ASMO Smart charger with USB OTG

Hi!

I wanted to post this here for FP users as I think it’s really a great concept with some green values. Don’t know about the ethicalnes behind this but it’s finnish (as am I) and to me it gains atleast some trust. :grin:

So it’s a smart charger for smart phones! Have a look:

Dose the Fairphone has the USB On-The-Go feature

@Shaloah:
Are you aware that the original Fairphone charger has nearly the same capability? I read it somewhere at some officially FP site (post? the manual?), that the charger is designed for really low stand-by-power.
I can confirm that! While charging it consumes about 5W, while leaving it pluged-in in stand-by it is below the limit of the measurement-setup I used (wich can for sure measure down to 0.5W) and shows 0.0W. So maybe it is not exatly zero, but nearly that.
But anyway: to unplug a charger which is not used should not overstrain an average smartphone user with an environment-friendly attitude…instead of buying a new one…
(it’s not meant to discredit the idea behind the asmocharger…but just not that new I think)

@Otto_Noll: Yes, FP1 should support OTG, here a discussion about! But where is the connection to the charger?

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Did you find this thread:

Or do you mean the Fairphone 2:

USB Port              Micro-B 2.0 with OTG support

(from the specs page; OTG = On-the-Go)

Personally, I don’t like chargers with fixed cables. (And I generally charge when connected to a computer that I’m using at that moment). They need the fixed cable because of the USB OTG feature. Otherwise it is a nice idea, though I wonder how the impact of producing a new charger compares to the impact of continuing to use the charger you already have…

@therob the Asmo Page said:

ASMO Charger starts up automatically thanks to USB On-The-Go feature which is included in most modern smartphones. For instance iPhone 4 and onwards, Samsung Galaxy S2 and onwards etc.

If fairphone 1 has it i imply that fairphone 2 has it also

OK, found the explanation.
But using OTG or not; the fairphone charger also starts automatically to go from ~0W to 5W without making anything else, than plug-in the phone. I do not get the point of this “advantage” in technical reasons…

No I didn’t know about this ability in the FP’s charger! Thanks for the info!

Tried to search from the forums before posting but didn’t find information about it. And I bought in their words “There is no charger like ASMO Charger available in markets. ASMO Charger is the only charger which starts charging and shuts down fully automatically.”

And yes I agree that of course the most ecological way is using your old existing charger when considering manufacturing costs and using materials. But what comes to consuming energy plus the safety aspect of this ASMO charger I thought it would be great as sometimes I (believe there’s some other guilty ones too) forget to unplug the charger from the wall (especially at night). And the very reason why I’m personally atleast considering to buy one is that my old one is broken (unless I manage to repair it).

But yes ment to recommend this in the first place for those to consider who are TRULY in need of a new charger - not just for laziness. :wink:

What comes to the ethicalness of this ASMO charger I found something from their finnish site: http://www.asmocharger.com/fi/ under the heading “Asmon visio kotimaisuudesta”.

It basically says that the author has wanted to keep the manufacturing in Finland from the very beginning (and has!) as maximizing the profit by manufacturing in countries where it’s cheapest doesn’t match his spirit. He also values Finnish work and wants to be creating more of it.

Don’t know about the materials used expect they’re said to be high-end quality. :grin:

the advantage of the ASMO is that the FP-charger (and every other) consumes energy when idling, while the ASMO does not (ZERO!).
This is achieved by disconnecting the charger internally from the mains when the battery is full.
This is also why OTG is needed: when you connect your phone, the phone gives a little bit energy to the charger so the charger can connect to the mains.

Wouldn’t something with a timer work similar? Charger estimates the time to charge by checking the current status and temperature of the battery. “Knowing” that it switches of at the best time. To start charging again, the charger has to be “restarted”. Or is that the way the thing works? All I read is “patented”.

Update: Found the patent description (Battery charger WO 2015110584 A1), similar but with some usb On-The-Go magic for 100% charged if supported for “switch off” notification as pointed out by @Otto_Noll).

I just can repeat myself, that FP did already adressed this issue in a very good way:
With respect to the resolution of my power meter (0.1 W), the original FP charger in idle consumes <0.1W (displays indeed 0.0W) (while other tested chargers ranging from 0.1-0.7W in idle)

So the only advantage would be the “physical” disconnection of the charger from the grid.
But for consumption reasons the difference is rather minimalistic!

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While I think you can improve anything (a house burned down!), I agree that the energy consumption of phone chargers is not the most important issue. Also those small things are also really really hard to measure correctly.

Modern chargers also work differently, they are so called switched-mode power supplies. There are still other “standby” circuits that is really wasting a lot of energy, but I also think modern and safely build(!) phone chargers are currently not the biggest problem energy-wise. But he found a nice safer solution and I hope he will have success.

David JC MacKay’s pages are a good read, although he’s also sometimes wrong. But it’s nice to see graphs and science at work :smile:

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