Yes, it works fine. Though I believe it will charge slower as the phone will only draw a maximum of 500ma due to it detecting it as a USB charger.
It's to do with the way the data pins are wired on the charger plug. If they are open circuit, it is detected as USB, if they have a low resistance then it is detected as an AC charger and the phone will request a higher charge current as a consequence.

Better late than never (?): usually just have to short the USB data connections to remove the current-limit.

I ordered a couple of these which got delivered quickly to work (I'll pick them up in the New Year). In the meantime, I'm powering my Pi 2 with a 2A adapter that came with my Samsung Tab S 10.5" with no problems (and all 4 USB ports occupied with a USB 3.0 stick, a USB Freeview HD tuner, a keyboard and a mouse) - no sign of the rainbow square indicating under-voltage.

As a fun experiment, I just ordered a 10000 mAh Xiaomi Power Bank from GearBest for 7.95 quid (that price only holds for 4 more hours after this posting though!), but it's coming from China so probably will turn up in 1-2 weeks. Yes, there'll be a scratch-off code with it to confirm it's genuine (no way am I using it without confirming it's not fake - this power bank in particular is known to have many fakes). If it makes my Pi 2 portable for several hours, I'll be happy, otherwise I'll just use it on the phones/tablets I already have.

Ok, I ordered this at 19:54 last night, and it came to me at 7:35 this morning, parcel force 24, I mean how the frik did they do that!!?? Even if it caught last pickup (which I doubt) I mean... I'm shocked, all for less than 4£! The postage would have cost more!!!

ohh.. just realised, its -vat on the link..

Yeah, thanks, I was aware of this. I'm sure I read about a hack you can do with your android device to enable charging at a higher rate. Will investigate further.

Arrived less than 24h after i ordered it but maxes out at 450mA/h on my Galaxy Note 3. Will stick in into one of my RPi's instead and get rid of the rainbow!

my pi 2 is brilliant with kodi, so many apps, all good, premier league pass, genesis is a shame its gone SD only (pay for HD) but there are many others offering HD movies for free, (rockcrusher, 242415 etc...) and pheonix tv is a must.

Excellent service from RS. I ordered late yesterday afternoon and arrived today by Parcelforce 24. The postage must have cost more than the price of the power supply!

Yes once you have a good PSU then no squares appear! There is a way to suppress the squares appearing when the unit detect over / under voltage.but that advanced config. I think in most cases reporting the issue makes sense.

Also if you use the unit only via HDMI you can force the RP to output only to HDMI and force it to a specific resolution even with no TV connected, its all in the config.txt. I did this as I use then with Kodi for media and all our TV are 1080p and only use HDMI. If I did not force HDMI the RP would switch to composite (no HDMI) if the TV / AV Amp was off when I powered up or rebooted the RP.

Lots of options :smiley:

Finally the price of chargers coming down. Seems crazy that a pi can cost £5 but a charger is almost just as much.

I just clicked on the link and it says £3.25 delivered so even better deal.

Ah, I did see the rainbow myself when I run my pi for the first time last night. I was using a 750ma phone charger at the time.
I thought it was just some kind of logo, but now I know.

This RS psu arrived today, so will check with that. I assume with a good psu, there will be no square at all? I'm still learning :smiley:

Thanks for the info

Genuine question, are people still using Raspberry Pis? I have a couple that I had a bit of a play with but they have since sat in the draw with all sorts of other technology that never gets used any more.

More info here I think there are also Android and Apple specific protocols for the higher current switching and options for different battery types and cut offs.
https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/app-notes/index.mvp/id/4803#5

This unit connects only the power as its a PSU and the RP will take what it needs. I've tried some 2Amp units from Phones and while some work OK many do not. I get the little rainbow sqaure on the HDMI output (top right of the picture) this shows the RP has detected a low voltage.

RED square means overvoltage! Rainbow (what I get on many 2amp Phone charges Samsung, Lenovo) means undervoltage. Interestingly the one from my One Plus One works fine. More info https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=82373

Photo of rainbow square here https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/146882/rpi2-and-rainbow-square-while-playing-media

I think the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) just resued the line they had spare from the old Blackberry run. The RP Foundation would no doubt look for quality / price and safety over looks as they target schools etc and want a quality unit first.

just been playing with my pi zero and powered it off the tv's usb port, but might grab one of these as well .. nice and cheap :smiley:

£6.96 on amazon..

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00MBH6XNS/ref=s9_hps_bw_g147_i3

Yes, it works fine. Though I believe it will charge slower as the phone will only draw a maximum of 500ma due to it detecting it as a USB charger.
It's to do with the way the data pins are wired on the charger plug. If they are open circuit, it is detected as USB, if they have a low resistance then it is detected as an AC charger and the phone will request a higher charge current as a consequence.

I have this exact one from RS, and whilst it is a cracking price for what it is, I don't think it is suitable for charging phones etc.

I have tried it on my Android, and it detects it as a USB charger, rather than AC. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but it used to mean that it was limited to 500ma charging.

If it's a clone of the Blackberry Playbook charger it will be excellent. Handy for holidays too with the range of adapters that come with it.

Look like a clone / variant of the high power Blackberry international Playbook charger that was exceptionally popular on here a year or so back, but this RP item has benefit of 3 years warranty. Nice.