Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max • Hacker News Board

Re: Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max

#11

Post by coder543 » Sat, Sep 20, 2025, 10:21 PM UTC

jnieminen wrote: post #9

How does one distinguish between all the tiny devils in the details between all possible chargers to have the maximum efficiency in ones iPhone charging?

There really aren’t any nuances to be aware of here. If the charger can provide 45W or more, it will charge your iPhone 17 Pro as fast as it can go. If you have an older iPhone, you don’t even need that much.

The Apple charger is mildly interesting because they made a slightly smaller than usual one that displays a dynamic behavior where it boosts up to 60W. That’s it.

(If you actually mean efficiency of energy delivered, and not time efficiency… the energy efficiency of charging your own personal phone is completely irrelevant to anything. You could save many times that amount of energy per year by switching to a heat pump water heater, or a heat pump clothes dryer, but most people haven’t.)

Re: Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max

#12

Post by ridiculous_fish » Sat, Sep 20, 2025, 10:22 PM UTC

okasaki wrote: post #8

There doesn't really seem to be anything interesting about this. Also while the US plug makes some pretty compact power adapters, the effect is largely ruined in the EU and UK with their wider more cumbersome plugs.

What's interesting about it is that it supports SPR AVS, which is a new USB power delivery spec. I'm not aware of any other chargers that support this.

https://www.chargerlab.com/complete-pd-3-2-spr-avs-specifica...

Re: Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max

#13

Post by Reason077 » Sat, Sep 20, 2025, 10:31 PM UTC

Hopefully Apple releases a UK version of this adapter soon. The design looks very similar to my beloved Apple UK 20W charger [1]. I’d buy a 40-60W version in a heartbeat!

[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Apple-20W-USB-C-Power-Adapter/dp/B0...

Re: Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max

#14

Post by brandall10 » Sat, Sep 20, 2025, 10:32 PM UTC

sigmar wrote: post #6

Looks very compact. "peak 60W, stable 40W" what length of time can it do 60W?

I have a generic slim GAN charger that does a similar stepdown, 65W -> 45W. Different form factor, but same 80g weight.

Peak power tends to last about 10 minutes or so.

Re: Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max

#15

Post by umpalumpaaa » Sat, Sep 20, 2025, 10:33 PM UTC

The pictures in the article are very nice and well done but I could not stop noticing the dirty yellow cable they used in some shots…

Re: Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max

#16

Post by rr808 » Sat, Sep 20, 2025, 10:40 PM UTC

Is there a way to slow down these high power chargers? Sometimes I want a fast charge but mostly I want slow to getting hot. I realize overnight charging phones are smart enough to do this but otherwise seems to be impossible without having two different chargers.

Re: Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max

#17

Post by mikepurvis » Sat, Sep 20, 2025, 10:41 PM UTC

brandall10 wrote: post #14

sigmar wrote: post #6

Looks very compact. "peak 60W, stable 40W" what length of time can it do 60W?

I have a generic slim GAN charger that does a similar stepdown, 65W -> 45W. Different form factor, but same 80g weight. Peak power tends to last about 10 minutes or so.

I bet their telemetry shows that a lot of people grab a quick charge while in the shower or the like, and that 10mins is a good amount of time for that.

Or put another way, past ten mins it’s just as likely the phone will be plugged in for hours or overnight and the charge speed is irrelevant.

Re: Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max

#18

Post by analog31 » Sat, Sep 20, 2025, 10:46 PM UTC

rr808 wrote: post #16

Is there a way to slow down these high power chargers? Sometimes I want a fast charge but mostly I want slow to getting hot. I realize overnight charging phones are smart enough to do this but otherwise seems to be impossible without having two different chargers.

The device being charged controls the charging current. Typically for smaller gadgets, a single resistor connected to the charge controller IC sets the current. Bigger things like laptops may be more sophisticated.

Re: Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max

#19

Post by BadBadJellyBean » Sat, Sep 20, 2025, 10:48 PM UTC

rr808 wrote: post #16

Is there a way to slow down these high power chargers? Sometimes I want a fast charge but mostly I want slow to getting hot. I realize overnight charging phones are smart enough to do this but otherwise seems to be impossible without having two different chargers.

It's up to the device. If I have an alarm for the morning my pixel 7 slow charges over the night so that it's full when the alarm goes off. Modern charging standards give all the control to the client device.

Re: Teardown of Apple 40W dynamic power adapter with 60W max

#20

Post by nicoburns » Sat, Sep 20, 2025, 10:51 PM UTC

ridiculous_fish wrote: post #12

okasaki wrote: post #8

There doesn't really seem to be anything interesting about this. Also while the US plug makes some pretty compact power adapters, the effect is largely ruined in the EU and UK with their wider more cumbersome plugs.

What's interesting about it is that it supports SPR AVS, which is a new USB power delivery spec. I'm not aware of any other chargers that support this. https://www.chargerlab.com/complete-pd-3-2-spr-avs-specifica...

A lot support PPS, which seems like it offers a superset of SPR AVS's functionality? http://spravs.com/iphone-17-spr-avs-vs-pps