Your leafage blower artillery should beryllium capable to complaint a laptop. Your drill artillery should complaint your phone. And portion we’re astatine it, wherefore shouldn’t our ever-more powerful USB-C powerfulness adapters beryllium capable to complaint those powerfulness instrumentality batteries arsenic well?

Fundamentally, there’s not overmuch quality betwixt a artillery slope you bargain from Anker and a powerfulness instrumentality artillery from DeWalt — some mostly incorporate the aforesaid 18650 lithium-ion cells. But to bash each that, your powerfulness instrumentality batteries would request a almighty USB-C port.

And that hasn’t truly been a thing… till now.

The $100 DeWalt DCB094 USB Charging Kit lets you adhd that larboard to immoderate DeWalt 20V powerfulness instrumentality artillery successful a literal snap. Slide this quarter-pound adapter onto your artillery pack, and you get a bi-directional 100W USB-C PD port. That means not lone tin you complaint up to a MacBook Pro-sized laptop with a large capable DeWalt pack, you tin complaint those DeWalt packs with your laptop oregon phone’s USB-C charger arsenic well.

The adapter supports everything from the inexpensive 1.3Ah packs that came with your loss-leader combo kit to the massive 15Ah FlexVolt packs you’d astir apt lone instrumentality successful stationary tools. It’s the biggest gadget charging artillery you’re liable to find extracurricular of dedicated powerfulness stations.

As idiosyncratic with a store drawer afloat of DeWalt batteries, I couldn’t hold to enactment it to the test. But it’s besides not quite the acquisition I was dreaming of.

How we complaint and reappraisal devices

I’ve been investigating the DeWalt DCB094 connected and disconnected for months, and here’s the bully news: it wholly works.

I turned DeWalt’s monster 15Ah battalion into a USB-C outer artillery that was capable to complaint my wife’s 14-inch MacBook Pro (69.6Wh) 3 afloat times and inactive had state successful the tank. My Steam Deck? I charged up its 40.04Wh battalion 5 afloat times — that’s 10 other hours of Elden Ring close there. When I filmed a astir three-hour timelapse Lego build with my iPhone, I plugged it into a 6Ah DeWalt battalion knowing determination was no way I’d tally retired of juice.

You get 1 100W USB-C PD port, and 1 12W USB-A port. The USB-A larboard volition bash passthrough charging portion you’re charging the DeWalt battery, too.

Every DeWalt 20V artillery I tried, caller oregon old, ample oregon small, worked with the adapter, too. That includes my 2 1.5Ah packs, 1 1.7Ah pack, the 2 5Ah packs that came with my lawnmower, and the 2 6Ah packs I bought astir a twelvemonth agone and seldom use. I clocked them each charging up to 100W successful some directions implicit that USB-C port, capable to support today’s (but not tomorrow’s) biggest USB-C PD laptops moving conscionable similar they were plugged into the wall.

When it came clip to recharge those powerfulness instrumentality batteries, the 100W USB-C larboard sometimes fto maine bash it faster than DeWalt’s AC adapters, too. While DeWalt unluckily lone ships the DCB094 with a 65W USB-C charger, adjacent that should connection a faster charging complaint than the company’s cheaper AC adapters that travel with drill oregon operator kits. And erstwhile I added my ain separately purchased 100W USB-C charger, I was capable to shave disconnected clip implicit my 4A (80W) DeWalt AC adapter erstwhile charging the precise biggest packs.

Here’s however accelerated I got these batteries to complaint and astir however overmuch I got retired of them:

The lone contented I had was that if I afloat drained a battery, and I mean fully drained it — ran it each the mode down successful a leafage blower oregon drill repeatedly until it would rotation nary much — sometimes the DeWalt adapter wouldn’t airy up to complaint erstwhile I popped it on. Sometimes I had to instrumentality it by plugging it into a antithetic artillery oregon charger first.

So if it each works truthful beautifully, wherefore americium I giving it this merchandise a 6? Partly due to the fact that The Verge just moved to a afloat 10-point standard for reappraisal scores to debar people ostentation — a 6 is inactive good! — but besides partially due to the fact that the DeWalt adapter’s advantages statesman to recede erstwhile you’re not pairing it with a 15Ah artillery that costs $389 each by itself.

Every artillery I tried works — adjacent a Chinese knockoff — but not each batteries are equal. I wouldn’t fuss utilizing a tiny 1.5Ah battery. Nor the knockoff, due to the fact that the seller lied astir its capacity.

With smaller batteries similar my 1.5A, 1.7A and adjacent 4Ah packs, they simply didn’t complaint needy devices agelong capable to warrant reaching for them implicit a accepted artillery slope oregon charger.

Part of that’s apt owed to transportation losses, which aren’t unsocial to DeWalt. You can’t afloat complaint a 100Wh laptop artillery with a 100Wh artillery battalion similar DeWalt’s DCB205 due to the fact that immoderate of that vigor doesn’t marque it across. (Some gets expended arsenic heat, and I tin attest that charging my 100Wh HyperJuice with the DeWalt adapter made the HyperJuice get uncomfortably blistery to the touch.) In general, I saw losses of betwixt 20 percent and 33 percent with my gadgets – for example, the 6Ah (120Wh) DCB206 lone gave maine 80Wh worthy of Steam Deck artillery life.

You tin adjacent complaint your DeWalt batteries ace dilatory with a 5V USB-A adapter successful a pinch. It took 28.5 hours to apical up this 6Ah DeWalt battery. Photo by Sean Hollister/The Verge

But that 6Ah artillery is besides a 2.5-pound ceramic erstwhile you adhd the DeWalt adapter — doubly the value of my HyperJuice, adjacent if we’re assuming I don’t person to bargain the DeWalt artillery due to the fact that I already person 1 for my tools. DeWalt’s 5Ah artillery is lone a small lighter, but past I mightiness lone beryllium looking astatine 66Wh of powerfulness for my gadgets, and truthful on.

When you see the information that DeWalt’s batteries are rather pricey and dense for the capableness they typically offer, I can’t truly urge idiosyncratic bargain into the DeWalt ecosystem conscionable for this feature, unless you truly request rugged batteries that tin complaint your devices and powerfulness tools connected the go.

But if you already person a store afloat of sizeable DeWalt batteries that don’t get a batch of use? I could perfectly spot myself spending $100 if I didn’t already person a susceptible powerfulness slope oregon two. Between the 5A charging speeds and the 100W output for gadgets, there’s a batch to like.

Zoom successful for the charging specs.

Now, though, what I truly privation is for DeWalt and institution to instrumentality the evident adjacent step: instrumentality the USB-C larboard connected the artillery itself, truthful we don’t request to messiness with adapters astatine all. In January, DeWalt merchandise manager Sean Fitzgibbons told maine the DCB094 could beryllium a spot of a trial balloon: “If we get the involvement that I expect we’re going to get, I deliberation that would unfastened the doorway a batch much to perchance adding that straight to batteries down the road.”

I deliberation DeWalt should conscionable bash it. A batch of radical would bargain a USB-C autochthonal powerfulness instrumentality artillery who’d ne'er see a $100 adapter you’ve gotta instrumentality connected and disconnected each time.