Dock with 140W charging

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Dock with 140W charging

I'm getting a Macbook Pro 16 M3 (Pro). Unlike any models before it, it supports 140W charging via the USB-C ports.

I'm getting a dock (got 2 networks, external monitor, USB'c…) and it makes sense to get one that can support this.

Shockingly, I found zero discussions or videos about this. (I challenge you to refute that this is the world's first discussion of it on the internet. :-) For a flagship Apple product like this, I'd expect lots of discussions and new products which can take advantage of it — especially after half a year.)

Just about any product you'll find, will charge upstream under 100W. Thunderbolt / USB-C hubs or docks that support PD 3.1 EPR are exceedingly rare. Dell makes many 130W+ docks which are only for their proprietary non-compliant implementation, so they'll charge non-Dell laptops at <100W. There are Thunderbolt 5 docks in development, but that's future stuff.

I was basically able to find 2 potential products, and 0 reviews confirming they fast-charge a MBP at >100W:

j5create JCD3191 : https://en.j5create.com/products/jcd3191

HyperDrive Next 8 : https://www.hypershop.com/products/hyperdrivenext-8-port-usb-c-hub-1

Have you tried any of them?
Do you think they'll need the Apple-branded 240W cable, or any compliant PD 3.1 EPR USB-C cable should work?

MacBook Pro (M3 Pro, 2023)

Posted on Jul 26, 2024 9:08 PM

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Answer 1

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binba Author

Level 1

24 points

Jul 31, 2024 2:42 PM in response to binba

I call success!

I went with the HyperDrive Next 8-Port USB-C hub, a modest, affordable hub; and a Cable Matters #201304 PD3.1 USB-C cable. That's right, not MagSafe, and not Apple's own USB-C 240W cable.

Lo and behold, it's charging at well over 100W. Clocked 125W through the hub, and the AC charger itself is pulling 137W. I think it's reasonable that the hub is taking ~12W of the charger's power budget. After passing 50%, the charger now pulls 99W.

It'd be good for anybody with a USB-C inline tester to confirm, since I don't have one, and there appears to be no indication on the Mac if you're fast-charging.

The most powerful charger I have is Apple's 140W charger. It would be good to test with a bigger one like Framework's, to see if it can give the HyperDrive hub all the power it needs and have the hub provide the full 140W to the Mac; but I'm happy with my setup now and won't be spending more money on such a charger at this point. So I leave that experiment to others.

I also tested the Cable Matters USB-C cable directly between Apple's AC charger and the laptop, and it fast-charged at the full 140W. It also correctly relayed the charger's data to the Mac. So it's nice that Apple's detail on this is evidently wrong.

Apple 140W charger, to CableMatters USB-C, to laptop:

Via the HyperDrive hub:

No MagSafe, no Apple 240W USB-C cable:

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Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

68,720 points

Jul 31, 2024 8:23 PM in response to binba

binba wrote:

It'd be good for anybody with a USB-C inline tester to confirm, since I don't have one, and there appears to be no indication on the Mac if you're fast-charging.

You can use the following command in the Terminal app to monitor the amperage:

pmset  -g  rawlog  |  awk  -F  ";"  '/AC/  {print $2, $3, $7}'

The output of this command will update about once every minute until you quit it, so just press Control + C to terminate the command. This will output the charging status, battery charge level, and the amperage so you can see how the charging rate changes with the battery charge level.

Normally the maximum charging current without Fast Charging is below 3,000mA, but with Fast Charging you may see up to about 6,000mA when the battery charge level is low. The charge rate will decrease the closer you get to 100%, but it will be faster than if Fast Charging was not being used. IIRC, the normal charging rate starts to drop around 80% charge level so by the time you are around 98% you may only see a few hundred mA charge rate.

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Dock with 140W charging

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