What Is Dash Charge On The OnePlus 3?

Innovative technology and hardware that juices up your device while keeping it safer from electrical anomalies.

Battery technology in general is something that is constantly evolving, in this universe of hungrier, bigger and busier gadgets.

We all want to be free (wireless), use less power and draw more benefits from our omnipresent devices. Keeping all this in consideration, different smartphone makers are researching and developing efficient ways of making devices more powerful but more efficient in power utilisation.

One such device that uses new-age tech is the OnePlus 3, which uses a new technology called Dash Charge.

What is Dash Charge?

Dash Charge is a technology that OnePlus has introduced through its latest flagship phone. This enables the phone to recharged with a day’s-worth of additional battery life in just 30 minutes.
Digging into details more precisely, we learn that the Dash Charge technology charges the 3,000 mAh battery that comes inside of the OnePlus 3 up to 60% in just half an hour. That’s fast, but not as fast as its rivals like Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0, which claims to be able to reach 80% in 35 minutes!

The job of Dash Charge doesn’t end here though — it is also said to continue supplying a fast charge rate even when the users engage in activities that end up draining the battery quickly, like playing games or streaming a video. Isn’t that cool?

Dash Charge technology is not only rapid, but it also purportedly functions at a lower temperature when compared to other fast charge solutions (according to OnePlus). This is made possible as the power management is handled by the Dash Charge itself, instead of by the phone; thereby regulating the temperature of the phone.
This is what leads to OnePlus’ claim that the phone should never end up overheating as most of the heat being generated during the charging process won’t even reach the device. This should also make the charging process safer!
Lastly, OnePlus says that Dash Charge allows five layers of protection to safeguard the adaptor, cable and phone itself!

Prerequisites for Dash Charge

Carl Pei, CEO of OnePlus mentioned that in order to use Dash Charge correctly, OnePlus 3 owners will need to use both the cable and charger that have been supplied with the device.

“The Dash Charge cable is thicker to physically push through more amps. You need both adapter and cable to achieve Dash Charge speeds”, explains Pei.

Here’s what happens behind the scenes — the circuits in the charger first check for the correct type of cable before powering the electricity through the cable, and in case you are using a different type of cable then the charging speed would switch to the regular one.
This happens in order to ensure a safe transmission of electric current.

This naturally does act as a constraint for the consumers; they have more reason to purchase all of their charging accessories directly from OnePlus (kind of how Apple recommends that only Apple’s or MFI-certified chargers and the cables be used). Any other USB Type-C cables you use won’t be able to utilise this quick charge solution.

This is simply because of the proprietary charging technology that OnePlus has put to use. OnePlus is actually licensing the VOOC fast charging design from Oppo, which doesn’t come as a surprise since both have the same parent company.

With Oppo’s proficiency in fast charging technology using VOOC technology they have created a benchmark in preserving in-house fast charging. Oppo is not the only one on the list of in-house charging though — even Samsung provides adaptive charging on their Exynos-processor-powered Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.

Reassuringly, it’s not the end of the world if you lose the OnePlus 3 charging cable or if it wears out, you could always charge your phone with a normal USB cable or use a different charging adapter. The only catch here is that you won’t be able to get that rapid speed and would have to compromise with “slow” regular charging speed.

Just so you treat those babies with special care, you should know that a new OnePlus Dash Charge Adapter costs INR 1,390, while the Dash Charge Type-C Cable will set you back about INR 1,129.

Also, OnePlus has no intentions to make the Dash Charge facility available to third party manufacturers. So no luck for any other handsets jumping up with the exact same USP.

Why Dash Charge and not Quick Charge 3.0?

Since OnePlus 3 runs on the Snapdragon 820 CPU, it could have adhered to Qualcomm’s standards and gone ahead with Quick Charge 3.0 found on the likes of HTC 10 and LG G5. Quick Charge 3.0 supports a broad range of connectors as well, including USB Type-C. The question then arises why not Quick Charge 3.0 instead of Dash Charge?

It is possible that the Indian Government hasn’t given the permit to import Quick Charge 3.0 enabled adapters in the country as they haven’t got the BSI ratings required in the country to sell these electronics products.

We have some facts to back this speculation. Xiaomi Mi 5 and LG G5 both have been launched recently and support Quick Charge 3.0, but it is noteworthy that the company is not offering the 3.0 supported Chargers in the Indian retail units for these devices.

Swearing by its tagline ‘Never Settle’, OnePlus it seems has found a way to offer if not faster-charging technology, then at least technology equivalent to Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0!

All we need to see now, are batteries that don’t even need to be topped up. Now that, would be an even greater achievement!

Originally published at Chip-Monks.