Hacker News Reader

Answering peer comments: oh but it DOES work.

I forgot my charger in another town so I bought a USB-A/C cable and tried it out. Again, the iPhone charger is 8W. This is also the value reported by '/usr/sbin/system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep Wattage'

When the Mac is open and in use (2023, M2) the iPhone charger can just about keep the charge level level, depending on usage.

But then when I close the Mac, it can easily take 10 hours to reach a full charge... but it does hit 100%.

So I am wondering if this is in fact a gentler way to charge the battery.

My crude understanding is the charging speed wouldn't directly have an effect, but the heat generated by faster charging would.

Also if it takes hour and hours to charge with 8W, then it becomes easier to unplug it at or around 80%. So maybe it's the best way to charge the Mac - a way that all the cool kids will be doing :)

Probably not, seeing as that's not enough power to charge it up.

I don't think so. You need 20V to charge a laptop