Why the Google Pixel 3 Charges Faster On a Pixel Stand Than Other Wireless Chargers (arstechnica.com) 124
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google's Pixel 3 smartphone is shipping out to the masses, and people hoping to take advantage of the new Qi wireless charging capabilities have run into a big surprise. For some unexplained reason, Google is locking out third-party Qi chargers from reaching the highest charging speeds on the Pixel 3. Third-party chargers are capped to a pokey 5W charging speed. If you want 10 watts of wireless charging, Google hopes you will invest in its outrageously priced Pixel Stand, which is $79.
Android Police reports that a reader purchased an Anker wireless charger for their Pixel 3, and, after noticing the slow charging speed, this person contacted the company. Anker confirmed that something screwy was going on with Google's charging support, saying "Pixel sets a limitation for third-party charging accessories and we are afraid that even our fast wireless charger can only provide 5W for these 2x devices." Normally we would chalk this up to some kind of bug, but apparently Google told Android Police that this was on purpose. The site doesn't have a direct quote, but it writes that, after reaching out to Google PR, it was "told that the Pixel 3 would charge at 10W on the Pixel Stand [and that] due to a 'secure handshake' being established that third-party chargers would indeed be limited to 5W." In an update, Google said the reason has to do with the "proprietary wireless charging technology" it has via its Pixel Stand and other select wireless chargers. The Pixel 3 only supports 5W Qi charging; "Google's 10W proprietary wireless charging technology" is what will allow the phone to charge at faster speeds.
"Google says it is 'certifying' chargers for the Pixel 3 via the 'Made for Google' program and pointed us to one such device, a Belkin charger called the 'Boost Up Wireless Charging Pad 10W for Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL,'" reports Ars Technica. "Belkin's description is very enlightening, saying 'Made with the Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL in mind, this wireless charging pad uses Google's 10W proprietary wireless charging technology. It's certified for Pixel, so you know that the BOOST UP Wireless Charging pad has been made specifically for your Pixel 3 and meets Google's high product standards.'"
Android Police reports that a reader purchased an Anker wireless charger for their Pixel 3, and, after noticing the slow charging speed, this person contacted the company. Anker confirmed that something screwy was going on with Google's charging support, saying "Pixel sets a limitation for third-party charging accessories and we are afraid that even our fast wireless charger can only provide 5W for these 2x devices." Normally we would chalk this up to some kind of bug, but apparently Google told Android Police that this was on purpose. The site doesn't have a direct quote, but it writes that, after reaching out to Google PR, it was "told that the Pixel 3 would charge at 10W on the Pixel Stand [and that] due to a 'secure handshake' being established that third-party chargers would indeed be limited to 5W." In an update, Google said the reason has to do with the "proprietary wireless charging technology" it has via its Pixel Stand and other select wireless chargers. The Pixel 3 only supports 5W Qi charging; "Google's 10W proprietary wireless charging technology" is what will allow the phone to charge at faster speeds.
"Google says it is 'certifying' chargers for the Pixel 3 via the 'Made for Google' program and pointed us to one such device, a Belkin charger called the 'Boost Up Wireless Charging Pad 10W for Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL,'" reports Ars Technica. "Belkin's description is very enlightening, saying 'Made with the Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL in mind, this wireless charging pad uses Google's 10W proprietary wireless charging technology. It's certified for Pixel, so you know that the BOOST UP Wireless Charging pad has been made specifically for your Pixel 3 and meets Google's high product standards.'"
Qualcomm's Quick Charge is against the standard... (Score:1)
...but our proprietary wireless charging solution is A-OK!
Seriously, why buy a Pixel?
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Seriously, why buy a Pixel?
Only android device you will get regular updates from
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Re: Qualcomm's Quick Charge is against the standar (Score:4, Informative)
Isn't that why Barsteward compared it to "Microsoft of old"
Apple has always been big into proprietary Apple only (for the last 40 years). This is why Apple even though it is the world biggest company, doesn't have much corporate/business presence, for the large part because of Apple proprietary nature Apples standards and protocols rarely make it to the general use.
Compare to Microsoft 20 years ago. The browser war was full on, with the attempt to take control of the internet. and the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish approach. Microsoft wasn't making incompatible tools, that only worked with Microsoft. They made tools that worked with the standards, then they added Microsoft only features to them, in hope where their feature will over power the original use. For the browser war of the late 1990's Microsoft won, luckily they had failed their final objectives. What Microsoft really wanted with the browser war was.
1. Become the dominate browser [Embrace] (they got this)
2. Have web developers make sure IE was compatible first (they got this)
3. Add IE only features [Extend] such as Active X (they got this)
4. Have Active X become the primary way to access a website (This was limited to business apps)
5. Drop HTML and HTTP [Extinguish] and fully make Active X technology the dominate way of using the internet (this failed)
What happened with this plan? Well primarily Microsoft didn't account for security and for the individual when asked a question they will answer "Yes" Thus turning Active X the primary deployment method of Malware. Causing some major security problems in 2002-2004 which people actually decided to either switch to Firefox (Which at the time was the small, light, and fast browser) that supported internet standards better then IE did, or actually got Sick of PC's and moved to Mac's which used the Safari browser (Webkit based). This but a dent in Active X development, and more focus on DHTML. That and Microsoft got so delayed in making the next version of Windows and IE. That XP and IE 6 became outdated.
Apple isn't a saint, but you more or less know what you are going to expect with Apple. Microsoft of old was much more sneaky and underhanded.
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"Apple has always been big into proprietary Apple only (for the last 40 years). "
Why I've been boycotting things Apple for 40 years. Never have bought anything Apple. Won't.
Re: Qualcomm's Quick Charge is against the standar (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't get your point.
Apple may be less evil then old Microsoft. But that doesn't mean Apple isn't evil.
Besides "Boycotting" Apple because Apple isn't giving you the services you wan't or need, isn't boycotting them. Boycotting is putting yourself in a disadvantage to bring up a point.
I don't like squash, so I don't buy it. I am not boycotting squash, I just don't like it.
Now I like bacon, but say there is something that I feel strongly against in the Bacon Industry I would stop eating bacon, until they fixed it. Then I would happily begin eating it again.
You don't like Apple products, so you never bought them. if Apple changes its business practices you still will not buy from them... You are not boycotting, you just not a customer.
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Re: Qualcomm's Quick Charge is against the standar (Score:1)
LineageOS will give you some extra years of support.
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With the way the updates have been lately that isn't a good thing. With Android 9 Google broke Bluetooth, fast charging on the Pixel XL, wrecked battery life, accidentally changed battery settings for apps, and numerous other problems. Android 8 was constantly a battle of them breaking Bluetooth every other week. At this point I think half the reason the other manufacturer's hold back on the updates is because Google tends to release them haphazardly and break stuff.
Re:Qualcomm's Quick Charge is against the standard (Score:5, Informative)
Google updated my Nexus 4 for two years then said fuck you. I said, never again Google hardware.
Sure, many vendors are even worse, but this is supposed to be Google demonstrating how to do it right. Very much unimpressed.
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Re:Qualcomm's Quick Charge is against the standard (Score:4, Interesting)
Same expectation and experience with the Nexus 5.
Slightly different conclusion though: Don't buy *expensive* Android phone models as they are likely to be throwaway devices security-wise in two years.
Re:Qualcomm's Quick Charge is against the standard (Score:4, Funny)
BTW, went Motorola. Happy. Much better value than Pixel.
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What model? My Moto g6 came with 8.0.0, I just checked and there is an update, downloading now. Only a few months out to be sure, but updates are definitely being provided. For how long remains to be determined. Happy camper so far and I love the phone. Way better value than the Pixel, as I meant to say above.
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Except they didn't, you are still getting security updates and updates to Google service apps to this day.
It's also worth noting that this was a $299 phone with decent hardware in 2012, which was rare. Considering you paid 1/3rd the price of an iPhone/Galaxy S you could afford to upgrade it twice (so total of 6 years of primary OS update support, plus hardware upgrades) compared to the competition.
You have a choice, either get OS updates for 5+ years but they make your phone slow and unusable, or stop after
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Google updated my Nexus 4 for two years then said fuck you.
Maintenance is boring, dude.
(Google's new corporate motto, I think).
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You're switching to iPhone then right? I don't think there's an Android vendor better than Google on updates. Or if there is, I'd like to know about it.
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Only android device you will get regular updates from
Do you mean "in perpetuity"? Because I get a security patch every month on my Sony.
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About the same, bought the Nokia 6.1 months ago, it is ~$229 or something, part of Android ONE so stock OS, came with 8.1, Pie is rolling out this quarter and I will have, like you said, OS updates for 2 years and security update for 3 years on a vanilla OS. Never again the dozens of Samsung apps that you cannot even disable!!!
It is also rock solid, made from a one piece of aluminum, it cannot bend.
It has a 5.5" FHD screen, 5GHz WiFi, dual sim, micro SD, NFC, USB-C QC3.0 charging, audio jack, Zeiss camera,
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100% this. Google fought and bitched and moaned and campaigned and actively brainwashed users to think that USB Power Delivery (which is ALSO proprietary) is the only acceptable, safe, safe, good, etc. option. (This all despite the fact that their own products violate the spec, including some in unsafe ways.) Now they turn around and pull this shit?
Fuck you, Google.
Re:Qualcomm's Quick Charge is against the standard (Score:5, Informative)
To be fair, there's a pretty big difference here.
1) qualcomm's quick charge actually violated the USB spec. Their quick charge still used USB cables to provide power. micro-usb wasn't designed to handshake or negotiate the cable's capabilities to the charger and the phone. The usb cable standard did NOT allow for quickcharge power draw. That actually IS dangerous.
2) Google's 10w proprietary standard is negotiated, and there's no intermediate medium (unless you count the air molecules between the charger and the device, and I'm pretty sure there's no specification defining their behavior)
By no standard definition is usb-pd proprietary. It's no more proprietary than USB is (so if you consider USB proprietary, well fine, here's some more tin foil).
Re:Qualcomm's Quick Charge is against the standard (Score:5, Insightful)
But why do 5W Qi and 10W proprietary when most other phones do 5W Qi and 10W Qi?
Qi already goes up to 15W (though I'd imagine there are thermal concerns), so why do we need a proprietary Google standard for 10W when everybody else is just using 10W Qi pads?
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... so why do we need a proprietary Google standard for 10W when everybody else is just using 10W Qi pads?
Because some bright product manager is banking on their model of the market that predicts a higher overall profit to Google via original hardware sales and proprietary protocol licensing.
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That is a good question but if you look at this:
https://www.wirelesspowerconso... [wirelesspo...ortium.com]
There are surprisingly few phones that are certified for > 5w Qi charging. I'm guessing there's gotta be a reason for that.
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That list may not be complete (or there are just lots of phones out there that support 10 watt charging without being certified). There are no Samsung phones on that list, and they're shipping 12w Qi chargers for their latest phones. Previous models used 9w Qi chargers.
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There are surprisingly few phones that are certified for > 5w Qi charging. I'm guessing there's gotta be a reason for that.
Probably a shitty database. I just looked up the two devices we have in the house that support high-speed Qi chargers just fine, and both of them are listed in that list only with the Basic Power Profile.
Or maybe certification isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
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Having worked with wireless charging technology, I am not surprised. Despite a certain subset of consumers and manufacturers being in love with it, it's actually a pretty shitty way of delivering power. The limitations are mostly thermal. Sure: you can get do >5W charging, but all the other metal content of the phone is heating up, too, including the battery. Batteries charging while hot will have reduced lifespan or, at wo
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I'm a consumer in love with it, and I understand it's never going to be as fast as wired. I don't use it exclusively, but it's really convenient in cases where I just don't need that kind of speed.
For example, in the car, I have both a 2A wired charger and a 500mA inductive. If my battery is in reasonable shape, I just pop the phone in the inductive charger/holder thingy and off I go. It's easily enough to run Waze and stream bluetooth music without draining the battery at all, and if I really need 2A (or i
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Do be careful: 3000 mAh is not a measure of total energy; it is a measure of electric charge (coulombs, if you want to get technical about it). To convert to energy, multiply by the nominal voltage of the battery you are talking about: 3.7 V for a typical Li-Ion. By that measure, the battery's energy capacity is about 11 Wh. Chargi
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Just checked with a Kill A Watt, the power draw when there are no devices handshaked is 1W.
Maybe yours were from before the handshake?
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For some unexplained reason, Google is locking out third-party Qi chargers
I'm sorry, is this Apple we're talking about here or Google? Or is Google finally catching up to Apple's standard operating procedure. In other words we're going to end up with Apple (Business practices) Classic and Apple (Business practices) from the Other Guy.
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But are they actually doing 10W Qi? My understanding is that they AREN'T using a 10W standard, but a 10W proprietary model. I'm not very familiar with this topic, but I'm looking up some 10W Anker chargers on amazon, and they seem to indicate that they have a 10 watt "Samsung" mode and a 5 watt "Standard mode".
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That's possible (even if Qi itself does go up to 15), but if you've got products on the market like Anker's chargers that aren't necessarily having to license things and still support both "Qi" 5W mode, and "Samsung" 10W mode, and "Apple" 7.5W mode, that's still not as bad as Google actively blocking anybody who doesn't pay them money, no?
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Ironically, Apple seems to be the one supporting > 5 W Qi charging here, as the iPhones will do up to 7.5 W from any Qi charger that supports that target.
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1) qualcomm's quick charge actually violated the USB spec.
It never claimed to BE part of the spec. It didn't violate it. It ignored it (or extended it since it didn't break any existing functionality).
Their quick charge still used USB cables to provide power. micro-usb wasn't designed to handshake or negotiate the cable's capabilities to the charger and the phone. The usb cable standard did NOT allow for quickcharge power draw. That actually IS dangerous.
Standard USB cables are fine. The extra power isn't gonna fry a cable - any cable crappy enough to get fried by a Quickcharge adapter that doesn't get a handshake would be fried by regular USB anyway. If handshaking fails, Quickcharge fails safe. If it succeeds, THEN Quickcharge comes into play. It's no more dangerous than anything the actual USB Implementers Fo
Re:Qualcomm's Quick Charge is against the standard (Score:4, Funny)
USB-PD is proprietary? Is that why I can use an Apple 87W USB charger from a MacBook to charge my Dell XPS 15?
Yeah, that sounds horribly proprietary, and is the worst kind of Vendor lock-in.
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People try to claim things like Qualcomm's Quickchare is BAD because it's "proprietary", or because it "violates the standard".
USB is proprietary, locked down, expensive, etc. It's just widespread.
Quickcharge being proprietary is no worse then USB being proprietary. On technical merits alone, Qualcomm has been beating the shit out of the USB Implementers Forum when it comes to fast charging shit. They were already well established years before USB IF even tried anything, and Qualcomm keeps improving thei
Re:In other word$... (Score:5, Funny)
Google want$ to provide quick charging only from companie$ that give them obei$ance.
Obeisance?
And the Android, never flitting, still is shitting, still is shitting
On the grim carcass of RIM stuck behind my old shelf drawer;
And his pixels have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the LED-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my phone from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be updated-nevermore!
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My nickname here is obvious, but my nickname on gaming sites is Dreaming Demon... lifted from the same stanza you adapted here.
Bravo
Google is doing an Apple (Score:1)
Fuck they are all the same :(
Re:Google is doing an Apple (Score:4)
Re:Google is doing an Apple (Score:4, Informative)
Any fast charge capable (10W) wireless charger works just fine with an iPhone.
Google is being worse than Apple in this case.
Just about any fast charge capable wireless charger from Anker, Samsung, Belkin, Mophie, Logitech, etc. works just fine with an iPhone.
Even a no-name-brand fast wireless charger will charge an iPhone 8 and X at 7.5w, and iPhone XS and XR at 10w
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Making a Lightning cable requires a license from Apple.
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works just fine with an iPhone.
Negative. Plenty of them will not "fast" charge on iPhones. All of them will however provide some level of power to them.
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Sure but it's not the iPhone that is good about fast charging, it's the chargers.
iPhones use a proprietary protocol to detect how much power the charger can deliver. Most of the USB charge regulator chips on the market support it, because it's very popular. Even the cheapest ones will support iPhone fast charging, if nothing else.
Some Android phones do actually measure how much current the charger can deliver and adjust automatically. In fact most of the mid to high end ones do. But not iPhones, they rely o
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Just because Apple's wireless charger hasn't shipped yet, doesn't mean that the phone doesn't wirelessly charge at the advertised spec.
Two completely separate things. But nice work with the knee-jerk FUD response.
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Just because Apple's wireless charger hasn't shipped yet, doesn't mean that the phone doesn't wirelessly charge at the advertised spec.
Two completely separate things. But nice work with the knee-jerk FUD response.
If you want to get the fastest wireless charging speed from [url=https://www.newbecca.com/product/category/50067338]Pixel 3[/url], you need to have a Pixel Stand (or other Google-authorized 10W wireless charger). Otherwise, even with a third-party charger that supports faster wireless charging, the speed is still only 5W, which is the most basic Qi charging speed.
Apple charger still overheating? (Score:1)
I want to know why Google and everybody else can make a wireless charger that doesn't overheat except Apple. [theverge.com]
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Mmmm, how I love the smell of burning insulation in the morning.
Re:Apple charger still overheating? (Score:4, Funny)
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You could read the article you linked to. It's quite informative. Answers your question explicitly.
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What I get from the article is "laws of physics don't apply to Apple".
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What an odd conclusion. Particularly when reading an article about how an ambitious engineering project failed.
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Failed because of incompetent engineering. That's the part about Apple employees not believing that the laws of physics not applying to Apple. What really floors me is how this project is still a fail, after how long? In a normal company this would have just been addressed, perhaps by adopting more realistic specs, or perhaps just by being better at engineering.
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I want to know why Google and everybody else can make a wireless charger that doesn't overheat except Apple. [theverge.com]
When Apple employees mod down critical comments it makes me think Scientology Apple. And detest Apple more. What a corrupt gang of extremists.
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Or your post was completely off topic, and modded as such. We get it, you don't like Apple. That doesn't give you the right to spam off-topic crap wherever you choose.
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Or your post was completely off topic, and modded as such.
Oh the Apple police are here. And wrong.
You are right, I don't like Apple, with good reason, and every interaction with an Apple employee ends up with me liking Apple less.
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You should see someone about your deep issues with paranoia.
I am not an Apple employee. I have never been an Apple employee. I'm not even using any Apple devices currently.
You are still off-topic. And you're kind of an idiot.
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See you're just the kind of self righteous jihadi that rots the barrel.
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I want to know what Apple's unshipped wireless charging device issues has to do with Google putting vendor lock-in proprietary DRM-esque garbage in their phones and chargers, screwing their customers and their accessory makers at the same time.
Misdirection much?
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Why does it matter whether Apple's failed wireless charger is shipped or not? Either way it's a fail.
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It also has absolutely nothing to do with anything even closely relevant to this article. But you will still persist in trying to misdirect this shameful shit coming from Google because... well I don't know why you would do that, other than just being kind of an idiot.
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Look, it's Apple who can't manage to design and build a functional wireless charger, don't blame me.
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More misdirection. Only person mentioning Apple here is you.
Idiot confirmed.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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Still, what a poor, customer-hostile decision. Hopefully the Pixel 3 fails in the marketplace.
One of my friends with too much money has already posted on Fb about how he will have to buy two of these devices... one for him, one for his wife. So no. The droidheads will buy them just because they say Pixel on them.
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Fake APK, doesn't even say "see subject" even once.
Google says: (Score:1)
"secure handshake" my azz (Score:4, Informative)
Wireless charging is inefficient (Score:2)
I'm not surprised they're limiting power draw to the official standards for unknown chargers.
They're what, 50% efficient?
So charging at 10W means 10W of heat in the charger. Sitting right next to the battery, that you can't charge when it gets over 45 degrees or you risk it catching fire.
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75% to 80%
https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_without_wires
Ugh. I remember when saving energy with "eco-friendly" technology was in vogue. Now we're taking a deliberate step backwards just because some people can't be bothered to plug it in. It's not even the same kind of wireless as in Wi-Fi or cell networks -- it doesn't eliminate any wiring going across your room/desk.
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So charging at 10W means 10W of heat in the charger.
The way energy conservation laws go, charging at a 10W rate means that the generated heat will be at the level of (H - 10W), where H is the total wattage sent to the charger. So for example if 12W are being sent to the charger and 10W of that is being used to charge, the heat will be 2W worth.
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...and, according to your arbitrary choice of efficiency, 5W of charge means 5W of heat. No evidence that this is "right next to the battery" or that it would matter in the slightest to the battery's temps, so your point that the incremental addition of 5W of heat somewhere must result in the overheating of the battery which is both extraordinarily unlikely and should already be protected against inside the phone. Furthermore, it's the job of the charger to make sure that it doesn't overheat the phone, a
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I believe the official QI standard supports 5W, 7.5W and 10W. It actually goes as far as 120W IIRC but that's not relevant here.
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Sitting right next to the battery, that you can't charge when it gets over 45 degrees or you risk it catching fire.
Why be so presumptuous? It's up to the *phone* to reduce it's charging rate if there's a temperature issue. It's not up to the phone at all to ensure that a device connected to it doesn't overheat or otherwise.
And phones already protect the battery from overheating during charging by turning off the charge.
So how does the iPhone get 7W? (Score:2)
Looking over Qi chargers for the past few months, all of them seem to list max 7W with various iPhones, and I think 12W with a number of Android devices.
Aren't those all Qi? Apple is for sure, so why would the pixel have a max of 5W when the iPhone can do 7?
It stuff like this that has kept me from owning any "wireless" chargers. (I'll drop the scare quotes the day no actual wires are connected to the charger itself at any time).
yeah those 10W of RF (Score:2)
are of higher quality
strikes me as odd the handshake hasn't been REed yet
Is there even a wireless quick charge standard? (Score:2)
DIsclaimer: I know (and care) very little about wireless charging, so I'm not very well informed on the subject.
That said, I've been doing some reading about this, and from what I understand, the standard itself doesn't actually specify quick charging, so manufacturers have been left to invent their own method. Samsung created their method and lots of chargers were made to support it. Google also created their own. It sucks that they aren't compatible, but this is how almost every standard begin: lots of in
Google is turning into what Microsoft was --- (Score:3)
I guarantee the Pixel 4 won't support this (Score:2)
They tried wireless charging a few phone generations ago. I bought the $50 charger. It worked like shit and charged slow. Next generation, Google doesn't support it.
Fuck proprietary bullshit and fuck you, Google.
WTF? (Score:2)
I was seriously considering getting a Pixel 3. This decision made that real easy. If Google wants to start down the proprietary road they will do it without me.