More exploration with USB-C (and MacBook Air accessories)

MacBook Air Accessorizing

• Cable Matters USB C Hub with HDMI 4K, 80W Charging, Gigabit Ethernet, and 3X USB. Seems to work perfectly. Only caveat is that the 30W Apple charger (straight through 20V 1.4A, ~28W), macOS sees it as a 30W device) passes through 20V at 1.24A (24.8W, seen as a 25W charger by macOS). I left it hooked up through the hub running the WiFi radio and the CPU at about 25% (left Firefox running YouTube videos on autoplay) and it took about 2 hours 25 minutes (61 Wh) to bring it from 39% to 97%. The app coconutBattery showed it charging around 8.5W. So, this would be a viable “one cable” docking solution for a home or office workstation; enough power passes through to recharge the machine while it’s being used.
  
• UGREEN USB C SD Card Reader 3 in 1. So far, not great. The only thing it’s recognized and made available to the host computer is an old 2GB SD card. Nothing hooked up to the USB-A port worked (USB 2.0, USB 3.0 drives, a Keychron K6 keyboard, etc). When I moved a cheap USB 3.0 flash drive to the Cable Matters hub (above), it worked perfectly. I’ve emailed support@ugreen.com, but I’m not optimistic. UGREEN support recommended exchanging it, which I did. The replacement arrived overnight and works perfectly (tested it with a USB flash drive, a YubiKey, and a full-sized RGB-backlit GMMK mechanical keyboard, all worked as expected). Just got a bad one at first.
  
• GhostBlanket Screen Keyboard Imprint Protection Microfiber Liner and Cleaning Cloth. Back in the day I always used to get ShaggyMax protectors for my laptops. I don’t see that they have one fort the 2020 Air (just up to the 2015, and picking up again with the newest M2 Air), but these folks do. Seems to work great so far. Super thin, does not interfere with the screen closing (at least enough for the Mac to recognize it’s closed, powering down it and the keyboard backlight).

12V Car Charging with USB-C

• UGREEN Car Cigarette Lighter Splitter 84W-USB Car Phone Charger PD (bundled with UGREEN USB C to Lightning Cable 6FT). I hooked up a very thirsty (~10% charge remaining) iPhone 12 Pro to my current solution and saw 2.4A at 5V, so about 12W. With the UGREEN USB-C setup, I saw 18W (9V at 2A). That might actually be enough to actually charge the phone while it’s using GPS and streaming music (and turn-by-turn directions) to the stereo over Bluetooth.  🙂