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Comment by koichi | Hacker News Reader

I'd worry about this more if my WakeMate would actually arrive... :(

This is pretty sad, though... I've been cheering for WakeMate since the beginning, but it's getting harder and harder... Are they at least sending new charger bricks at some point, perhaps a year or so from now (har har har)?

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yes, but we will have to source new bricks first. We went with these black bricks because a) they looked cool, b) we could afford them, and c) samples of the bricks passed electrical surge and signal quality tests we had performed here in Mountain View. Maybe there's a reason Apple charges $29 for theirs...

Are the Apple bricks an acceptable replacement until you guys ship new ones?

Yes they are! In fact any Mini USB charger is. You can also plug the included cable directly into your computer.

USB power is standardized, so anything that plugs into the wall and has a USB port on the back should work fine.

I regularly charge my phone with my Kindle charger and vice versa (and they even both use microUSB, so I can use the same wire too).

Though some USB chargers output more than the standard 5V @ 500mA, up to 1500mA in my experience.

Amps is more like a maximum that they can supply kind of thing, not a how much they force out type of thing.

This is a real positive. My cell phone, my GPS and my in-car DAB radio all power from USB - I can charge and use them all with just one lead, instead of having a glovebox full of a Spaghetti Junction of different cables and connectors.

It also means that when one charger goes wrong, it's insanely cheap and easy to swap it out for a new one rather than having to look around for often expensive manufacturer-specific accessories.

Most of that $29 is the Apple brand. The circuitry inside one of those USB chargers is very simple.

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