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Ikea releases a pair of affordable USB-C chargers
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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This feels like an advertisement article...single port USB-C PD chargers with 20-30W output in the <$10 range are not at all hard to find already.
Quality, higher-wattage ones are harder to come by at that price (e.g. 45W and up are $20+ for decent brands), but I can get a 2-pack of name-brand (Anker) 20W chargers for $10-15.
I'm guessing Ikea is just rebranding crappy chargers, so no thank you, I would rather not have my phone, tablet, etc get broken because I was too cheap to spend an extra $10 on a better brand charger.
Big Clive has done teardowns of IKEA chargers before and rates them highly for quality and safety.
Huh, cool channel, I'll check him out.
What are you basing your 'guess' on? IKEA typically design their own products. They already produce Smart home speakers. Why do you suppose that this would be a rebranded product from somebody else?
They're making a big bet on smart home stuff, which is why they're designing that kind of stuff more. They want to keep their customers coming back for smart home stuff so they can build an ecosystem, whereas they probably don't care about USB chargers nearly as much.
I'm guessing they're fine (they're probably testing it), but I highly doubt they're actually designing the USB chargers, and they're probably not buying from a known brand (price would be too high).
20W chargers are cheap from name brands (2 pack for ~€10), but 45W chargers aren't (like €20-30 for a basic 45W charger). So if they're selling 45W chargers for cheap, they're just likely rebranded stuff from a cheap manufacturer.
Your sources don't say anything about the design, only manufacturing. The chargers could still very well be designed by IKEA, but made by another company. That sort of stuff is really common industry and can help keep the price down. This doesn't mean that the product is cheaply designed or a literal rebrand of an existing product
The second one does, here's a quote:
I would assume a USB charger would fall under the "more basic items" part.
I take this to mean that instead of designing a product to be manufactured elsewhere, they sometimes buy products to relabel and put on the shelves, without going through any form of design process (though I'm guessing they do test this stuff).
Ah sorry, should've read further than the first paragraph... In European markets there are strict safety guidelines they have to adhere to, so they will definitely need to test what they sell
But will they test for longevity as well? Or just safety?
As long as it's not going to fry my phone, I'll probably give it a shot, but it may still be a better deal to pay a bit more somewhere else.
Who knows really, it won't fry your phone but I have no idea how long it will last. To be honest I expect it will probably be just fine
I've reconsidered my view of Anker being a quality brand. I bought a USB C hub of their's that was supposed to provide 100W power delivery, but it couldn't keep a 65W Dell laptop happy. So, I powered the Dell separately and still used the hub. After a while the display port started to cut out.
I've also bought a USB C PD cable of their's that was supposed to support 100W power delivery. With my 85W MacBook I noticed that the cable was starting to get hard (non-bendy) spots in it. Soon after my MacBook would report being unplugged when I did anything that would draw significant power.
Ok, so I go over to Amazon and start looking at reviews that are 2 or 3 stars and holy shit. I got the distinct feeling that these were the real reviews. They're not good.
Huh, I haven't had issues at all. I have a USB hub with 100W PD and HDMI, and it's been working fine for almost 3 years now on my MacBook. I also have a battery bank from them and it's fine, though I've only used it like 3-4 times over the few years I've had it (just use it for travel as a backup plan). I recently got A surge protector/power strip thing from them as well (pretty recent, like 2 months).
I went with them because of good reviews on Reddit and tech review sites, and the few low reviews on Amazon were easy to chalk up to random QC issues (every product will have some bad ones ship), but the customer support seemed decent from the reviews I read.
Have you ruled out bad cables and your Dell sucking?
I think I'll look up some tear downs next time though. Good brands can absolutely go bad, so it would be good to see if that has happened here. Unfortunately, the charger landscape is mostly full of Chinese crap that I don't expect to work properly on day 1, much less after a year or two.
Exactly, this is definitely not going to be quality electronics.
Ikea electronics and batteries are almost always high quality. It's not their bread winner so it would be stupid to skimp on them and risk their reputation.
The ZigBee lightbulbs I have are definitely not high quality.
ikea needs to stop selling electronics to focus on their core business of shark pillow
Ikea has been releasing some banger electronics at mid-level pricing.
I don't know the quality, but if it's similar to IKEAs other stuff, I'm on board. I have furniture from them that's been going on for 30 years that was supposed to be my "starter furniture". And with the widespread Chinese knockoff BS that's all over Amazon, I'm strongly considering it.
IKEA 30 years ago was also making better furniture than they are today though. All their entry-level furniture is absolute shit these days, thin veneer on cardboard strength fiber board and screws made of metal softer than warm butter.
Anything in a quality that will last more than a few years costs almost the same as any other furniture store.
In only have experience with their ZigBee lightbulps, and they suck ass.
My wife still likes to go, and now we mostly buy the higher end stuff because we like the design and hate the hassle of other furniture retailers with sales people and whatnot.
Hm, I have several of their smart bulbs and they work great, I did upgrade to the v2 hub though as they were sporadically losing connection, since swapping though they've been rock solid.
What's wrong with the lightbulbs? I have pretty good experience with all their zigbee products. Cheap, reliable, stable, sturdy, works with Home Assistant.
harder than you would expect. partially due to inflation
It took me one google search, and a filter at the first vendor that popped up to find one.
my mistake
Yup, I even saw a 2-pack from a reputable brand for $15.
What reputable brand?
Anker. Here's one example listing on Amazon.
I've had a good experience with their other products.
Yep. It's completely obvious