Is it ok to power my S6 via USB plug, in my care cigarette lighter?

[merylew]

Sharing information on change in type of car rechargers

I bought a Samsung Galaxy S6, model SM-G920V cell phone and wanted to be able to charge via the cigarette lighter outlet in my car.

Original Question, which was Not the right one to ask:
Is it OK to power the Samsung Galaxy S6 via USB plug-into cigarette lighter in car? I am asking the question because I do not want to overload my Samsung Galaxy S6 if the voltage coming through the cigarette lighter in my Honda-CRV is too high. I do not know how to look up the voltage of either the cell or the CRV's cigarette lighter.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Correcting Answer:

Amperage, not Volts, is the critical factor in selecting a charger for your car…
From an historical perspective, a flip phone uses .5mA-.6mA.
Older smartphones phones use .8mA.
Current smartphones now use 2.4mA. like the Surface tablet.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 uses 2.1 to 2.6mA. The USB Home Charger for the S6 outputs 2.4 amps
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Further developments:
l went to Best Buy and bought a packaged Samsung car charger with the right amps. It is too large to fit cigarette lighter in her car. Only the little standard USB converter from CVS fits into my car’s cigarette lighter, and it is too weak. It says Output : 5.0V-1000mA = 1 amp (way less than 2.1 amps). It will work, but just barely. It will take twice as long to charge my phone! And I cannot run my phone in the car at the same time that it is being charged because it is using more energy than it is taking in.
_______________________________________________________________
If you buy another charger for the cigarette lighter, you can get one with 2 USB ports. It will say 4.8 amps because it has two 2.4A USB ports. A device cannot use more amperage than it needs. It will stop charging when it is fully charged. You cannot overcharge any USB device. The chargers shown on Amazon.com are too large to fit cigarette lighter in old car.

I wonder if there are any USB chargers with 2.4 amps that have the shape of the old "standard" chargers?

 

[SpookDroid]

Re: Sharing information on change in type of car rechargers

Hi there. Nice share!

But a couple clarifications:
1) The S6 doesn't 'use' 2.1A or needs that Amperage to charge. It can actually charge in the standard USB current rate of 500mAh (which is what most USB ports will output, including most car audio system ports). But as you found out, the fact that it CAN charge with such lower Amp ratings, doesn't mean that it'll charge fast. Furthermore, if you're actively using your phone while charging, like using GPS for navigation or keeping the screen on all the time, the power consumption might be higher than the power being received.
2) I kinda already did in the above, but the minimum current needed to charge the device is 0.5A (USB Standard current output).

So, think of your phone as a bucket of water. You can fill it up with a wide hose or with a thin hose, but if you're draining some water also while filling it up, using the thin hose will not be able to keep up if the drain is too big. Same thing with chargers. And the less power output you have, the slower it will charge your phone. And yes, a phone can take more than 2Amps but most devices limit that to 2.5 or 3A to protect the device, as the charging circuit isn't designed for such high ratings.

There are several chargers that offer high-current outputs but you'd need to search for a specific one if your car has a weird angle or too little space where the lighter is.
2)