Best Magnetic USB Charging Cable
Situation A: You’ve got a tablet with a Micro USB port, and a phone with a USB C port. How do you charge them both without changing cables all the time?
Situation B: You’ve got kids (or elderly with not so great motor control) who need to charge their devices without breaking the cables or ports.
Solution: Both problems above are easily resolved with magnetic USB charging cables. Here’s some of my thought on the matter.
The primary motivating factor when I went looking at magnetic USB charging cable was the ability to breakaway when met with abrupt force and bad angles. We went through a couple Kindle tablets that had nothing wrong with them save a charging port failure due to kids plugging them in badly – pushing hard upside down, crooked, yanking them out at an angle… In March 2019 I took a deep dive into what was available, and didn’t get many straight answers. Lots of people were in favor of magnetic USB charging cables, but reviews were mixed and the number of options was a bit overwhelming. After doing the research, I made a purchase, and have not regretted it. Not a single device has had damage to the charging port since we made the change. So, what factors were most important to me?
- Durability
- Reliability
- Length
- Ease of Use
- Profile
- Charge Ability
- Communications
- Price
Put those all together and you get DRLEPCCP – pronounced “hard to find!” And a quick programming note before continuing: are Durability and Reliability the same? Of course not! Similar of course, but Durability has more to do with being able to take abuse when yanked around or misused, and Reliability means it will keep working every time regardless of how it looks or feels. The length needs to be long enough for the kids to use the tablets while charging for those “rare” occasions when they forget to charge overnight. Ease of Use means it has to be so simple a three year old can do it – so reversible, and hopefully the magnetic part means it will align itself so the correct contacts are made every time. Profile isn’t as big a deal on the kids tablets with their large foam bumper cases as it is on a phone or caseless device, but I didn’t want an adapter sticking half an inch off the side as that would just beg to be bumped and cause damage. At the bottom of the list I’ve got Charge Ability – meaning it’s got to pull through enough current to A: charge all the way to 100% in a decent amount of time, and B: charge a tablet while it’s in use. Communications isn’t the highest priority, but it would be nice to use the cables on the computer to transfer pictures or music, or even in the car for Android Auto. That just leaves price for last – because it doesn’t matter, right? Right? So, until we’ve arrived at our magical wireless future, here are my suggestions on what to get in the interim.
SMART&COOL Blue GenX 3 in 1 Magnetic Charging Cable
Our Golden Fry award goes to the SMART&COOL Blue GenX 3 in 1 Magnetic Charging Cable. While the name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, these cables fit the bill in just about every category that was important to me. Of note before going into too much detail: the 3 in 1 used to mean that it included adapters for Micro USB, USB C, and Lightning – that unfortunately doesn’t look to be the case anymore for our Apple readers. In fact, a large number of the cables that I double checked before writing this all out had removed the Lightning adapters, and the rest of them renamed the piece to presumedly fly under the litigation radar… moving on.
Apart from the flashy blue color on the specific set that I bought, SMART&COOL also have a silver option that should be the same in every respect other than color. Regarding the actual meat of the matter and my oh so important DRLEPCCP feature points I was looking for: These cables have been durable. The outside braided nylon has held up remarkably well for cables used by children from age 3 to 85 as well as the occasional cat. We have had one cable failure that I found tied around the bed… but for some reason I’ve never thought to blame SMART&COOL for that failure. Also in regards to the durability, as mentioned earlier, the charging ports have all held up, as have the adapters that we leave in the tablets (and one phone) all the time. The adapters are small enough that they either don’t protrude out beyond the cases that the devices are installed on, or just marginally so – and that includes a phone used by the oldest child.
The only concern we’ve come across in daily use is that the magnet can attract very small magnetic “crumbs” from time to time. There has never been any issue aside from the connector not quite sitting flush, and this is easily resolved by unplugging that cable and cleaning out the connection are with a toothpick or brush if the pieces are too small to just knock out or brush off. Aside from that, everything just works. When you get the cable close to the adapter, it pops in. There’s no issues with alignment, and you don’t have to flip it around all the time as it’s reversible. The other comment I’ll make at this point is in regards to the blue LED that indicates the cable is powered. Some reviews complain that it’s too bright, but I haven’t found that to be the case. If it were a problem, I know where to find plenty of electrical tape, but I prefer being able to see the light for instant trouble shooting – “is it plugged it?”
Running down my list I have length, charge ability, communications, and price left to go. Briefly: the cables are about five feet long, communicate fine at USB 2.0 speeds, and while they are not rated for the most recent quick charge technologies, they have charged up everything we’ve thrown at them – rapidly and thoroughly when attached to a good charger. I paid $22 for them in 2019, and recommended them to my father towards the end of 2019 for about the same price. I feel that was a reasonable price to pay for them then, and the fact that they have resolved our single largest headache for kids devices needing charging means I would definitely buy them again for a similar price.
LSGAE 3 in 1 Magnetic Charging Cable 7-Pack
Second place may be first loser, but don’t let that deter you from giving it a look. The LSGAE 3 in 1 Magnetic Charging Cable has several nice features that kept it close to the top of my list. Ultimately the few negatives knocked it down enough to prevent me from purchasing it when compared to the alternatives. My negatives may not matter to you, and the positives may tip the balance in the other direction – so what’s the difference here?
While these charging cables are rated highly, and appear built to a similar quality as our gold medalist, they completely lack one feature in my list, have one minor improvement, and one minor demerit. First, the feature I wanted that made these cables DOA to me is the communications. These cables are exclusively for charging, and can not provide communications – at all – as there are simply no contact points for USB data between the adapter that sits inside the device and the cable itself.
The second ding against the LSGAE 3 in 1 Magnetic Charging Cable is the profile of the adapter that is permanently installed. It looks to be about as small as it can go, but being round it will by nature have a larger profile on the top and bottom than our top choice. My concern here was that a smaller case may not fit without some physical modifications, so do make sure to check the measurements of the adapters, and any case that will be installed before purchasing. This negative does however directly correlate to the advantage in Ease of Use. Having a round connector to aim for should make mating the cable to adapter even easier than what we have with the SMART&COOL Blue GenX 3 in 1 Magnetic Charging Cable.
All in all, this magnetic charging cable should be capable of fulfilling it’s primary purpose (charging), and the continued availability of it on Amazon speaks to the quality. Lesser products come and go, but the strong will survive.
Third place is definitely still worth checking out. The primary knock against the NetDot Gen12 3 in 1 Magnetic Fast Charging Data Transfer Cable is that it just wasn’t available before I started purchasing charging cables. That doesn’t mean I would have purchased them, as ultimately they still have one disadvantage over SMART&COOL Blue GenX 3 in 1 Magnetic Charging Cable – namely that round connection point just like the LSGAE 3 in 1 Magnetic Charging Cable. While that again should offer a small step up in ease of use, it does make for slightly more space used in the adapter permanently attached to your device. Whether this a big enough knock against these cables is up to you.
As with the other cables that I checked on, these are again highly rated, and there are a significant number of honest looking reviews on Amazon. A review or two mention quality concerns, but that seems to be the par for anything you purchase with a goofy name, and that covers 80% of what you will find on Amazon and eBay… and that’s why I’m here, isn’t it?
NetDot Gen12 3 in 1 Magnetic Fast Charging Data Transfer Cable