Quality, higher-wattage ones are harder to come by at that price (e.g. 45W and up are $20+ for decent brands), but I can get a 2-pack of name-brand (Anker) 20W chargers for $10-15.
I’m guessing Ikea is just rebranding crappy chargers, so no thank you, I would rather not have my phone, tablet, etc get broken because I was too cheap to spend an extra $10 on a better brand charger.
What are you basing your ‘guess’ on? IKEA typically design their own products. They already produce Smart home speakers. Why do you suppose that this would be a rebranded product from somebody else?
They’re making a big bet on smart home stuff, which is why they’re designing that kind of stuff more. They want to keep their customers coming back for smart home stuff so they can build an ecosystem, whereas they probably don’t care about USB chargers nearly as much.
I’m guessing they’re fine (they’re probably testing it), but I highly doubt they’re actually designing the USB chargers, and they’re probably not buying from a known brand (price would be too high).
20W chargers are cheap from name brands (2 pack for ~€10), but 45W chargers aren’t (like €20-30 for a basic 45W charger). So if they’re selling 45W chargers for cheap, they’re just likely rebranded stuff from a cheap manufacturer.
Your sources don’t say anything about the design, only manufacturing. The chargers could still very well be designed by IKEA, but made by another company. That sort of stuff is really common industry and can help keep the price down. This doesn’t mean that the product is cheaply designed or a literal rebrand of an existing product
More basic items come directly from suppliers to skip the design and conception stage. However, it isn’t as easy as picking out items from a catalog. IKEA works with their world-class buyers to check the quality of the products and negotiate the price.
…
This means that they have to keep their shelves stocked with products to keep up with demand, so using both manufacturers and supplies ensures that new products will consistently make a turnaround.
I would assume a USB charger would fall under the “more basic items” part.
I take this to mean that instead of designing a product to be manufactured elsewhere, they sometimes buy products to relabel and put on the shelves, without going through any form of design process (though I’m guessing they do test this stuff).
Ah sorry, should’ve read further than the first paragraph… In European markets there are strict safety guidelines they have to adhere to, so they will definitely need to test what they sell
Ikea electronics and batteries are almost always high quality. It’s not their bread winner so it would be stupid to skimp on them and risk their reputation.
I’ve reconsidered my view of Anker being a quality brand. I bought a USB C hub of their’s that was supposed to provide 100W power delivery, but it couldn’t keep a 65W Dell laptop happy. So, I powered the Dell separately and still used the hub. After a while the display port started to cut out.
I’ve also bought a USB C PD cable of their’s that was supposed to support 100W power delivery. With my 85W MacBook I noticed that the cable was starting to get hard (non-bendy) spots in it. Soon after my MacBook would report being unplugged when I did anything that would draw significant power.
Ok, so I go over to Amazon and start looking at reviews that are 2 or 3 stars and holy shit. I got the distinct feeling that these were the real reviews. They’re not good.
Huh, I haven’t had issues at all. I have a USB hub with 100W PD and HDMI, and it’s been working fine for almost 3 years now on my MacBook. I also have a battery bank from them and it’s fine, though I’ve only used it like 3-4 times over the few years I’ve had it (just use it for travel as a backup plan). I recently got A surge protector/power strip thing from them as well (pretty recent, like 2 months).
I went with them because of good reviews on Reddit and tech review sites, and the few low reviews on Amazon were easy to chalk up to random QC issues (every product will have some bad ones ship), but the customer support seemed decent from the reviews I read.
Have you ruled out bad cables and your Dell sucking?
I think I’ll look up some tear downs next time though. Good brands can absolutely go bad, so it would be good to see if that has happened here. Unfortunately, the charger landscape is mostly full of Chinese crap that I don’t expect to work properly on day 1, much less after a year or two.
Quality, higher-wattage ones are harder to come by at that price (e.g. 45W and up are $20+ for decent brands), but I can get a 2-pack of name-brand (Anker) 20W chargers for $10-15.
I’m guessing Ikea is just rebranding crappy chargers, so no thank you, I would rather not have my phone, tablet, etc get broken because I was too cheap to spend an extra $10 on a better brand charger.
Big Clive has done teardowns of IKEA chargers before and rates them highly for quality and safety.
Huh, cool channel, I’ll check him out.
What are you basing your ‘guess’ on? IKEA typically design their own products. They already produce Smart home speakers. Why do you suppose that this would be a rebranded product from somebody else?
They’re making a big bet on smart home stuff, which is why they’re designing that kind of stuff more. They want to keep their customers coming back for smart home stuff so they can build an ecosystem, whereas they probably don’t care about USB chargers nearly as much.
I’m guessing they’re fine (they’re probably testing it), but I highly doubt they’re actually designing the USB chargers, and they’re probably not buying from a known brand (price would be too high).
20W chargers are cheap from name brands (2 pack for ~€10), but 45W chargers aren’t (like €20-30 for a basic 45W charger). So if they’re selling 45W chargers for cheap, they’re just likely rebranded stuff from a cheap manufacturer.
Your sources don’t say anything about the design, only manufacturing. The chargers could still very well be designed by IKEA, but made by another company. That sort of stuff is really common industry and can help keep the price down. This doesn’t mean that the product is cheaply designed or a literal rebrand of an existing product
The second one does, here’s a quote:
I would assume a USB charger would fall under the “more basic items” part.
I take this to mean that instead of designing a product to be manufactured elsewhere, they sometimes buy products to relabel and put on the shelves, without going through any form of design process (though I’m guessing they do test this stuff).
Ah sorry, should’ve read further than the first paragraph… In European markets there are strict safety guidelines they have to adhere to, so they will definitely need to test what they sell
But will they test for longevity as well? Or just safety?
As long as it’s not going to fry my phone, I’ll probably give it a shot, but it may still be a better deal to pay a bit more somewhere else.
Who knows really, it won’t fry your phone but I have no idea how long it will last. To be honest I expect it will probably be just fine
Exactly, this is definitely not going to be quality electronics.
Ikea electronics and batteries are almost always high quality. It’s not their bread winner so it would be stupid to skimp on them and risk their reputation.
The ZigBee lightbulbs I have are definitely not high quality.
I’ve reconsidered my view of Anker being a quality brand. I bought a USB C hub of their’s that was supposed to provide 100W power delivery, but it couldn’t keep a 65W Dell laptop happy. So, I powered the Dell separately and still used the hub. After a while the display port started to cut out.
I’ve also bought a USB C PD cable of their’s that was supposed to support 100W power delivery. With my 85W MacBook I noticed that the cable was starting to get hard (non-bendy) spots in it. Soon after my MacBook would report being unplugged when I did anything that would draw significant power.
Ok, so I go over to Amazon and start looking at reviews that are 2 or 3 stars and holy shit. I got the distinct feeling that these were the real reviews. They’re not good.
Huh, I haven’t had issues at all. I have a USB hub with 100W PD and HDMI, and it’s been working fine for almost 3 years now on my MacBook. I also have a battery bank from them and it’s fine, though I’ve only used it like 3-4 times over the few years I’ve had it (just use it for travel as a backup plan). I recently got A surge protector/power strip thing from them as well (pretty recent, like 2 months).
I went with them because of good reviews on Reddit and tech review sites, and the few low reviews on Amazon were easy to chalk up to random QC issues (every product will have some bad ones ship), but the customer support seemed decent from the reviews I read.
Have you ruled out bad cables and your Dell sucking?
I think I’ll look up some tear downs next time though. Good brands can absolutely go bad, so it would be good to see if that has happened here. Unfortunately, the charger landscape is mostly full of Chinese crap that I don’t expect to work properly on day 1, much less after a year or two.