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You can get a certain amount of power from USB without a data connection but to get more (which higher powered devices need to charge quickly or, in some cases, at all) you need to send a data signal to request it. So cutting those wires sort of works but will leave you with slow charging for some devices and no charging for a few others.

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This is not true of most chargers. It is true of some devices that they look for the data lines to have some voltage rather than be left floating. There are 6 different 'standards' for this so you end up needing an IC like this[1] to detect which one the device is using.

Note: USB-PD changes the game a huge amount. You do need to speak USB to upgrade power there. But I've yet to see USB-PD in the flesh.

[1]: http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/slvsby8b/slvsby8b.pdf

Actually this is true for MOST charger, the one that don't usually end up overheating and having a very short life spam. the reason why most people think this is the case is because when the device cannot be identify the charger default to the the data line shorted and to provide the typical power for which ti was design. https://lockedusb.com/pages/

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