​​What is Fast Charging? How does it work?

 ​​What is Fast Charging? How does it work?

With fast charging, you can charge your phone a lot faster than normal. That's useful if you're about to leave and notice that your phone is almost empty. After a quick charge, your phone will last another couple of hours.

The output of a charge is measured in amperage and voltage. Amperage (or current) is the amount of electricity flowing from the battery to the connected device, while voltage is the strength of the electric current. Multiplying volts by amps gives you wattage, the measure of total power.

To make a device charge faster, most manufacturers either boost the amperage or vary the voltage in order to increase the amount of potential energy. The majority of fast charging standards typically vary the voltage rather than boost the amperage.

standard USB 3.0 ports output at a level of 5V/1A for smaller devices like wearables. Most phones and other devices are capable of handling 5V/2.4A. For fast charging, you're looking at something that bumps the voltage up 5V, 9V, 12V, and beyond, or increases amperage to 3A and above.

Keep in mind, your device will only take in as much power as its charging circuit is designed for. For fast charging to work, you need a phone or other device with a charging circuit capable of using one of the fast charging standards, and an adapter and cable enabled for that same standard.

Types of Fast Charging:

Quick Charge: Qualcomm’s Quick Charge is the most common fast-charging standard simply because lots of companies use Qualcomm chipsets.

Adaptive Fast Charging: Samsung Adaptive Fast Charging, by contrast, is found on most current-generation Samsung devices and uses a variance of Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 (QC2.0) protocol.

Apple Fast Charging: Apple mobiles supports Fast Charging.

Pump Express: MediaTek Pump Express is another fast charging standard. In this case, it relies on varying voltage while also bumping up the current. Smartphones using Pump Express include some from Xiaomi, Motorola, Nokia, and others.

Other fast charging standards include Oppo Super VOOC Flash Charge, OnePlus Dash Charging, and Huawei SuperCharge. Each requires a smartphone from the same company. Both the Oppo and OnePlus standard increases the current rather than the voltage, while Huawei’s technology varies the voltage and amperage.

Finally, there’s ANKER Power IQ, Which takes a different approach to fast charging in that it’s compatible with many of the others. In doing so, Anker offers supported products that operate using a single USB-C port. Doing so can adjust the voltage output based on the fast charging technology backed by the connected device.