If you’ve ever owned a cell phone that needs to be charged, there’s a good chance that
you’ve owned a broken charging cable.
Today we’re going to be durability testing the stock iPhone cable that comes with every
new iPhone 7, and a brand new cable that could very well be the most durable cable in the
world from Anchor.
At the end of this video we’ll be giving away 2,000 of these cables, so stick around
and thumbs up to Anchor for giving away a bunch of free stuff.
Let’s get started.
[Intro]
So we’re going to start with the iPhone cable, and I’ve built this contraption that
sits inside of this Smith machine right here.
And it has the cable plugged into the iPhone.
The cable goes down tight around this pole right here, this bar, and then it’s plugged
into a power bank so we can see when the cable actually stops charging.
So how this Smith machine works is that the weights go on either side and these rails
guide it up and down.
And so as I add weights to the end of the bar, it’s going to be adding weight to the
cable and eventually it’s going to stop working or tear out.
So both these cables are brand new and we can already see a difference here on the head.
We can see two different materials and this is usually where the cable breaks.
Here on the Anchor cable it’s one solid piece of rubber all the way down, so that
already gives it an advantage.
If we look at the USB end of the cable we kind of have the same thing.
Two different materials; this is kind of a rubber.
We’ll find out how well they’re joined together in this weight test.
And then here we have one solid piece of rubber all the way down.
Now this is the weakest point of any cable, and by putting a ton of weight straight down
on this cable, we’re deliberately testing the weakest link.
Let’s start adding weights.
10 pounds.
20 pounds.
30 pounds
[Crashing]
30 pounds.
Woo!
Alright, that’s interesting!
So all it takes is 30 pounds of pressure and that cable rips right out of the bottom of
your iPhone.
Here’s what that other end looks like.
It ripped the wires right out from inside of it.
That’s crazy.
Now the black Anchor cable is plugged in and it’s tied to the bar and it’s got it’s
power.
Let’s test this thing.
10.
20.
30.
Now 30’s where the iPhone broke, so we’ll go 35.
Still charging.
40.
Alright.
Right on 40 pounds.
Looks like it ripped right out the bottom as well, but it still held 10 pounds more
weight than the original cable did.
And 10 pounds is a lot when you’re talking about something as small as this.
So now we’re going to check the tensile strength of the actually wire since the head
is already ripped off.
So we got the wire knotted at the top and the bottom, and now we’re just going to
add weights to the end of the Smith machine.
What in the world?
So I added a 25 pound weight to the end of that machine and it ripped the cable completely
in half.
Let’s hope the power line to Dura lasts a little bit longer than this did.
Alright, the power line to Dura is knotted in.
The head’s been ripped off before with our last test.
We’re wrapped around the machine.
We’re good to go.
Alright, 25 pounds.
60.
70.
80.
So keep in mind these tests aren’t extremely scientific.
We don’t know exactly how much that bar weighs on the Smith machine.
But what we do know is that the Anchor cable lasted four times longer with the weight than
the original iPhone cable did, which is pretty impressive.
So now we have both of the cables torn completely apart.
Let’s take it back to my desk and get a close look at what the inside of these cables
look like.
So if you watched the video closely you’ll see that each of the cables broke along the
knots that I tied.
So my knot was a factor in it breaking.
But since each cable was treated the same way, it’s still a pretty fair test between
the two.
The power line to Dura outperformed the stock iPhone cable by quite a large margin.
The Anchor lightning head handled 30 percent more weight, and the cable itself held almost
four times as much weight as the iPhone cable.
But let’s be honest, the average person won’t be lifting weights with their cell
phone charger.
Bending is much more common with charging cables, and that’s where this rubber neck
comes in handy.
Anchor said they tested it to 12,000 hard bends which means it will last 12 times longer
than a normal cable.
Inside this cable is also super interesting.
If you look at the stock iPhone cable you’ll see it has a super weak neck and that’s
why so many people complain about having to hold their cable in a certain spot to get
their phone to charge.
With one hard bend, the little fragile wires tear loose from their connections inside the
head.
Power line 2 doesn’t have that problem.
Now when I strip down the power line 2, it’s immediately evident why this thing has a lifetime
warrantee.
Look at all that metal.
It’s like an industrial Chinese finger trap toy.
The metal helps hold the cable together and protect the internals if it accidentally gets
kinked, stepped on or slammed in a car door.
You know, life happens.
Another interesting thing is the internal gauging of the wire.
Anchor’s cables are MFi certified.
If you remember from my previous video on third party Apple accessory standards, Anchor
does have that MFi certification and can use Apple’s port.
Anchor just uses thicker wires, more metal sheathing and has a better neck…Basically
just beating Apple at their own game.
If a 3 foot length isn’t your thing, it also comes in 1 foot, 6 feet, and 10 feet,
and red, black, blue, and white coloring.
It’s too bad Apple hands out those weak sauce cables with every new iPhone 7, but
lucky for us, Anchor is giving away 2,000 of these things.
I’ll toss a link right below this video where you can participate that.
Hopefully you can get one of these cables that lasts forever instead of the stock ones
that just last a year or two.
Thumbs up to Anchor for sponsoring this giveaway.
And if you don’t have an iPhone, I’m sure you know someone who does.
Let them know what Anchor’s up to.
Thanks a ton for watching.
I’ll see you around.