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Fake Lightning Cables and their Charging Speed

Some Lightning-style cables seem to take longer to charge up my devices.  Is it true?  Yes!

I buy a lot of aftermarket products (read: cheap knockoff junk), and after a few months I noticed that one of my knockoff iPhone and iPad Lightning cables was really slow at charging.

I decided to measure the power delivered over a various collection of Lightning cables, and I can say with near certainty that some knock-off cables result in slow charging.

Measuring Lightning Cable Performance

I took my 2018 iPad, along with its genuine Apple 12 watt charger and a USB power meter.  I plugged my nearly depleted iPad into this system with various lightning-style cables.  The following table shows what I found after numerous samples.  All numbers are estimated given a few samples.

Lightning Cable Performance with Apple 12 watt charger

Genuine cable, delivered with an iPad from Apple...: 2.05 Amps
Genuine cable, delivered with an iPad from Apple...: 2.10 Amps
Genuine cable, delivered with an iPhone from Apple.: 2.06 Amps
MFI-Approved aftermarket cable, bought via Amazon..: 1.81 Amps
MFI-Approved aftermarket cable, bought via Amazon..: 1.82 Amps
eBay knockoff cable (10 for $10 type), looks legit.: 1.00 Amps
eBay knockoff cable (10 for $10 type), looks legit.: 1.10 Amps
eBay knockoff cable (10 for $10 type), looks legit.: 0.96 Amps
Mystery cable, 12ft long and hefty, from friend....: 0.89 Amps

Conclusion

Clearly, from the numbers above, there is a lot of charge speed variability based on the cable.  I conclude that if I want faster charging speeds, an official Apple Lightning Cable, or a Lightning cable that's MFI certified, like this Amazon one, is the best bet.

However, for standard overnight charging, or with use with a 1 Amp charger, one can even be successful with some of the knockoff cables.

One Final Note

It's important to note that for the health of the battery, charge speed is not constant.  The charge management hardware inside all devices with rechargeable lithium batteries varies the charging rate based on battery temperature, battery condition, the current battery charge, device load, and other variables.  To repeat this experiment, I strongly suggest that you use a single device with a specific amount of reported charge in order to reduce the variables that impact measurement.


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