CES 2015: ibattz Claims Upcoming Power Banks Will Fully Charge in 15 Minutes [Updated]

[MacRumors]

Earlier this week, mobile accessory manufacturer ibattz turned a few heads at the Consumer Electronics Show with a new external battery charger called the ASAP Fast Charge Power Bank that the company claims can fully charge an iPhone 6 from 0 to 100 percent in just 15 minutes. (See update at bottom of this article for correction.)

Available in two sizes of 5,600 mAh and 11,200 mAh, the new charging banks are the company's fastest to date. By using lithium polymer batteries and replacing the traditional 5V 1A input with a 20V 2A upgrade, the company says the ASAP charging banks can reach a recharge speed of up to four times faster than traditional external battery packs.

No specifications have been given on the charge time for any device besides the iPhone 6, and no pricing or tentative launch date has been announced by the company.

Though the company has a decent track record with its existing lineup of other power bank and battery case devices, hands-on time with the device will be needed to test the company's latest claims. Users will also want to weigh potential long-term negative effects from charging their phone batteries so quickly in deciding whether ibattz's new power banks will be a worthwhile investment.

Update: ibattz has clarified to MacRumors that the power bank itself can charge in 15 minutes, with charging of an iPhone from the bank taking about an hour. The company has not yet updated its press release to correct the error.

Article Link: CES 2015: ibattz Claims Upcoming Power Banks Will Fully Charge in 15 Minutes [Updated]

 

[jclardy]

Am I missing something? Wouldn't the rate be limited by the iPhone? Last I checked I don't get 100% in 15 minutes even using the iPad 12W 2A adapter...

 

[advancewarsbest]

A lot of people mention that when Apple makes a phone smaller they would not mind it being bigger if it meant it would have a better battery life.

One often overlooked feature of a smaller battery is the ability to charge the small battery fast. Glad their taking full advantage of it!

 

[sockatume]

If they're talking about a 5V 1A input, aren't they referring to how quickly the power bank charges up from the mains?

Mind you this is coming straight out of the press release. Presumably ibattz will want to shop for a better PR agency next year.

 

[sundog925]

As if iPhones weren't already hot enough, now they'll be on fire!

:-/

 

[WildCowboy]

Their press release was totally wrong/misleading. We've added an update to our post.

 

[ZildjianLudwig]

One often overlooked feature of a smaller battery is the ability to charge the small battery fast.

Imagine I give you an 8oz glass, and keep a 24oz glass for myself. We pour 8oz into both glasses at the same rate.

Are you better off for being "full" while I still have room for 200% more ... ?

We both reached 8oz ... at the same time.

 

[oneMadRssn]

Imagine I give you an 8oz glass, and keep a 24oz glass for myself. We pour 8oz into both glasses at the same rate.

Are you better off for being "full" while I still have room for 200% more ... ?

We both reached 8oz ... at the same time.

I like the visual analogy, but that is not analogous to how batteries work.

For simplicity and to borrow your numbers, let's say we have two batteries with capacities of 8 and 24. The closer each battery gets to full, the slower it charges (exponentially slower, it has to do with potential and resistance).

The 24 battery will get to 8 much faster than the 8 battery will get to 8. The 8 battery starting at 0 might take 5 minutes to get to 2, 10 more minutes to get to 4, 20 more minutes to get to 6, and 40 more minutes to get to full 8. Meanwhile, the 24 battery starting at 0 might take 5 minutes to get to 6, 10 minutes to get to 12, and so on; it will reach 8 much quicker because at 8 it is only 33% full and there is still a lot of potential with little resistance.

A better water analogy is this: picture two tubes of the same diameter, sealed at the top, one is 8ft tall and one is 24ft tall, both being filled from the bottom with same input nozzles of same flow rates. As the tubes fill, the air at the top gets compressed and pushes back on the water and slows the rate of filling. Because the 24ft tall tube has more air at the top, the rate will slow down less over the first 8ft. When the 8ft tube is nearly full, it has nearly 8ft of air compressed into a tiny bubble at the top. When the 24ft tube has 8ft, it has 24ft of air compressed into a 16ft space.

 

[ZildjianLudwig]

oneMadRssn: Sounds like the initial "at least a smaller battery charges faster" comment is even more wrong that I realized!

 

[macduke]

I'm always skeptical of something that charges really fast. I used to use those Rayovac batteries with the 15 minute charger and those things would be trashed in no time. You would think you're actually saving money but in many cases the opposite was true. Batteries are very finicky and need to be conditioned over time. Actually I've turned into quite the battery snob…

If anyone is interested, today I have a PowerEx C9000 charger/analyzer that I really like. You can set the charge rate yourself and even recondition batteries and analyze their power output. I use Eneloops with them and it's the perfect combo. I got around my need of a 15 minute charger by just buying a ton of Eneloops and having some ready to go. Eneloops keep their charge for a ridiculously long time, so I get these little cheap battery magazines on Amazon and when the batteries are dead I put them back in but upside down so I know which ones I need to charge the next time I'm home. If anyone here uses high-powered flash units quite often they also have a line of Eneloop Pros that recycle quite quickly. Eneloops are pricier but I've never had to replace one and I've been using them for several years now. If one starts dipping in capacity I just use the PowerEx to recondition it and it's good to go.

 

[mateytate]

I never knew there were so many Ph.Ds specialising in battery engineering on these forums.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

I never knew there were so many Ph.Ds specialising in battery engineering on these forums.

I would imagine MacRumors has an abnormally high percentage of people with tech-related degrees as compared to the percentage of general internet users with similar degrees.

I'm a computer engineer. Writing Battery Status (no longer available for sale) I gained a lot of knowledge as to how batteries work, so that my app could make accurate predictions for how long it would take to charge or deplete a battery over the course of months.

 

[justperry]

I'm always skeptical of something that charges really fast. I used to use those Rayovac batteries with the 15 minute charger and those things would be trashed in no time. You would think you're actually saving money but in many cases the opposite was true. Batteries are very finicky and need to be conditioned over time. Actually I've turned into quite the battery snob…

If anyone is interested, today I have a PowerEx C9000 charger/analyzer that I really like. You can set the charge rate yourself and even recondition batteries and analyze their power output. I use Eneloops with them and it's the perfect combo. I got around my need of a 15 minute charger by just buying a ton of Eneloops and having some ready to go. Eneloops keep their charge for a ridiculously long time, so I get these little cheap battery magazines on Amazon and when the batteries are dead I put them back in but upside down so I know which ones I need to charge the next time I'm home. If anyone here uses high-powered flash units quite often they also have a line of Eneloop Pros that recycle quite quickly. Eneloops are pricier but I've never had to replace one and I've been using them for several years now. If one starts dipping in capacity I just use the PowerEx to recondition it and it's good to go.

Aaah, eneloop, best you can get, I also use them in all of my gear.
And, they aren't that much more expensive if you can find a good reliable seller on the internet.

 

[advancewarsbest]

Imagine I give you an 8oz glass, and keep a 24oz glass for myself. We pour 8oz into both glasses at the same rate.

Are you better off for being "full" while I still have room for 200% more ... ?

We both reached 8oz ... at the same time.

Should have put more thought into that, thanks especially to oneMadRssn for the awesome explanation and nobody being a jerk about it.

 

[Ralf The Dog]

One advantage of a larger battery is, you can short it out, then throw it like a grenade. (Don't forget to duck.)

 

[C DM]

I like the visual analogy, but that is not analogous to how batteries work.

For simplicity and to borrow your numbers, let's say we have two batteries with capacities of 8 and 24. The closer each battery gets to full, the slower it charges (exponentially slower, it has to do with potential and resistance).

The 24 battery will get to 8 much faster than the 8 battery will get to 8. The 8 battery starting at 0 might take 5 minutes to get to 2, 10 more minutes to get to 4, 20 more minutes to get to 6, and 40 more minutes to get to full 8. Meanwhile, the 24 battery starting at 0 might take 5 minutes to get to 6, 10 minutes to get to 12, and so on; it will reach 8 much quicker because at 8 it is only 33% full and there is still a lot of potential with little resistance.

A better water analogy is this: picture two tubes of the same diameter, sealed at the top, one is 8ft tall and one is 24ft tall, both being filled from the bottom with same input nozzles of same flow rates. As the tubes fill, the air at the top gets compressed and pushes back on the water and slows the rate of filling. Because the 24ft tall tube has more air at the top, the rate will slow down less over the first 8ft. When the 8ft tube is nearly full, it has nearly 8ft of air compressed into a tiny bubble at the top. When the 24ft tube has 8ft, it has 24ft of air compressed into a 16ft space.

In the case of iPhones though, in particular iPhone 6 and 6+, the larger batteries can be charged at higher amperage (compared to previous iPhones with smaller batteries) which helps speed up the charging if let's say an iPad charger is used or when plugged into some USB ports. Factoring that variable it can be seen as Apple compensating for it in some way.

 

[oneMadRssn]

In the case of iPhones though, in particular iPhone 6 and 6+, the larger batteries can be charged at higher amperage (compared to previous iPhones with smaller batteries) which helps speed up the charging if let's say an iPad charger is used or when plugged into some USB ports. Factoring that variable it can be seen as Apple compensating for it in some way.

I think it's just a factor of the battery capacity and desired time to charge. The iP6 and iP6+ have larger batteries. Bigger battery requires higher amps to charge in a set time. Amps are basically "flow rate" for electricity; a larger bath tub will need a quicker flow rate of water to fill in a given time than a smaller bath tub. However, unlike with bath tubs, filling batteries too quickly risks damage and increases how hot they get (among other things).

If Apple wanted to get fancy, they could let the user select the charging rate - you could choose to rapid charge in one hour and damage the battery and phone a bit, or you could trickle-charge it the whole time and it would take 18hrs to charge.

Related - the battery in the iPad Air 2 is smaller than in the iPad Air 1, and the charger it comes has a lower amp rating to accompany it. It's just battery capacity.

 

[Ronlap]

[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


Earlier this week, mobile accessory manufacturer ibattz turned a few heads at the Consumer Electronics Show with a fast charging external battery pack.
Available in two sizes of 5,600 mAh and 11,200 mAh, the new charging banks are the company's fastest to date. By using lithium polymer batteries and replacing the traditional 5V 1A input with a 20V 2A upgrade, the company says the ASAP charging banks can reach a recharge speed of up to four times faster than traditional external battery packs.

It would be really nice if I could just plug it into the wall using flip-up prongs like the Apple and HyperJuice chargers. I hate carrying around a wall wart to charge external battery packs.

 

[QuarterSwede]

Glad they updated the article for clarification. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus only charge at two rates. One is fairly slow at regular iPhone rates and one is faster at iPad charging rates. That's it. There is no other rates available to the hardware to charge quicker.

 

[pierino84]

The internal DC-DC converter would not accept a tension that high. And if it were hypothetically possible, that would be the fastest way to make your battery explode.
MacRumors editors: don't take everything marketing people write for granted!

 

[JackANSI]

A lot of people mention that when Apple makes a phone smaller they would not mind it being bigger if it meant it would have a better battery life.

One often overlooked feature of a smaller battery is the ability to charge the small battery fast. Glad their taking full advantage of it!

Lets say I have a 2500mAh pack and a 3500mAh pack and I charge them both a 1C (2500mAh for the 2500mAh pack and 3500mAh for the 3500mAh pack) they both get full in a little under one hour on my fancy LiPo charger... (You can safely charge a higher capacity pack at a higher rate than you can the smaller one)

But I get a 3-5 extra minutes of use time out of the 3500... For the same charge time...

So over the course of a day of flying, I get more time on the 3500 AND put it through fewer cycles (which means a longer overall life)...

How is stressing out a smaller battery recharging it more times a better option when you are limited in the number of times you can refill it?

Yes, recharging a LiPo does degrade the battery's ability to hold a charge over many cycles (degradation happens faster at faster charge rates too). I know a pack is about toast for my uses when it takes an hour to charge but the charger says it only put about 80% of the mAh in the pack it did when it was new.