Don’t Charge Your Phone This Way

Re:Don’t Charge Your Phone This Way by ashleyn on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @03:00PM (#21587843)

Always distrusted public chargers and USB ports from the day they started becoming common. One way you can address this is by buying a power-only USB cable, with the data lines cut. Unless there's any form of communication possible on the power lines in a USB cable (some diagnostic thing, etc) that can help protect you.

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Re:Don’t Charge Your Phone This Way by rtkwe on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @03:16PM (#21588029)

The downside to that is you lose a lot of the newer fast charge features. USB-C power delivery specifically requires communication between the charger and the device to determine what voltage the charger will provide.

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Re:Don’t Charge Your Phone This Way by toomuchtodo on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @03:20PM (#21588064)

There are "USB Condoms" (I'm fond of the PortaPow, no association just a happy user, I give them away like candy to anyone who will take one) where one end negotiates with the USB source and the other end is for your device; you still can get max power but there is no data connection.

https://portablepowersupplies.co.uk/home/portapow-data-block...

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Re:Don’t Charge Your Phone This Way by rtkwe on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @03:45PM (#21588303)

That's just USB-A which only does one voltage at different current limits. USB-C has a whole negotiation back and forth about available (charger) and desired (device) voltages. You could possibly have a device pass just those messages back and forth I guess but that's definitely not the device you linked.

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Re:Don’t Charge Your Phone This Way by toomuchtodo on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @03:47PM (#21588329)

Sorry, I don't have any USB-C devices, and the OP at top of thread only said USB (not USB-C).

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Re:Don’t Charge Your Phone This Way by SAI_Peregrinus on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @04:59PM (#21589028)

There are some more advanced USB-C PD proxy condoms that have their own charge controller & proxy the PD negotiation. But a lot easier & cheaper to just bring an AC charger around most places, even with an international plug adapter set.

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Re:Don’t Charge Your Phone This Way by rtkwe on Thursday November 21, 2019 @10:53AM (#21595362)

Hadn't heard of those do you have a link?

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Re:Don’t Charge Your Phone This Way by klodolph on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @03:15PM (#21588010)

With the data lines cut you will be limited to 100mA, no? My personal experience is that this charges far too slowly.

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Re:Don’t Charge Your Phone This Way by gumby on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @03:43PM (#21588275)

Use a USB condom that will negotiate fast charge but not passed data over the cable

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