuff that's EM transmissive.
38:14SPEAKERSo if you're talking about a wood desk in a magnetic field, those, unless the desk is
38:18SPEAKERreally wet wood, those aren't going to interfere with each other very much.
38:21SPEAKEROkay.
38:22SPEAKERCause Vinny sent me a link to a YouTube video of a guy who's basically like a woodworking
38:26SPEAKERYouTuber, but he was building himself a desk and he did an experiment where he got underneath
38:31SPEAKERthis thick wooden desktop that he built and drilled a big circular cutout and installed
38:37SPEAKERone of these things right up under the veneer, but he had to get, I forget what it turned
38:40SPEAKERout to be, but he had to keep shaving and shaving and shaving more wood off until he
38:44SPEAKERfinally got down to, I think it was a few millimeters before, before the power would
38:49SPEAKERactually charge through the wood.
38:50SPEAKERSo most of these inductive charging mats, like the Anker one that we were talking about
38:55SPEAKERbefore, the flat one that's on my, on my nightstand work at most four centimeters away from the
39:00SPEAKERobject.
39:01SPEAKERAnd like that, that's the theoretical maximum in reality, the phone has to be on there.
39:06SPEAKERAnd if the, if, for example, if you have a magnetic phone holder in your car, so there's
39:10SPEAKERa Ferris disc glued on the back of your phone, that's going to prevent the inductive charger
39:14SPEAKERfrom working if you put it in the wrong place.
39:17SPEAKERSo yeah, basically, basically this is why, this is why there's not, this is why you don't
39:22SPEAKERjust plug something into the wall that powers all the devices in your house constantly.
39:25SPEAKERRight.
39:26SPEAKERIs because when you get five feet away from it, you're getting a thousandth of the fraction,
39:29SPEAKERyou know, a millionth of the power delivered to that.
39:32SPEAKERSo unless it's a really, really low current draw on the device, which we'll talk about
39:36SPEAKERin a little bit.
39:37SPEAKEROr you have centuries to wait for your device to charge.
39:39SPEAKEROr you use your device once every 10 years, then yeah.
39:43SPEAKERIt's like, you have to be close to it.
39:46SPEAKERYeah.
39:47SPEAKERSo these use resident inductive coupling.
39:50SPEAKERBasically what that means, it's the same thing that makes the delivers power to RFC, RFID
39:54SPEAKERand NFC tags so that they can work without having batteries on them.
39:58SPEAKERAnd you have one coil that generates a magnetic field and another coil that resonates at the
40:02SPEAKERsame frequency as that magnetic field.
40:04SPEAKERAnd that basically that magnetic field stimulates electrons to move through the wires.
40:09SPEAKERSo you get a small amount of power.
40:11SPEAKERCreating a funnel for electrons to move through kind of, or a channel.
40:14SPEAKERYou're convincing the electrons to do what you want using magnets.
40:18SPEAKERHow do they work?
40:19SPEAKERI asked ICP.
40:20SPEAKERI don't know.
40:21SPEAKERYeah.
40:22SPEAKEREfficiency is pretty good.
40:23SPEAKERAssuming you're close range, it's like 80% for a resident magnetic, magnetic conduction.
40:26SPEAKERAnd there's a bunch of standards that support this.
40:28SPEAKERThere's really only one that matters in the world today.
40:30SPEAKERIt seems like.
40:31SPEAKERChi.
40:32SPEAKERChi.
40:33SPEAKERYeah.
40:34SPEAKERThis is an open standard by the wireless power consortium.
40:36SPEAKERYou can charge, like I said, it up distances up to four centimeters from the, between the
40:39SPEAKERcoils, not between like necessarily the pad and the, you know, if you have like a charging
40:43SPEAKERpad and you have a phone case and then the coils are inside the phone, the receiver coils
40:48SPEAKERare inside the phone.
40:49SPEAKERLike that counts.
40:50SPEAKERIt's, it's coil to coil, not device to device.
40:52SPEAKERRight.
40:53SPEAKERWe should, we should mention upfront that that's spelled Q I Q I if you're looking to
40:56SPEAKERmake sure your thing supports it, it's a, it's a, it's a Chinese name that I don't remember
41:01SPEAKERwhat it means.
41:02SPEAKERI think it's kind of the energy.
41:03SPEAKERYeah.
41:04SPEAKERThat makes sense.
41:06SPEAKERInner energy kind of thing like, like your, your inward spirit inner force.
41:10SPEAKEROkay.
41:11SPEAKERIn reality, that means you have to put the phone exactly on the right spot on the pad.
41:15SPEAKERThis is why I like the stand that you and I have, because you can't mess that up because
41:19SPEAKERyou just rest the phone on the stand and it's in exactly the right spots.
41:22SPEAKERWhereas with the pads, you have to kind of like, if you, if you don't have the set, the
41:27SPEAKERpart of the phone that has the coil in it on the right part of the pad, then sometimes
41:30SPEAKERyou'll wake up in your phone batteries like, Oh, I have 8% battery life left.
41:33SPEAKERBecause, because you didn't align the coil properly with the phone, I learned about this
41:37SPEAKERstuff just on the wire cutter.
41:38SPEAKERLike they've got a pretty decent breakdown of like kind of what some of the better pads
41:42SPEAKERare and why, and that's something they explain a lot is like, Oh, this one, the coils are
41:46SPEAKERnot centered well, so you are going to have a harder time getting the phone to line up
41:50SPEAKERto make sure it works.
41:51SPEAKERWell, or like a lot of the early ones didn't have an indicator on the pad that told you
41:54SPEAKERwhen it was in the right spot.
41:56SPEAKERSo now like the, the, I had a Samsung pad that had an annoying, or sometimes they have
42:01SPEAKERthe indicators too annoying.
42:02SPEAKERLike I had a Samsung pad that I gave to somebody because it had a blue ring around the bottom
42:07SPEAKERof it lit up the whole nightstand.
42:08SPEAKERI almost bought one of those until I saw people saying this thing is like a blinding nightlight
42:11SPEAKERis bright blue and nightmarish.
42:13SPEAKERSo yeah, you want an indicator that tells you when it's in the right spot.
42:17SPEAKERYour phone will obviously beep and say, Hey, I'm charging too.
42:20SPEAKERBut sometimes that's a little fiddly.
42:22SPEAKERThe challenge with these is they don't charge at like the full USB PD rates.
42:28SPEAKERSo you'll get at most a 36 Watts, which is pretty good.
42:33SPEAKERLike it's good enough for a phone.
42:34SPEAKERYou're not going to charge like a laptop with that probably right now most of them are closer
42:39SPEAKERto 15 or nine Watts, even like the, like the stand that you and I have is a nine watt charger.
42:44SPEAKERIt turns out that's fine because you're leaving your phone on it.
42:47SPEAKERMost of the day.
42:48SPEAKERYes.
42:49SPEAKERFor, for sort of passive phone use.
42:50SPEAKERIt's totally fine.
42:51SPEAKERLike I said, that's why I keep a cord around just in case if I need a ton of power very
42:56SPEAKERquickly.
42:57SPEAKERYeah.
42:58SPEAKERBut if it's just something where you're going to leave your phone resting all day, anyway,
43:00SPEAKERit's totally fine.
43:01SPEAKERAnd with the latest iOS update, I don't, I assume Android does the same, but I haven't
43:05SPEAKERused an Android phone that has this it, it, your phone looks at how you use the battery.
43:12SPEAKERAnd if like, I spend most of my day sitting at my desk and then I go in the living room,
43:15SPEAKERuse the phone for a couple of hours.
43:16SPEAKERThen I go back to my desk, put the phone back on the charger.
43:18SPEAKERIt knows not to top it up above 80% except for certain days when I'm one of my schedules
43:24SPEAKERpredictable.
43:25SPEAKERYeah.
43:26SPEAKERIt's really, I have to say like I bought two of these, one for work and one for home.
43:29SPEAKERYeah.
43:30SPEAKERAnd it's totally simplified how I use and charge my phone.
43:32SPEAKERLike I just kind of by and large, unless it's a weird special case, I just don't think about
43:37SPEAKERcharging my phone anymore.
43:38SPEAKERIt is.
43:39SPEAKERIt is.
43:40SPEAKERThere's no anxiety about that anymore.
43:41SPEAKERWhen I, when I leave the house for work in the morning and when I leave work to come
43:43SPEAKERhome every night, the phone is typically at a hundred percent because it just sits on
43:46SPEAKERthe charger.
43:47SPEAKERIt means that I don't think about doing like if I'm going someplace, it means I don't think
43:51SPEAKERabout eating my battery.
43:54SPEAKERLike I I'll play a game that I know is going to crush my battery because I know that I'm
43:57SPEAKERgoing to be in the bus for an hour and I'll have a charger where I'm going.
44:00SPEAKERYes.
44:01SPEAKERIt's pretty awesome.
44:02SPEAKERIt's very good.
44:03SPEAKERThere was another one of these that started out almost 10 years ago now called the power
44:06SPEAKERmatters Alliance.
44:08SPEAKERIt's dead.
44:09SPEAKERSounds like power didn't matter so much rip this remember at Starbucks, when you'd go
44:15SPEAKERto Starbucks and they'd have circles on the table, you could put your phone on and it
44:17SPEAKERwould not charge because nobody's phone supported it.
44:19SPEAKERI never saw that.
44:20SPEAKERHuh?
44:21SPEAKERYeah.
44:22SPEAKERThey did that for a while.
44:23SPEAKEROkay.
44:24SPEAKERThey cut a bunch of holes in Starbucks tables and you know, anyway,
44:26SPEAKERBut they have not come back around and done that with cheese.
44:28SPEAKERThe one that everybody actually has some in cafes that have cheap ads on the tables school,
44:33SPEAKERbut not, I don't know if Starbucks does that.
44:35SPEAKERYeah.
44:36SPEAKERThis got rolled up in the Alliance for wireless power.
44:38SPEAKERSo the power matters Alliance got rolled up into the Alliance for wireless power.
44:41SPEAKERGreat.
44:42SPEAKERLike just to be clear, there is probably the most boring documentary in the world about
44:46SPEAKERhow these standards companies, like what the way the, the life cycle of one of these companies
44:50SPEAKERthat comes up with some new wireless charging technology is that somebody at MIT comes up
44:55SPEAKERwith a, does a dissertation and it's some revolutionary technology.
44:59SPEAKERThey start a company, the company raises a little bit of money, can't productize it fast
45:04SPEAKERenough.
45:05SPEAKERThe patents get scooped up by one of the big endemic chip companies and then get rolled
45:09SPEAKERinto one of these power consortiums.
45:12SPEAKERAnd then the consortiums merge and then parts split off into other, other applications.
45:17SPEAKERAnd then those parts merge with other pieces and they all have basically the same name.
45:21SPEAKERIt's all, all of the names are something with Alliance and wireless and power.
45:26SPEAKERLike the power matters Alliance, the Alliance for wireless power, the power, the wireless
45:30SPEAKERpower consortium.
45:31SPEAKERIt's ridiculous.
45:32SPEAKEROkay.
45:33SPEAKERSo the wireless, the Alliance for wireless power ended up going on to do this thing called
45:37SPEAKERair fuel.
45:38SPEAKERI think this is right.
45:39SPEAKERI apologize if I get this wrong.
45:41SPEAKERThis is a next gen standard air fuel is to do longer range charging.
45:45SPEAKERAnd this seemed like snake oil for a long time, but they use radio frequency instead
45:48SPEAKERof magnetic fields and the, their products in the market as of I think CES this year
45:55SPEAKERin terms of hearing aids.
45:56SPEAKERSo if you think about a always on low power usage, you know, hearing aids usually use
46:01SPEAKERlittle tiny itsy bitsy batteries, like, you know, smaller than your, the tip of your fingernail.
46:07SPEAKERAnd you put a, you put a doober in one of your wall in your wall plugs, it's a technical
46:12SPEAKERterm and it's going to beam radio power to your hearing aids.
46:18SPEAKERWhen you're in your house.
46:19SPEAKERSo theoretically you shouldn't have to change your hearing aid batteries very often.
46:22SPEAKERInteresting.
46:23SPEAKERSo they're rechargeable hearing aids, which is interesting conceptually while you're wearing
46:26SPEAKERwhile you're wearing them.
46:27SPEAKERWow.
46:28SPEAKERThat's does it while it's in your brain.
46:29SPEAKERWild.
46:30SPEAKERYeah.
46:31SPEAKERAnd a little frightening, but it's fine.
46:32SPEAKERRight.
46:33SPEAKERRF is fine.
46:34SPEAKERWe have many, many, many longitudinal studies that say long-term exposure to radio frequency
46:37SPEAKERis fine.
46:38SPEAKERPlus 7 billion people have been inundated by radio frequency for the last a hundred
46:42SPEAKERyears.
46:43SPEAKERYeah.
46:44SPEAKERAnyway, there are problems with government regulation on that because of the frequencies
46:47SPEAKERthey use are not necessarily unregulated.
46:49SPEAKERSo it's not in the, it's not in the 2.4, you know, it's not in the public publicly available
46:54SPEAKERspectrum parts that are necessarily accessible to everybody.
46:59SPEAKERAnd like you could theoretically do something like use microwaves to transmit a massive
47:02SPEAKERamount of power or really long way.
47:04SPEAKERCause we do that, but any water that gets in that beam is going to bad things are going
47:08SPEAKERto happen to it.
47:09SPEAKERIt's going to get real hot.
47:10SPEAKERYeah.
47:11SPEAKERThere's another version of Chi on the way.
47:13SPEAKERHave there been straight up military applications, at least maybe that haven't gotten out of
47:18SPEAKERR and D, but like, I don't know about that.
47:20SPEAKERI feel like I've read for a long time about potential military uses of focused microwave
47:25SPEAKERmicrowave beams.
47:26SPEAKERI feel like that's a thing.
47:27SPEAKERYeah.
47:28SPEAKERLike you can make, if you can make water boil from far away, you can make people boil from
47:31SPEAKERfar away.
47:32SPEAKERGross.
47:33SPEAKERYeah.
47:34SPEAKERIt's potentially dangerous.
47:35SPEAKERBut the radio frequency stuff that air fuel uses is not in the microwave range.
47:39SPEAKERIt's not going to make your, it's not going to make your head boil.
47:41SPEAKERSo do you think that one has a chance of catching on?
47:45SPEAKERI don't.
47:46SPEAKERI think it's interesting.
47:47SPEAKERLike if you think about things like internet of things, sensors and stuff like that, that
47:50SPEAKERyou may not necessarily have hard wire power for, but that you don't want to have to change
47:54SPEAKERbatteries in every three months.
47:56SPEAKERI think that's, I think that's the application for that stuff in the short term.
47:59SPEAKEROkay.
48:00SPEAKERChi 2.0 is coming.
48:01SPEAKERIt's just going to be faster charging rates.
48:03SPEAKERSeems, I mean, as the phones get more powerful, they're going to use more draw.
48:08SPEAKERSo they're going to need bigger batteries, yada yada.
48:10SPEAKERThe other really interesting one, there's a bunch of other stuff that I didn't get into
48:13SPEAKERbecause it was just too esoteric and weird, but there's an SAE standard called J2954.
48:19SPEAKERCatchy.
48:20SPEAKERYeah.
48:21SPEAKERIt's really rolls off the tongue.
48:22SPEAKERAgain, that's J2954.
48:24SPEAKERIt's wireless power transfer for electric vehicles.
48:28SPEAKERAnd it's up to 11 kilowatts transfer, which is pretty much, it's in the same range as
48:33SPEAKERlike the 240 volt wall chargers that you install in your garage or that are in like most municipal
48:39SPEAKERgarages and stuff like that.
48:41SPEAKERIt's not the 480 volt DC chargers that you do it like a Tesla supercharger or one of
48:46SPEAKERthe other fast charge stations.
48:49SPEAKERBut it's an inductive charger.
48:51SPEAKERBasically you park on a pad in your garage and you have to be in the right spot, but
48:56SPEAKERthe car has sensors.
48:57SPEAKERSo it like steers you to get in exactly the right spot above the inductive charger.
49:02SPEAKERAnd then it charges at the normal rate without you having to plug the big, heavy cable.
49:05SPEAKERThat's cool.
49:06SPEAKERAnd again, that's just for convenience, right?
49:08SPEAKERIt's just, it's just, it's just so you don't have to remember to plug your car in when
49:12SPEAKERyou get home.
49:13SPEAKERI had questions about it that I didn't, I wasn't able to find it.
49:15SPEAKERSo this actually shipped on a BMW through 530 E, which was only available for lease.
49:22SPEAKERIt's a car that was only available for lease because presumably they don't want to support
49:25SPEAKERthis if it doesn't work out.
49:27SPEAKERBut a car seems like a kind of like your phone on the desk overnight.
49:29SPEAKERLike that's, it seems like a great use case because obviously your car is probably going
49:32SPEAKERto sit in your garage for 90% of the time, 12 hours plus 15 hours overnight.
49:39SPEAKERSo the question I had about this is I don't know if it's two way.
49:43SPEAKERSo when you plug the cable in your car becomes part of the electrical network in a way that's
49:48SPEAKERreally interesting.
49:50SPEAKERLike in terms of like if the power company needs to lift, if the power company needs
49:55SPEAKERto spin up a power plant, because there's increased load because some factory came online
49:58SPEAKERor something, they can sag out of your battery in your car for a couple of minutes.
50:04SPEAKERAnd it can help stay like having, having millions of electrical cars physically wired into the
50:09SPEAKERelectrical network can help stabilize the ebbs and flows of like, you know, green power
50:13SPEAKERgeneration and stuff like that.
50:15SPEAKERSure.
50:16SPEAKERSure.
50:17SPEAKERSo they, and they, I'm sure they track that pretty.
50:18SPEAKEROh yeah.
50:19SPEAKERPretty accurately.
50:20SPEAKERYeah.
50:21SPEAKERIt's bill.
50:22SPEAKERYeah.
50:23SPEAKERYou're you're the meters.
50:24SPEAKERThe, the chargers for cars are smart.
50:25SPEAKERIt's not, they're not just like a dumb plug that you plug in.
50:27SPEAKERThey they're internet connected and they talk to the power company and they know what's
50:30SPEAKERgoing on.
50:31SPEAKEROkay.
50:32SPEAKERLike, like you even most electric cars, you can even say, Hey, I'm leaving at nine o'clock
50:36SPEAKERin the morning.
50:37SPEAKERSo it can optimize the charging based on the cost of power on a minute by minute basis
50:40SPEAKERor hour by hour basis based on your region.
50:42SPEAKERThat's cool.
50:43SPEAKERI didn't know it was that granular.
50:46SPEAKERSo like in California, when you buy an electric car, you get you get a dramatically decreased
50:51SPEAKERpower price from nine or 11 PM until 5 AM because it costs more for them to spin power
50:58SPEAKERplants down.
50:59SPEAKERAnd then it does to just, you know, turn them on and off then it does to just give people
51:03SPEAKERa massive discount.
51:04SPEAKERAnyway.
51:05SPEAKERPerfect time to charge a car.
51:07SPEAKERI saw this, I saw a demo of this when then when the MIT people were demoing it at a Silicon
51:10SPEAKERValley demo days, I saw this in like 2006 and at the time it was I'm holding my arms
51:15SPEAKERlike four feet apart, but it was an antenna like four feet apart and they were lighting
51:18SPEAKERup 150 watt light bulb from like four feet away.
51:21SPEAKERAnd I was like, that's, you could hold, you could wave it in the field.
51:24SPEAKERI was like, this is kind of cool, but I don't, I don't see an application for this really.
51:27SPEAKERBut now that they guess what, yeah, yeah.
51:29SPEAKERWho knew?
51:30SPEAKERYeah.
51:31SPEAKERSo yeah, that's it.
51:33SPEAKERThat's wireless power.
51:34SPEAKERYeah.
51:35SPEAKERThat's power.
51:36SPEAKERIt's cool.
51:37SPEAKERIt's cooler than you think it is.
51:38SPEAKERIf you don't use it, I highly recommend it.
51:39SPEAKERAnd it's not like it's expensive.
51:40SPEAKERI mean, if you buy the Apple pad, it's expensive.
51:42SPEAKERYeah.
51:43SPEAKERIf you buy an auger or a Samsung pad, it's like 15 bucks.
51:45SPEAKERYou definitely can pay 70, $80 for a charging pad for your phone, but you really shouldn't
51:49SPEAKERdo that.
51:50SPEAKERYou can also do that.
51:51SPEAKERIf you have an Apple watch, you have new AirPods with the, with the charging case, neither
51:57SPEAKERof those things need wireless charging.
51:59SPEAKERI mean, maybe, maybe the watch does, but like it already has the wireless clip on thing
52:04SPEAKERon the back, the, the, the AirPods you charge, charge in like 20 minutes.
52:08SPEAKERIt's no big deal.
52:09SPEAKERI just plugged them in.
52:10SPEAKERBut the phone is incredibly useful to have the, have the wireless or later for, yes.
52:15SPEAKERIt'll change your life in a very minor kind of like convenient way.
52:19SPEAKERYeah.
52:20SPEAKERThat you'll never think about again.
52:21SPEAKERAnd you'll be like, oh man, it's nice to have just one less thing to worry about.
52:24SPEAKERI wish I had a good, I wish there was a good magnetic wireless charging mount for the car.
52:31SPEAKERThat's if anybody has one of those, you'd think that would just be ubiquitous at this
52:35SPEAKERpoint.
52:36SPEAKERWell, they're kind of antithetical to each other.
52:37SPEAKERCause like the magnetic mount and the wireless, like, like I said, if you have a magnetic
52:41SPEAKERdisc on the back of your phone, it blocks the inductive charging.
52:45SPEAKERSo like you have to, you have to put it all the way at the bottom or all the way at the
52:48SPEAKERtop of the phone, the disc.
52:50SPEAKERLike mine is behind my sticker here.
52:52SPEAKERAre there some, excuse me.
52:53SPEAKERAre there some that don't use magnets out there that would just use like a clasp or
52:56SPEAKERsome kind of clamps, but I want them at, I like, I just look, it's nice to just put the
53:01SPEAKERphone and chalk it up.
53:02SPEAKERJust got to magnetize everything.
53:04SPEAKERDon't you?
53:05SPEAKERHow do they work, man?
53:06SPEAKERYeah.
53:07SPEAKERHey, we had a ton more listeners last week.
53:08SPEAKERYeah.
53:09SPEAKERWell, that's a couple of weeks.
53:10SPEAKERPeople have found us.
53:11SPEAKERYeah.
53:12SPEAKERSo I assume you, thank you all for telling your friends.
53:13SPEAKERHello, new people.
53:14SPEAKERYeah.
53:15SPEAKERIf you like the show, tell your friends, please.
53:16SPEAKERWe see a lot of good comments on Twitter and stuff.
53:17SPEAKERI love seeing this.
53:18SPEAKERYeah.
53:19SPEAKERIt's really, really gratifying.
53:20SPEAKERYes.
53:21SPEAKERAnd yeah, if you like us, put a review on iTunes or, you know, wherever your podcast
53:25SPEAKERmay be found.
53:26SPEAKERYeah, it's hugely helpful.
53:27SPEAKERBut tell people.
53:28SPEAKERYeah.
53:29SPEAKERThat helps more than anything else.
53:30SPEAKERSpread the good word.
53:31SPEAKERYeah.
53:32SPEAKERTell them what your favorite episode.
53:33SPEAKERTell us what your favorite episode.
53:34SPEAKERTell us which episodes you liked.
53:35SPEAKERThe survey was really useful.
53:36SPEAKERThanks to everybody who filled that out.
53:37SPEAKERYes.
53:38SPEAKERAs we said before, you have our undying gratitude and I guess we'll be back next week with another
53:41SPEAKERepisode.
53:42SPEAKERWe sure will.
53:43SPEAKERBye everybody.
53:47SPEAKERBye.