As of last Monday, all of my daily-driver tech is finally on native USB-C. I cannot express how convenient this is without writing an entire essay. It’s like all of those clunky universal AC adapters from the 90’s but better in every conceivable way.
I just plugged my laptop charger into my phone and my phone charger into my laptop. Both were just like “okey-dokey! 👍 Charging.”
The only negative is that it’s still a little annoying checking specs to be sure the PD chargers support the full 5, 9, 12, 15, and 20 volt options as well as finding reliable vendors of 100W, e-marked cables. Hopefully that improves in the future.
Still, it’s better than carrying around discrete chargers for everything. My travel bag feels at least 5 pounds lighter.
If anyone can recommend any high-wattage 12-24v DC power-delivery adapters that can output 20v, please do (i.e. cigaratte-lighter plug style for a car). The best I’ve found so far is a 45w one that will charge my laptop, but only if it’s asleep or off.
To add a little bit of solarpunk to this: I’m charging my battery stack via solar power with a dedicated USB c in/out slot. It is smart connector indeed.
Nice. I’m in the “thought experiment” phase of doing something similar.
All of my servers, except my storage, are USFF PCs which can easily run from a PD trigger adapter. I’ve been tempted to power those through some 12v PD adapters and run them from DC fed from a solar-charged battery bank.
I will have to google a few things here but that sounds next level. But quite fittingly, I will connect a Pi soon, running Mastodon as a test
Which panel do you have?
I have a Chinese brand, ordered from Hanoi, so nothing special. In fact, I’m still chasing connecting cables. A bit annoying.