Is it just me, or has the consumer electronics company Anker just come out of nowhere in the last year or so?

Up until about two years ago I'd never heard of them, even though my Amazon order history claims I've ordered their products as early as 2012 (a replacement laptop battery and a bluetooth transmitter). But now they've positioned themselves as one of (IMO) the best accessory manufacturers in the business. So far I've been impressed with every single one of their products that I've ordered:

Portable battery: seems solidly built, and has great battery life with reliable LED level readouts. There's hundreds of battery packs out there but this one is really nice.

Multi-port USB charger: it also has USB-C and can charge my XPS 13. This was great on vacation!

Portable bluetooth speaker: I brought this to the beach, and my son was playing with it in the sand. He also got food and water all over it, and it was easy to wash off when we got back to the apartment. Oh, and it sounds good too and it lasted at least 7 hours.

I also have one of their USB 3 hubs, the afore-mentioned laptop battery and bluetooth transmitter, a USB-C cable, and even a USB3 PCI-E card for my desktop.

The thing is, it's entirely likely that these products are likely rebadged products coming out of Chinese manufacturing facilities. But if that's the case, they must be very selective of the products they're picking up, because every Anker product I've encountered shares excellent build quality. It's not Apple-level, but their stuff seems solid and the materials are nice to the touch. Even their multi-USB wall charger felt really solid in the hand, and the case was made out of this matte plastic that just feels nice.

I know this seems like I'm shilling for Anker, but I'm really just trying to figure this out. Like I said, it seems like this company came out of nowhere, and now they have their name on dozens of different products. According to their site, they were founded by ex-Googlers (I had assumed it was a Chinese company, though my earlier theory about where the products are made could still be true). It sure seems that Anker is going to be the accessory manufacturer of the future. Logitech should probably snatch them up if they know what's good for them.

I think the main reason I'm a fan of the company is that I've had such mixed experience with accessory manufacturers in the past. It's nice to have a more reliable company to order from.

Has anyone else purchased one of their products?

I'm also a big Anker fan, all their stuff I've bought has been great:

- iPhone charger case
- a couple of USB battery packs
- a couple of 4 way 2 amp USB chargers
- a cheap ergonomic mouse (for occasional use on my gaming PC)
- assorted USB cables
- a really good USB3 hub
- a 2 way 2 amp car charger
- a USB3 Ethernet adapter
- a couple of 2 way USB charger plugs
- a five device charging station

All of them have been very good to excellent.

I too suspect they are made by other companies for them, but they are made well and packaged plainly but nicely.

- vertical mouse
- several multi-way USB chargers (mainly for my "wall of imps", but also for a stack of RPi, plus Xbox controller charging)
- lots of USB cables

The founders were apparently ex-Google employees. I too have been impressed by Anker gear.

After having gotten sick of poor car-USB-chargers I searched for what the "best one" is and the searches came saying an Anker one. I got a couple of them and I'm happy with them so far.

Are their bluetooth headphones any good? And do they work with ChromeOS?

I have no clue. But I have that bluetooth sport speaker and it's fantastic. However I'm sure it's made by a completely different supplier. Personally, I've never liked the bluetooth headphones that are the style where all the electronics are in the earbuds, and the two are just connected by a thin wire. I've tried several and the weight of the internals always pulls them out of my ear. I've had much more "luck" with the LG Tone series of headphones, though they tend to break on me.

I have been buying the Scosche reVolt 2 dual car chargers. Rated at 12 watts per port, very compact. They work well but seem to cost more than the Anker equivalent.

The only reason I have not switched to Anker was a few online reports that sometimes the Anker car charger would not properly charge an iDevice unless the USB cord was removed and reconnected. I really want the full 2.4 Amp charging to work reliably with my iPhone and iPad.

There is a lot of internal dancing around these days where the 'USB' charger tries to be compatible with everything and every charging 'standard'. I didn't want any weirdness with the in-car USB chargers so I am still buying reVolt 2 chargers.

Next time around I may try the Anker product

I haven't had that issue, and I'd know: My charger is mounted inside the dashboard and the cable runs to my custom dash mount for my iPhone. So if it's not charging I can't get to the thing to unplug it. (Though I could remove the phone from the mount and re-insert it if I had to. I haven't had to.)

In all fairness though, I haven't tried to use an iPad with the thing. I've only used it to charge my 6s Plus.

Add to my list (just ordered them);

- a 5 way in car USB charger
- an in car bluetooth receiver

I don't have the source links at hand, my recollection was that the iDevice would still charge with the Anker car charger, but not necessarily at the maximum 10 or 12 watt charge rate.

An iPhone will show the same battery lightning bolt symbol regardless of what wattage it thinks the charger is capable of, as long as it perceives something usable. The actual charge rate is not exposed.

As posted elsewhere my own car has a problem (due to factors other than the USB charger) that limits one of my iPhones to only 2.5 watts of charge rate while the other iPhone mount in the same car allows the full 2.4 amps to flow. Both iPhones look the same when charging but one charges four times faster than the other.

I know my iPads will show a Not Charging indicator if the USB power source is providing less power than the iPad needs to operate, but I don't think the iPhone has anything similar.

Thx Matt. It looks like Bluetooth support on ChromeOS is still iffy, so I'm gonna hold off for now. But I recognize those LG ones, a co-worker has them, so I should be able to test them out.

I fixed your statement for you

I am so not looking forward to Apple's removal of the headphone jack from the iPhone this year. For me Bluetooth is still lousy every time I have to use it.

I had another example of Bluetooth lousyness just yesterday. I got an Anker Bluetooth car adapter, most of the Bluetooth stuff works well enough (within the bounds of all the usual Bluetooth badness, latency etc).

But when I tried to make a call with it (something I'm unlikely to ever do in real life), it didn't actually send any audio to the other end. I could hear the other end through the adapter, but when I went to check the quality on the answerphone I was calling, no message was recorded on either of the calls I made.

I have no idea what is broken, but it is entirely typical of my Bluetooth experiences. I really wish I could tell the iPhone to use Bluetooth for music and podcast playback, but to stick with using it's own mic for Siri etc

I'm sure that just like Linux on the desktop, Bluetooth will work properly one year

This one is the first Anker product that I've found slightly disappointing. It has all the usual Bluetooth crappiness, as expected.

The disappointing part is the cables, both the power and audio cable are much thinner than I'd like, not sure they'll hold up to much in car abuse.

It is certainly no empeg

It is not a given Apple wireless headphones will use Bluetooth, or may not use the current 'standard' Bluetooth. Proprietary tech is within the realm of possible, Especially when the industry standard is not up to par.

I have not been keeping notes, have the various Apple brand wireless trackpads, mice and keyboards been using standard Bluetooth or special sauce radio tech?

Apple also uses Bluetooth for wireless tethering to iPhone, which for me has been fairly reliable. Apple Watch uses Bluetooth to link with iPhone. Seems to work well enough?

In the newest Mac OS they are now sensing Apple Watch proximity to the Mac to provide automatic Mac unlocking, which suggests they think they have a handle on getting it to work reliably.

Perhaps Apple hardware on both sides of a Bluetooth link can be more robust than using mixed brand Bluetooth?

This is true and something that had occurred to me. But that doesn't really help me plug in my Bose noise cancelling headphones, unless they also adapt the Apple alternative (and even then I'd have to spend another £300).

Even if they did, it is still significantly worse than wired. The Bluetooth version of the Bose for example half half the battery life and when you find yourself with the battery dead, they are completely useless when you can't fall back to wired. And of course having to use wireless also reduces the battery life of the phone.



They use standard Bluetooth.



I've always used their default of wifi tethering rather than Bluetooth.



I own an Apple Watch, the connection back to the iPhone is often the weakest part of the user experience.



Let's hope it is more reliable than the existing continuity features



Maybe, but even then having wireless be the only option is a big backward step in my opinion.

Andy, I completely agree with you about Bluetooth in general. My two least favorite parts of all consumer electronics are Bluetooth and printers. They're the worst.

For many, Bluetooth works great. I wish I were in that camp. After dealing with dozens of Bluetooth devices over the years, I've had maybe two instances where both my device and the accessory worked well every time. I can't even remember those because the bad ones drown them out.

Even now, I use this device to connect my phone to my car stereo. It works well for the most part, and audio almost always connects, but the playback controls fail to elicit a response all the time. I'd say they work maybe %60 of the time, which just isn't good enough.

And, sadly, as much as I love the Anker Sport speaker I was just talking up earlier in this thread, it too was giving me problems yesterday. It was constantly cutting in and out. It would do this weird thing where it would cut out for a second, then when it came back it would play the music really fast like it was trying to catch up. Like it finally received the packets it was expecting and now it knew it had to play them really quickly or it would be behind in the song. The problem, as ever, is that I can't tell if the problem is with the speaker, the phone, or Google Music. The exact same setup worked perfectly fine at the beach. The only difference was that I wasn't on WiFi. Maybe I'll try switching to cellular today and see if that works better.

Anyway, Bluetooth sucks.

How do you know this?

Certainly when connecting Apple stuff to non-Apple Bluetooth hardware the standards must be obeyed. But when it is Apple to Apple, can there be a special mode invoked that could be more reliable?

How do you know this?

Certainly when connecting Apple stuff to non-Apple Bluetooth hardware the standards must be obeyed. But when it is Apple to Apple, can there be a special mode invoked that could be more reliable? [/quote]

Because people who know a lot more about Bluetooth than me have said so.

There have been quite a few people recently hammering on the security of wireless keyboards for example, I've not seen any of them say that Apple is using anything other than normal Bluetooth.

Also, you can be sure that if they were using something that they consider better than normal Bluetooth that they would have been telling us all about it. After all, Apple aren't the sort of company to come up with a different way of doing something and not want to highlight it as a benefit of their products

For the record, I really hope that the iPhone 7 includes some sort of wireless tech that isn't Bluetooth. Surely it can't be that hard to at least come up with something with lower latency ?

tanstaafl.

I will say however, the combination of this Anker adapter and my iPhone 6S on iOS 10 beta has the lowest Bluetooth latency I've ever experience. When pausing there is only a fraction of a second delay, not the getting-on-for 1 second delay I've seen in the past.

Still laggy enough to be annoying though.

I did try out the new Bluetooth version of the Bose noise cancelling headphones, the delay on those was over half a second, very annoying.

I realise this lag probably isn't even noticed by some people

Late to this thread, but like Matt I pretty much found out about Anker only recently. As I started to have USB-C in my devices, recently, I bought Anker Multiport USB chargers (2) various USB3 cables, and one USB3 hub, so far. All really good products - flawless so far. I am now considering a high capacity battery pack.

My guess is that the next iPhone will have Bluetooth v5. New version is mostly focused on IoT benefits, however I'm thinking Apple will be attracted to the improvements on the Low Energy side of the spec too.

One thing to consider with some of the delays/issues is what version is in use on both the sides of the connection. Bluetooth 4.1 for example introduced interference mitigation with LTE. Some older versions have issues coexisting well around certain WiFi standards, and some computers are seeing interference from poorly shielded USB 3 buses.

I only use Anker charging cables, they're the longest lasting so far.

As if Bluetooth couldn't get more annoying, it's often difficult to even tell which version a product is using. I've spent the last 10 minutes trying to find out what version that Anker Sport speaker I have is using, and there's nothing. Just reviewers on Amazon saying "well, I think it's 4.0 maybe 4.1 but who knows?). I know my phone has v4.2, but I don't know what if anything that does for audio bandwidth or lag.

Perhaps there is a Bluetooth snoop utility or app that would reveal such details.

I have not used it, but something like this.

Ugh! I'm fine with v1.0 tech being iffy, but Bluetooth is pretty mainstream at this stage - or so I think, I'm disappointed to hear it is still so temperamental.

I only use BT for hands-free connection in the car. Painless, works just fine. I used to also use a pair of Bluetooth-to-serial adapters for programming my empegs -- those also worked very well, over 10 years ago.

The nifty little USB/bluetooth headset I picked up last year (from another thread on this BBS) also "just works" without fuss.

So it's not all bad, just some more demanding uses, and/or with Apple products.

Sheesh!I don't know who to trust! I was ready to order some cables from them. That'll teach me to not look up Benson's reviews.

Bugger. Just bought 3 anker iphone cables (pesky kids!)

Somehow I get this feeling that there are more USB-C issues yet to surface ...


The higher (than 5.0 volts) voltages and complex interaction between the two USB-C end devices, and with the USB-C cable itself, seems likely to create unwanted interactions. The expectation that all three parts of the USB-C puzzle will always obey all the rules seems risky.

In the linked exposé video, whether the 15 volts present on the cable end actually damages the '5 volt' smartphone would depend upon the protections built into the smartphone. Manufacturers may need to reinforce their input voltage circuitry to withstand unexpected high feed voltages, and to test with 'out of bounds' USB power source and cable configurations.

Update: Apparently USB-C could become a 'bad news thing' for newsworthy device failures. If people start viewing USB-C as 'dangerous' that would be an interesting turn.

Thankfully iPhone cables don't have the same potential issue that USB-C cables have.

All my Anker USB cables (I don't have any USB-C ones) have been excellent.

USB-C does seem very easy to screw up in a dangerous way, it feels like there are more faulty cables than there are good ones.

I wonder when he's going to test the only Apple USB-C to USB-C cable.

Rumors currently point to Apple's entire Mac lineup adding USB-C with Thunderbolt 3 over the next 6 months or so. Currently the only device I have at home with USB-C is the Apple TV 4 but 2017 is looking to be when my next computer gains it.

Thanks for mentioning this, Tom. I think you've found the cause of the poor bluetooth connection I had between my phone and the Anker sport speaker. When I turn the phone's wifi off, I don't think I'm having any issues. Seems like that could be the issue. Frustrating.

Can you limit your phone or your WiFi base station to only use 5Ghz when you need Bluetooth to work? That might resolve the interference.

If you look into which WiFi standards have the potential for Bluetooth interference, you may be able to configure your WiFi to reduce the problem, even on 2.4Ghz WiFi. Not using 40Mhz wide radio channels, perhaps.

Or disabling whatever particular WiFi modes are suspect.

The Wifi router may also have a "Bluetooth Coexistence" setting that can be enabled.

Also, Anker makes the only Macbook replacement batteries that I will use other than the originals, and I've tried several. Most of the aftermarket batteries I've tried swell within a few days to a few months, and rarely hold a charge as long as and OEM battery. I find the Anker ones acceptable considering the significant cost savings.

Agreed. I've ordered a few of them for my clients and they seem good on follow ups. Generic replacement batteries are so notoriously bad, it's nice to have a reliable manufacturer. I love that they seem to be sticking with this rather esoteric product segment, particularly when it requires keeping such a wide array of models in production.

[1 Day Only] Anker's 5th Anniversary Sale - Over 30% Off

http://slickdeals.net/f/9079151-1-day-only-anker-s-5th-anniversary-sale-over-30-off

Dang, wish I'd checked the board yesterday! Thanks for posting it, though.

This article does a reasonable job of explaining how USB-C, Thunderbolt and DisplayPort coexist and interplay on the same physical connector.

Explaining Thunderbolt 3, USB-C, and Everything In Between

Personally, I have ordered a new 2016 MacBook Pro 15" with intention of connecting three external 4K displays, plus wired Ethernet and a bunch of legacy USB things. Currently hunting for a Thunderbolt 3 dock that ticks all my feature desires.

As I understand it you can only have two displays on TB3. Two streams as they call it.

It doesn't prevent you putting a DisplayLink type device on your TB3 hub though.

Ref:
What are the video formats supported by Thunderbolt 3? https://thunderbolttechnology.net/tech/faq

My understanding is the 2016 15" MacBook has dual TB 3 controllers, so up to four external 4K displays are supported. Or two 5K displays.

https://9to5mac.com/2016/10/27/4k-and-5k-displays-with-new-macbook-pro/

I am currently using a DisplayLink USB device to drive two external monitors. The DisplayLink software driver/firmware for Mac has gone from terrible to mostly usable, but I fear every macOS update and DisplayLink driver update. Very slow to fix problems and some functionality has taken years to get right. Looking forward to unplugging it from my Mac and moving on.

Ok but that won't be through one dock then.

Re DisplayLink I had a perfectly usable 1920x1080 over USB2.0 display as a "dock" at home. It worked well in Windows 7. Windows remembered the relative location etc of it with two completely different dock solutions and remembered each one invidually.

Even played video ok at a pinch.

I had to take a photo of this because it's a little ridiculous.

I was asked by a client to take a bunch of hard drives and put all the data onto a flash drive. So I plugged in my Anker multi-USB charger, which includes a USB C port capable of charging my XPS 13. I also used it to provide more power to the Anker 4 port USB3 hub I used (for my laptop with only 2 ports). Not pictured but just off to the left is my Anker SATA to USB3 adapter, which is the best I've used and by far the best designed (I've tried several others and they were all garbage). I used an older USB hard drive adapter for the IDE drives they had, which was unfortunately not an Anker device.

Clearly, I'm on board.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, that red USB C cable is Anker too.

Looks like the cable connections to my PSVR.

I am now using a very nice 2016 MacBook Pro 15 inch with two 4K external screens and two 1920x1200 displays. It works quite well, especially the 4K screens.

I am still using the DisplayLink USB 2.0 hub/video thing to drive the 1920x1200 screens as there is not yet a USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 powered hub available that fits my requirements.

Turns out that virtually all the existing USB-C charging hubs are not compatible with the 80+ watt power requirement of the 15" MacBook Pro charging, they were spec'ed for the lightweight MacBook or the 13" MacBook Pro, both of which need 60 watts or less. Even the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter (Apple USB-C to USB-A charging adapter) is not rated for the full 85 watts.

Which means one of my USB-C ports must be dedicated to charging the laptop from the OEM Apple charger. Two USB-C ports feed the dual 4K screens, leaving one port for everything else, via that DisplayLink unit. I expect in a few months these troubles will be resolved as more and better hub products arrive,

In the meantime, articles such as this from the wirecutter will attempt to clarify, explain and rate the panoply of USB-C cables and adapters bubbling into the marketplace.

HOW ANKER IS BEATING APPLE AND SAMSUNG AT THEIR OWN ACCESSORY GAME

FWIW, I've got a Hootoo adapter (discussed in your linked Wirecutter article) and a Dell DA200. Both work great. I particularly like the way the Dell's captive cable folds back into the case.

Great article! I knew I liked how that company operated, and that just made me like them more.

Now I just need them to make a portable power pack that can charge my XPS 13...

I set up that Hootoo adapter for one client and wasn't wild about it. I'm not sure why. It just seemed a little flaky to me.

I've set up two clients with the DA200 and it's fantastic for travelling presenters. It's amazing that they were able to fit a VGA connector on that tiny little thing. I can't wait for the day when everyone finally replaces their projectors and we can say goodbye to VGA.

I mostly bought the Hootoo thing because I wanted a SD card reader and more USB slots on some occasions. The Dell is otherwise my go-to adapter.

I would really like something that passes the full 87W through *and* does HDMI out, USB-A downstream etc... it's annoying to be doing a build on a full battery and get it down to something like 80% by the time it's done.

I wonder if anyone is prioritizing this though in their USB-C designs. I could have just bought a cheaper adaptor

I have an anker battery case and wall-wart. Both have functioned wonderfully!

-jk

Edit: I made something of a hash of this on the first go round, was working from memory while sitting in an airport departure lounge. No excuse, that.

Changes have been made.

I will posit that the original MacBook (no suffix) with a single USB-C port threw a real wrinkle in the process.

The very slender MacBook 'one port' has an oddball USB-C port. No Thunderbolt, and a weird non-standard USB-C fast charging voltage. The bundled charger has USB-C shaped sockets and cord, but the voltage and current are unique across the MacBook line. And this disagrees with the proper USB-C spec for power and voltage.

Third party products that were designed and specified with only that original slim MacBook as reference are now offside in terms of USB-C compatibility with the more recent 'full size, full power' MacBook Pro. Both the 13 and 15 inch models.

Even Apple's own MacBook 'one port' expansion adapter (HDMI, USB-A plus pass through USB-C power) is not rated for the full voltage and current of the big MacBook Pro USB-C chargers.

IIRC, the big iPad Pro, which can charge at 29 watt rate (or thereabouts) when powered by the slim MacBook USB-C power brick, can only charge at 12 watts using the 61 or 87 watt power brick from the big MacBook Pro USB-C wall chargers. Big iPad and slim MacBook were released about the same time, and caught in the same non-standard 'faster charge' scheme.

I am unaware of any third party chargers that can fast charge the big iPad and fully power a 15 inch 87 watt MacBook Pro.

I suspect Apple themselves are unhappy with how this USB-C power/charge thing has worked out.

Wow. I was thinking of getting a big iPad Pro some time soon, this is good to know for traveling with it and the big MacBook.

I have the big iPad pro, an ipad 3, and a mini. I only use the mini.

My understanding is that all the modern iPhone (7, 6s, 6?) and recent model iPad will charge at 10 watt rate when connected to either an Apple iPad charger (or equivalent third party 10 watt, 2.x amp USB charger), OR to any MacBook or MacBook Pro USB-C charger.

Actually, some iPad chargers are rated for 12 watts. Others say 10 watts on the label. I have both variations. Not sure which came with which iPad generation. If I had to guess, the iPad 3 or 4 had huge batteries, so maybe those had the 12 watt wall charger included?

It is the 29 watt charge rate into iPad Pro that is constrained to a specific MacBook charger.

Ship the big iPad to me. I can make use of it.

Yeah, I get that. A lot of people say it's too big. I'd have a different use for it that requires the big size: Using it as an electronic music stand.

I found that iPad was always shipped with 10 watts chargers. However, if you bought a charger separately, it was rated as 12 watts. Both products look identical though...

I finally picked up some Anker stuff, and overall I'm happy. Ended up with a USB-C and dual USB-A portable battery that can recharge my Macbook 13 inch to full once, or the Nintendo Switch and iPad Pro at fast rates. That came in handy for a recent multiday camping trip along with really short USB-A to Lightning cable for charging the phone.

I also picked up a 60W PowerPort with 5 USB-A and 1 USB-C ports.

I'm surprised the only place online their entire catalog is offered is on Amazon. Only parts of it is available elsewhere online, though I am lucky to have an Anker kiosk at a local mall that has a bunch of stuff.

The PowerPort and battery have some odd limits I'm hoping they address in future iterations, and it still shows USB-C charging has a bit to go to being 100% universal. I wish the Powerport could push the full 60W to a USB-C device if no other ports were plugged in. This would let me use it as a replacement laptop charger in all circumstances. It's also odd it has issues with the USB-C to lightning cable, meaning it can't fast charge the iPad Pro, while the battery can. I tested it out with a Kill a watt and sure enough, only 2W of power would be used, compared to 12W over a USB-A to lightning cable.

The battery won't recharge over USB-C when plugged into my USB-C laptop, and I'm not sure if that's a MacBook or battery limit. It'll only recharge when plugged direct into the wall. I know the MacBook will pass 15W of power to another USB-C device including another MacBook, so I'm not sure why the battery won't accept that to charge.