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Ultra Fast Charging

B

bthompson

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 29, 2009
258
91
Hi there. Got my ultra on launch day and love it. I have only charged it about three times, however it will not fast charge. I am using the braided cable, 20w apple brick and no joy. Easily taking 3.5 hours to charge it. Apple support says it’s functioning normally. I have a week to return it, I would but can’t find any in stock.

Anyone else seeing this issue?
 
As fast charging has become a thing, no matter what the rating is I feel like how the bricks work vary by brand. Some of them just work better than others.
 
I have the mac charger and it takes long to charge. With the Belkin charger it takes 1h
 
I use the 140w charger from my MPB. Needless to say that gives gives full capacity. I also have a fast charge plug that came with an Anker 26,000 battery pack. Need to see how that performs as well.
 
bthompson said:
I have two 20w and have swapped them out. I have another I haven’t tried and will check that one.
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Edit: There is an 18w brick and 20w brick that look almost identical. It's possible that they might be trying to charge with an older 18w brick. I remember when the MagSafe charger for iPhone was released there was a big deal made about having to upgrade your old 18w chargers to the new 20w to get fast charging. I remember how much it ticked me off to have to do that!
 
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^^^^^yes which is why they should have just shipped the phone, and stil should with a brick that fully fast charge capable.
 
Tried it on a third 20w brick and s7 cable and it seems to be charging faster. I also updated to 9.1 to see as well. Will keep an eye on it for sure.
 
Interesting data point. I am using two watches, kept my s7. When I put my ultra on the charger and put my s7 on, the ultra charges so slow. Last night I did this and it went up 20% in an hour. This morning, I put the ultra on the charger and let it connected to my phone. It’s gone up 20% in about 15 minutes. Odd!
 
My AW Ultra had a fast charging problem, too. It charged as slow as 20% per hour, no matter which charger and cable I used. Apple support told me, this is not expected behavior and the watch will need to be exchanged. Unfortunately, my replacement will not be shipping for up to three weeks. This leaves me with no AW Ultra for the moment.

I think, that‘s pretty disappointing. Since Apple seems to have a problem with fast charging on their AW Ultra, they should at least be speeding up the process to replace defective watches.
 
arqtiq said:
My AW Ultra had a fast charging problem, too. It charged as slow as 20% per hour, no matter which charger and cable I used. Apple support told me, this is not expected behavior and the watch will need to be exchanged. Unfortunately, my replacement will not be shipping for up to three weeks. This leaves me with no AW Ultra for the moment.

I think, that‘s pretty disappointing. Since Apple seems to have a problem with fast charging on their AW Ultra, they should at least be speeding up the process to replace defective watches.
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I don't think its established that there is a problem with fast charging. Hopefully you tried a few different charging blocks before you sent it back. I can charge 0-100% in under an hour.
 
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ArchEtech said:
I don't think its established that there is a problem with fast charging. Hopefully you tried a few different charging blocks before you sent it back. I can charge 0-100% in under an hour.
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I agree, there‘s probably not a general issue. However, there seem to be quite a few users experiencing the same problem. Glad to hear, that your watch is not affected.
And yes, I tried several charger/cable combinations. Including the one, that has fast charged my AW7 successfully for the past year.
 
I put my Series 7 on my Ultra's charging puck plugged into an Apple 20w brick while it was at 40% and noticed it was taking longer to charge than usual. I swapped the Apple brick out for an Anker 30w and it took over 3 hours to charge to 100%.

I used my Series 7 while sleeping and went for a 4 mile run this morning; it was 85% when I got home. I placed it on the Ultra charging puck and after 30 min it only charged to 90%. I swapped out the Ultra charging puck, used the Series 7 puck, and my S7 fast-charged to 100% in a couple of minutes.

I've had my Ultra since Tuesday and only charged it once. I charged it this afternoon using the Ultra charging puck and it took 2 hours 20 min to go from 30% to 100%. The S7 puck and Apple or Anker charger with the Ultra made no difference. I'm going to contact Apple support.
 
I’m getting 20% in an hour with a 60w anker charger.

The speed is driving me crazy!
 
Since it‘s going to be another 3 weeks until Apple replaces my AW Ultra, I‘m currently using my AW7. I never had any issues with it. However, last night, it only charged 30% in about an hour. First time, this ever happened. I used the same charging infrastructure as always.

Could there be a bug in watchOS 9 causing this behavior? Or are there any other factors affecting if a watch goes into fast charging mode or not?
 
arqtiq said:
Since it‘s going to be another 3 weeks until Apple replaces my AW Ultra, I‘m currently using my AW7. I never had any issues with it. However, last night, it only charged 30% in about an hour. First time, this ever happened. I used the same charging infrastructure as always.

Could there be a bug in watchOS 9 causing this behavior? Or are there any other factors affecting if a watch goes into fast charging mode or not?
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I’m hoping it’s a bug too. Seems excessively slow.
 
I had thought it was me being impatient with charging. The irony that I now want the battery to go down so that I can test whether it was me or the charger!
 
my watch is charging slowly when I put on my s7. I wonder if there is a bug? I can’t really imagine why the watch would charge slower if it’s not connected to the phone. Weird.
 
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