A Northampton man has confirmed that the premium braided USB-C cable he purchased for £89 is currently being used to charge his phone for eight hours whilst he sleeps, a task that could be accomplished by literally any cable manufactured since 2019.
James Weatherall, 34, bought the cable after watching a YouTube video entitled “Why Your Charging Setup is Garbage”. The video was forty-three minutes long. He watched all of it.
The cable, which features “military-grade materials” and can theoretically charge a phone to 80% in seventeen minutes, is plugged into the wall every night at approximately 11pm. Weatherall’s phone reaches 100% charge by midnight. He wakes up at 7am.
“The build quality is just exceptional,” said Weatherall, whose previous cable cost £4.99 from Argos and worked fine. “You can really feel the difference in the hand. It’s got this really satisfying weight to it.”
The cable cannot feel anything because it is a cable.
Weatherall’s partner, Emma Hodgson, noted that the new cable looks “essentially identical” to the old one, except it is black rather than white. She has been informed this is not the point. The point is the 100W power delivery capability, the E-Marker chip, and the double-braided nylon sheath rated for 30,000 bend cycles.
“I asked him how many times he bends his charging cable in a day,” said Hodgson, who works in NHS administration and has never once thought about cables. “He couldn’t answer.”
The purchase was made following extensive research. Weatherall spent four and a half hours reading Reddit threads comparing various premium cable manufacturers. He bookmarked seventeen different products. He created a spreadsheet.
“People don’t understand that cheap cables degrade your battery over time,” Weatherall explained, citing a study he half-remembered from a forum post. “This is an investment.”
The cable lives on his bedside table. It has never left his bedroom. It will charge his phone slowly, overnight, every single night, operating at perhaps 12% of its capacity, until either Weatherall or the phone dies.
Dr Caroline Webster, a consumer psychologist at Manchester Metropolitan University, said the phenomenon was “perfectly standard behaviour for someone who has convinced themselves that enthusiast-grade equipment will somehow make their tedious routine less tedious”.
“The cable doesn’t make him special,” Webster added. “But the research process made him feel special. That’s what he actually bought.”
Weatherall has bookmarked several videos about premium plug adapters. The one currently in his wall is from 2015 and came with an electric toothbrush.