Are higher power charging cubes necessary?

[dkbllb]

Yesterday my wife and I picked up our new iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max’s. The salesman (from Verizon) was quite insistent that we not use the smaller watt charging cubes to recharge the phones. He said that they should be at least 18 watt and that we should buy their 20 watt cubes. He insisted that if we used the lower watt cubes (5-10W) that the phone’s batteries would suffer damage and significantly shorten their life.

Of course we have a drawer full of the smaller cubes that we’ve accumulated over the years. I told him that I understood that those would work just fine but would naturally take longer to charge the phones. (Not an issue when it’s overnight.) He still insisted that those small wattage chargers would cause damage to the batteries and that it was something new with the 14’s.

I’ve never heard of this before. Could it be true?

 

[Annie_M]

I looked around on Apple’s Support pages and found this article.

It’s ok to use a 5W charger but it will take a lot longer.
https://discussions.apple.com/threa...There is no maximum limit on the power source.

 

[dkbllb]

I looked around on Apple’s Support pages and found this article.

It’s ok to use a 5W charger but it will take a lot longer.
https://discussions.apple.com/threa...There is no maximum limit on the power source.

Thanks Annie. Your reply jogged my memory about Apple Support and I just got off the phone with them. They advised that the salesman was absolutely wrong and like you said - the lower watt chargers will just take longer.

 

[EdwinG]

It could be even argued that slower charging is better for the battery, just because it emits less heat and lithium batteries hate heat.

However, I would not avoid higher wattage power bricks just on this argument. It’s just food for thought

 

[Annie_M]

It could be even argued that slower charging is better for the battery, just because it emits less heat and lithium batteries hate heat.

However, I would not avoid higher wattage power bricks just on this argument. It’s just food for thought

I completely agree, especially now that I have gotten used to the convenience of faster charging! That said, I have several 5W chargers and still use them from time to time!

 

[Wotchered]

That is rubbish ! trickle charging is fine if you don’t want to use the device elsewhere immediately.
Said salesman was doing what salesmen do, selling you something you don’t need !