You often see charging banks, aka power banks, among accessories. How are they used, and are they needed?
The following is by my understanding.
For this post, and commonly on this blog, phone refers to smartphone.
My wife and I were recently in Vancouver, where we were bargain shopping, as usual. We found, in one store, a clearance deal on some power banks, which I call charging banks since one might charge their phone from one.
Power banks I recall from the early 80s (but likely existed before that), advertised in computer magazines. The idea was that if you lose power, you lose everything in RAM. To prevent that, one could hook up their system to a power bank. Then, power from the wall could simultaneously maintain the bank at one hundred percent and also run the computer like normal. When power from the wall was lost, though, power could flow from the bank to the computer, so its power wouldn’t be interrupted. Back then, some ads I saw claimed they could run the computer for up to twenty minutes after power loss. One imagined that was easily enough time to save everything, close everything, and power off the computer normally. Then, one would wait for the power to return. Said power bank wasn’t meant to run the computer normally, just as a stopgap from power outage to safety. I never saw one of those power banks; only serious enterprises had them.
Nowadays, of course, some people’s phones seem to run out of juice (aka energy) fairly often. It’s no wonder why: some phone apps can drain one percent of battery per minute, and it’s common for people to have numerous apps going at one time. One imagines having to replenish the phone’s energy one to several times per day, besides charging it in the evening at home (for instance).
The charging bank is an obvious answer to the above scenario. I didn’t know how they are used exactly. The ones we found on clearance in Vancouver said, on the box, the energy capacity (10000mAh) and types of plugins on it (USB C and USB A). Nevertheless, the power banks seemed a very good deal, and we have two gen-Z sons, so we bought a couple of the charging banks. I hoped for more instructions inside the box.
Yesterday my wife presented one of the charging banks to my younger son. He immediately opened the box. “Are there instructions?” I asked. “No,” he answered, “but I think I can figure this out.” He just took his phone charging cord (USB C both ends), plugged one end of it into the charging adapter at the wall, and its other end into the charging bank. “There: it must be charging now,” he said. I think there were lights on it that also suggested that. Later that day, away from home, he recharged his phone from it.
One assumes both charging to the bank, then later receiving energy from it to his phone, would have been accomplished from the same port on the bank, since it only has one USB C port.
Being a gen-Xer, I thought the idea of the USB C port being able to both accept energy from the wall, then later supply it to a device, was a lot to assume. To my son, however, it makes perfect sense. He seems very happy with the charging bank.
Interesting, eh?
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