What is OPPO’s VOOC charger?
VOOC fast charging is the proprietary fast charging technology developed by the OPPO Electronics. It sets itself apart with the out of the box fast charging technology. Other electronic & smartphone manufacturers rely on the different prospect of fast charging technology. Oppo’s VOOC charging charges the mobile from 0-100% in just 35 minutes.
What is fast charging?
Smartphones of the last generation tend to charge at a much slower rate. There was the onset of fast charging technology with the promise of charging the mobile phones at much advanced and faster rates than before.
Smartphone batteries charge when a current passes through them. Greater current and higher voltages charge batteries faster, but there’s a limit to what they can take. The charge controller (IC) protects against dangerous spikes in current.
Let’s dive into more techy stuff !!
The controller chip regulates the overall flow of electricity into and out of the battery. Generally speaking, lithium-ion controllers define the current (in amps) at which the battery charges by measuring the battery’s cell current and voltage and then adjusting the current flowing in. Some use a DC to DC converter to change the input voltage, and fancier integrated circuits adjust the resistance between the charger input and the battery terminal to ramp the current flow up or down. The amount of current the charge controller draws is generally dictated by the phone’s software.
What other smartphone makers are doing?
When you are charging your handset, it will overheat and when you are attempting to charge your smartphone and play a video at the same time, heat is going to be generated from two different sources. At this point, the fast-charging feature of the smartphone shuts off and starts to charge normally in order to reduce those temperatures.
Fortunately, VOOC does the opposite and is able to retain lower temperatures while charging the battery rapidly at the same time. OPPO’s proprietary fast-charging technology charges at the same rate irrespective of the user playing an intensive 3D application or engaged in media consumption.
A normal USB 2.0 port works at 5V and 0.5A which is 2.5W. A charger running at 5V and 2A generates 10W, a fast charger using 9V and 1.67A creates 15W, and so on. One of the key differences between VOOC and other quick charging systems is that VOOC uses higher levels of current, whereas the others use higher voltages. So instead of 9V and 1.67A (to give 15W), VOOC uses 5V and 4A (to give 20W).
Final Verdict:
To summarize, VOOC is a fast charging system and in terms of its basic quick charging abilities, it is one of the leaders in its own field. It is certainly quick, as shown by the charging times of both the OPPO F7 and the OPPO F9, two phones which use the VOOC system. However, there is more to VOOC then just charging times. Rather than using 9V or 12V to achieve higher charging rates, it uses 5V but with a higher current. The result is that VOOC compatible devices don’t heat up as much during re-charge. Also, VOOC is probably the only fast charging system on the market that can charge a smartphone at a reasonable rate even when the device is simultaneously being used to watch a movie.