In article , Daniel James
wrote:

the smartness in that charger is for communicating with the laptop
about the adapter's capabilities, not charging strategies, which is
handled by the macbook based on the reported capabilities.

Yes, of course. We've all been using (relatively) dumb chargers for
years so it's pretty obvious that a wall-wart doesn't *need* to have
the smarts of a 128k Mac!

it doesn't.

The point was being made (by Bruce Sinclair, to whom I was replying)
that modern chargers do have some smarts, and I thought it might be
interesting to give an example (as I'd just come across it recently and
had the link to hand) of a charger with a very great deal more smarts
than one might imagine.

some do, but not for charging strategies.

the magsafe adapter example you cited is for magsafe communication so
that the laptop knows how much power is available.

for usb chargers, that's done over usb.

it doesn't communicate soc or eoc. that's in the device itself and/or
the battery.

It *is* slightly boggling just how smart a charger can be, while
remaining roughly plug-sized.

not really. there are much smaller products that are quite a bit
smarter than any charger.