Bracketron Universal Dual USB Car Adapter (UGC-298-BL)

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1.5 x 4.5 inches ; 0.8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0056VNVV8
• Item model number: UGC-298-BL
  

By : Bracketron
Price : $12.46
You Save : $12.49 (50%)

Product Description

With the Dual USB charger, you can now charge or power two devices at the same time. The low-profile dual charger includes both high and low-current USB outputs, perfect for charging your tablet and handheld mobile device simultaneously while you're on the road. Includes a 1 year warranty.

Technical Details

• Fast charging for multiple devices, including iPad, iPhone/iPod,MP3 and smartphone
• Low profile charger fits into any 12v port
• 2.1A and 1.0A USB ports
• Power LED Light

 

Bracketron Universal Dual USB Car Adapter (UGC-298-BL)

 

Customer Reviews

A quick overview of this product before I get down into the details...
This product, in unaltered form, suffers from a couple problems:
1. Despite what the description says, it's designed for Apple products, not for other products like Android. I find the description quite deceptive because it will NOT deliver the current one expects for most Android devices (or the HP Touchpad as well).
2. While it claims a 2.1A port and a 1A port, implicitly suggesting 3.1A total, it can not actually deliver 3.1A no matter what device you have (including Apple). It delivers a total of 2.1A.
However, by cracking open the case and shorting the data lines, something VERY easy to do with this device if you're at all competent with a soldering iron, you get an awesome unit for Android devices, and it's THE ONLY ONE (that I've found), that will charge an HP Touchpad at full capacity (more details below).
Now to the details...
A little background on USB charging for those who don't know:
The USB power spec is for 0.5 Amps at 5 Volts... or 2.5 Watts. This was great up until the last couple years when devices have gotten really power hungry, particularly smartphones and tablets and to a lesser extent dedicated GPS's. Some of these devices use over 2 Amps, particularly the tablets like the iPad (or in my case the HP Touchpad).
Manufacturers of these devices therefore had a dilemma. If they had their devices pull more than 0.5 Amps, they risked damaging the power source, which could be a computer, that was only prepared to source 0.5 Amps. Thus the manufacturers have used tricks to determine whether their device is connected to an unknown source, at which point they purposely only draw 0.5 Amps, or to the dedicated charger that was provided with the device, where they can draw all the power they need.
There seem to be two common tricks used. The first is to short the two data-wires together in the charger. This is what most non-Apple devices do. Since a computer or older device wouldn't have done this, the device can assume it is safe to draw all the power it needs.
Apple seems to have taken a different approach, one that I don't fully understand but know can be seen by the fact that the data lines are neither open nor shorted when the charger is plugged in, and is more sophisticated and probably superior, because I suspect it allows the device to know exactly how much power it can use.
While Apple taking a better approach might be nice in concept, it's created chaos in the USB charger product category. What is the non-specific charger to do? They can't support both.
This device chose to go the Apple route for both ports. While the PowerGen unit I purchased (see below for links to the others I've purchased) had the 1 Amp port setup for Android (data lines shorted) and the 2 Amp port for Apple, this device, like the others, has both setup for Apple. I don't own any high-power Apple devices, so I can't say for sure, but I suspect this unit performs well with Apple devices out of the box.
But because I had bought 4 of these and they all had the same problem (except the PowerGen, which only had it on one port), I decided it was time to get down and dirty and see if I could open any of them up and modify them by shorting the data lines. This was the ONLY ONE that was easy to open without damaging the casing. Just unscrew the silver cap at the top and then pop off the silver plate on the bottom and it easily splits apart. Then there are two sets of 4 pins, one on either side of the circuit board that runs up the middle that are somewhat obviously the pins to the USB port. A solder blob on the middle two pins to short them together is all that is needed. It took longer for the old soldering iron to warm up than to do both sides. Reassembling took a bit of careful placement of the parts, but it wasn't too difficult and then all that's required is pushing back on the bottom plate and re-screwing in the cap. The whole operation took 5 minutes.
It bears repeating: NONE of the others were easy to get apart.
When I tested it afterwards, it performed beautifully with my android devices, just like I expected from my above explanations. I got an additional bonus that I didn't expect with the HP Touchpad that requires some additional explanation.
See, the HP Touchpad, while it's charger has the data lines shorted, also does something else. It requires a specific voltage be on the data lines. Thus it doesn't work with chargers that just have the data lines shorted, including the PowerGen mentioned in this review.
There is a way to modify a charger further to get it to work with the HP Touchpad, by adding resistors to one's charger, but frankly, that was more work than I was willing to do. However, whether it was luck or genius, the 1 Amp port on this device already has some resistive elements for the Apple charger setup, and when one shorts the data lines together, it gives the required voltage for the HP Touchpad to charge. NICE FREE BONUS!
Now, because this device can only source 2.1 Amps total, it'll be a little overpowered if you connect both the HP Touchpad (or an iPad for that matter) and a smartphone, but even when I did that, it continued to charge, just perhaps a bit more slowly than it would have if it could deliver all the current each desired.
And it bears repeating that this is THE ONLY DEVICE I am aware of that can fully charge an HP Touchpad (after modification).
Thus this device gets docked to 4 stars because it claims out of the box to support a number of Android devices that will not work as expected without modifying the device. I suspect it will work well with Apple devices including the iPad (I don't own any). It also gets dinged because of the deceptive amperage claims.
Frankly, I am a bit uncomfortable giving 4 stars for something that requires modification to meet my needs, but because all the devices I tested have the same problem it made it easier to give it a 4 considering the ease of the modification and the nice bonus of the HP Touchpad charging.
For those who don't have Apple devices, I ordered three additional devices:
- "PowerGen Dual USB 2A Heavy Duty Ouput Car Charger" (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00622AG6S/ref=oh_o06_s00_i00_details)
- "Kensington K33497US PowerBolt Duo Car Charger" (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003PU01M4/ref=oh_o03_s00_i00_details)
- XTG "Ultra Compact High Output Dual USB Car Charger" (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00470C35E/ref=oh_o02_s00_i00_details)
I have written a review on each of them with more details.
I kept this one after the above modification and the PowerGen in unmodified form and returned the Kensington and the XTG.

Many good things about this little guy. That was one: it is small and unobtrusive. The next is that it can handle a running iPad AND an iPhone at the same time Lastly, it seems to be built very well. Unlike others I've bought, I'm not afraid of this one disassembling itself.
Just buy it!