Looking for the nitty gritty specs for our various wireless charging mounts? Here they are.
| Input | Output | |||||
| Product | Voltage | Current | Voltage | Current | Power | Protocol |
| PD Wireless Charging Car Mounts | 12V (Max) | 1.67A (Max) | N/A | N/A | 5W (BPP), Up to 15W EPP, 7.5W Apple Fast Charge | Qi BPP, Qi EPP, Apple Fast Charge |
| PD Cigarette Lighter Adapter (for Car Mount) | 12V/24V | Variable |
5V-3A 9V-2.22A 12V-1.67A |
20W Max | QC 4.0 PD 3.0 |
|
| PD Wireless Charging Stand | 12V (Max) | 1.67A (Max) | N/A | N/A | 5W (BPP), Up to 15W EPP, 7.5W Apple Fast Charge | Qi BPP, Qi EPP, Apple Fast Charge |
| PD Wall Power Adapter (all regions) | 120V 60/50Hz | .6A (Max) |
5V-3A 9V-2.22A 12V-1.67A |
20W Max | QC 4.0 PD 3.0 |
|
If you're looking for a quick interpretation of those numbers, here you go: Peak Design wireless charging products can charge your phone as quickly and efficiently as the best and fastest chargers available. We know this because we tested the snot out of them—because we wanted to, and also because we had to.
Our mounts and cases contain a strong magnetic array. Magnets and electricity interfere with each other. We painstakingly designed our products to not only avoid that interference, but also to leverage the magnetic array to allow for more efficient charging by ensuring perfect charging alignment. In addition, we built our charging products out of machined aluminum which distributes heat for an even more efficient charge.
Enough yakkety-yakking. Here's Wheeler, our chief electrical engineer, to explain it:
7.5W charging vs. 15W charging: It don't matter that much.
When buying wireless chargers there's a lot of misplaced emphasis on the charger's wattage rating. It's an easy stat to be misled by: 15W is almost twice as powerful as 7.5W, so it must be twice as fast, right? Nope, not even close. And we're not just saying that, we've tested the snot out of it.
Some phone manufacturers have proprietary charging protocols (Apple 15W, Samsung 15W) that are not obtainable by 3rd party manufacturers. This means when you put an Apple phone on, say, a PD Wireless Charging Stand, the max charging wattage you'll reach is 7.5W and not 15W. That sounds like a big difference, but in practice (and over numerous lab tests) the relative charging performance is quite similar. In practice, the difference between charging speed with an Apple charger and a Peak Design charger are imperceptible.
The main reason for this is that most phones cannot sustain these high charge powers for more than a short period of time before they heat up and need to reduce charge power for the long remainder of the total charging time. In other words, just because a charger is 15W doesn't mean it always charges your phone at 15W. Most of the time, it will charge your phone at a much lower wattage.
Below is a chart showing charging speed results for different phone models using a different combination of cases and chargers:
- PD case + PD wireless charger
- Apple case + PD wireless charger
- Apple case + Apple wireless charger
As you can see, the Apple case + charger does on average produce nominally faster results than a PD case + PD charger. But these differences are pretty negligible. Most users will not perceive a 5% increase in charging speed.
In practice, the time it takes to fully charge your phone depends on a huge range of factors. Your phone model, battery age, power source, case-charger alignment, and—most importantly,—ambient temperature all affect charging speed. Wireless charging is not as fast as corded charging no matter what charger or phone model you may have. If you want the best performance possible you should try and keep your charger as cool as possible.