Usb Charging Cables

Life is always fun when you can learn something new just about every day. In the past I have puzzled over why charging and data transfer characteristics differ among the many USB cables that we have acquired over the years with different devices. I suspect part of that answer is that some of those cables are wired to be charge-only cables or data-transfer-only cables (I suspect Nook and Kindle cables are charge-only cables). But I don't know for certain, as I am no expert on the subject.

Earlier this year we sought to simplify the cockpit clutter of our van, and stumbled upon Amazon.com: PortaPow Specialised 1ft 20AWG Charge Only Short Micro USB Cable (Twin Pack): Computers & Accessories. It was the first I had heard of a charge-only cable, and at times, depending upon the USB outlet and specific cable attached to it, some of our devices have literally taken hours to fully charge. With these cables, for instance, I can go from a 60% charge on my phone to 71% in six minutes. And on some USB outlets it is even faster. The fact that the cables have red plug ends makes it easy to recognize them as charge-only cables. Plus if you charge from a public USB socket, it blocks data transfer, preventing data security breaches, which can give you a bit more peace of mind when you are traveling.

Since these cables have worked so well for us, we also bought these Amazon.com: PortaPow Fast Charge + Data Block USB Adaptor with SmartCharge Chip (2 Pack): Cell Phones & Accessories to use with the existing USB cables in the cabin of our camper. Whether they will work as well in some measure depends upon the unknown characteristics of our existing cables, but I'm reasonably sure that both are the general multi-purpose variety, so this should change them to charge-only cables.