Amazon.com: Satechi USB-C Power Meter Tester Multimeter - Compatible with 2020/2019 MacBook Pro, 2020/2018 MacBook Air, 2020/2018 iPad Pro : Electronics

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Product details

Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.49 x 2.44 x 0.79 inches; 0.64 Ounces
Item model number ‏ : ‎ ST-TCPM
Date First Available ‏ : ‎ January 20, 2017
Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ Satechi
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01MT8MC3N

Best Sellers Rank: #59,354 in Computers & Accessories (See Top 100 in Computers & Accessories)
- #1,258 in Computer Networking Hubs

Customer Reviews:
4.1 420 ratings

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From the manufacturer

Founded in 2005 and headquartered in San Diego, California, Satechi has taken a combined passion for technology + design and created a leading consumer electronics brand, specializing in modern USB Type-C accessories.

Satechi USB-C Power Meter Tester

Calculate and measure the power draw of your laptop or Type-C chargeable smartphone! Use the Satechi Type-C Power Meter to measure Volts, Amps, and mAh from compatible Type-C ports! With a sleek design and easy-to-read display, the Type-C Power Meter is the perfect solution for monitoring your Type-C port's power.

Monitor power input or output from your USB-C device
Measures voltage, current and power over time to ensure a safe charge
Features a bright, easy to read display – turns on when power is connected to your device
Ultra-compact design easily stores in your laptop bag, purse or briefcase
Compatible with 2018 MacBook Air, 2018 iPad Pro, 2016/2017/2018 MacBook Pro, 2015/2016/2017 MacBook and more USB-C devices. Please remove clear protective layer from meter’s display before use

Features


Monitor Your USB-C Power Simultaneously charge your USB-C device while monitoring power input or output from your USB-C device.	Voltage, Current & Power Measure the voltage (Volts), current (Amps) and Milliamp hours over time, to ensure a steady and safe charge. Max wattage: 65W.	Easy to Use Features a bright, easy to read display that turns on when connected to its power source. Please remove clear protective film from meter’s display before use.


	2-in-1 USB 3.1 Hub with Ethernet	Pro Hub with Ethernet	Multi-Port Adapter V2	Type-C to Ethernet Adapter	USB-C Power Meter Tester
Connection	USB-C	USB-C	USB-C	USB-C	USB-C
Ethernet Port	✓	✓	✓	✓	—
USB 3.0 port	3	2	3	—	—
Micro/SD Card Slots	—	microSD slot only	✓	—	—
USB-C Port	—	USB-C PD charging max 87W, video output up to 4K 60Hz, data transfer up to 10 Gbps	USB-C pass-through charging (up to 60W)	—	USB-C pass-through charging (up to 49W) Measures up to 65W
4K HDMI	—	4K HDMI 30Hz	4K HDMI 30Hz	—	—
Compatibility	2016/2017/2018 MacBook Pro, 2015/2016/2017 MacBook, iMac, iMac Pro, Lenovo Thinkpad, Yoga 900/910, Dell XPS 9250, Chromebook, ASUS ZenBook Pro, HP Spectre x360, Elite X2, Lumia 950/950 XL, Acer Aspire Switch, Microsoft Surface Pro, IdeaPad and more	Exclusively designed for 2016/2017/2018 MacBook Pro 13-inch and 15-inch models	2016/2017/2018 MacBook Pro, 2018 MacBook Air, 2015/2016/2017 MacBook, 2017 iMac, iMac Pro, 2018 iPad Pro, Microsoft Surface Go, ChromeBook (only models with DisplayPort over USB-C with Alt mode), Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro S and more	2018 MacBook Air, 2018 iPad Pro, 2016/2017/2018 MacBook Pro, 2015/2016/2017 MacBook, 2017 iMac, iMac Pro, Lenovo Thinkpad, Yoga 900/910, Dell XPS 9250, Chromebook, ASUS ZenBook Pro, HP Spectre x360, Elite X2, Microsoft Surface Pro and more	2018 MacBook Air, 2018 iPad Pro, 2016/2017/2018 MacBook Pro, 2015/2016/2017 MacBook and more USB-C devices. Please remove clear protective layer from meter’s display before use

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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5

420 global ratings

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G. Trewitt

Does the job nicely, but it's a bit fragile

Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2017

Verified Purchase

[UPDATE June 11, 2017]
I finally got around to asking Satechi for a replacement. They replaced it quickly with no trouble.
1) As other reviewers have remarked, it now seems to start up reliably.
2) Although I'd still like it to be a little less fragile, I can live with it, now that I know to be careful.

[ORIGINAL, unedited]
I like the power meter, a lot. It has told me some interesting stuff about how my devices charge (see below) Unfortunately, there are three problems, one of which is a show-stopper:
1) [minor, but irritating] As noted by others, the screen lights up with a sparkly display sometimes. This seems to happen after it's been unplugged for a bit.

2) [very serious] The meter is fragile. It is a 2-inch lever arm acting against the connector that's plugged into the laptop. If anything gets pushed or pulled up or down, the internal connections (solder joints, I expect) can pop loose. This happened to mine - although I can't recall any particular time when it got flexed like that. The male connector now feels kind of like a loose tooth, and I sometimes have to nudge it around to get it to turn on and charge my laptop. More serious is that the same force would be acting on the laptop's connector and circuit board. So... BE VERY CAREFUL. Especially, don't pick up the device with the meter and cable plugged in - the weight of the cable might be enough to break it.

The only way that I can see for Satechi to solve this problem is to replace that connector with a short pigtail, which is what a lot of the older USB-A meters have.

3) [kind of nerdy-nit-picky] The mA-hour display is wildly incorrect in some circumstances. I hadn't realized - until the Satechi showed me - that some devices change the voltage they request depending on their needs. My late-2016 Macbook Pro requests 20V when it's charging or active. When it's sleeping and the battery is charged, it requests 5V and consumes less than 50mA. That's actually pretty cool. However, the Satechi displays cumulative mA-hours by adding up current over time - regardless of the voltage. So, if you try to compute watt-hours by multiplying mAh and voltage, you're multiplying a sketchy current X time by a voltage that may not be the actual voltage that's been used.

This sounds absurdly nit-picky, but it has a real impact on an important use case: I want to see how much energy (watt-hours) it takes to charge a my laptop (or phone) and compare it to the stated capacity of the battery.

The only way for Satechi to deal with this is to display mWatt-hours. Laptop batteries are rated in watt-hours (49 for my MacBook Pro). When USB-C battery packs come along, they're going to have to deal with the same issue - is that 30,000 mAh at 5, 15, or 20 volts?

58 people found this helpful

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Bike Geek

Easy-to-use USB Type-C meter with voltage, current, charging direction, and accumulated mAH

Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2017

Verified Purchase

Call me a geek — I like to know how my chargers and cables are working. I have a number of USB Type-A charging meters, so I was very excited to see Satechi's USB Type-C meter. Since purchasing it, here's what I've discovered.

Because this meter has Type-C on both ends, you can place it (a) between the cable and the device supplying the charge, OR (b) between the cable and the device receiving the charge. This means that you can calculate the voltage drop across the length of a Type‑C cable — which is much easier to do using this device than it is to measure the resistance of the cable using a standard multimeter.

The Type-C cables that came stock with my Pixel and Nexus 6P phones exhibit the least voltage loss — roughly 0.1 V. On the other hand, I have a few cables from CHOETECH, and these exhibit the greatest voltage loss — about 0.5 V. I have a number of cables from Tronsmart, and these range from 0.2 V to 0.3 V loss. As you would expect, the Satechi meter confirmed that the cables with lower voltage loss (and therefore lower resistance) were able to deliver measurably higher current to my Pixel and N6P phones.

Because the Type-C connector is "reversible", you can always plug in the Satechi meter so that its display faces you. Unfortunately, even when the display is facing you, the numerals on the display can still be upside-down. There's no way to rotate the numerals of the display by 180°, so be prepared to "turn your head" as necessary to read the meter. With that said, the OLED display is bright and it exhibits high contrast. Even with tiny numbers (2.3 mm in height), it's very easy to read. Voltage, current, charging direction, and accumulated mAh are the only parameters that are shown. The display's update interval is about 1.7 seconds.

The male plug of the Satechi meter has an "elbowed" base to it, so the plug fits fine into my Pixel, which is protected within a Ringke case. I also have no problem fitting the meter's plug into my N6P, which has the original Google microfiber-backed case.

Keep in mind that you have to be careful plugging the meter into a Type-C port. The meter is big enough that if you put any torque on it, the meter or the port will probably break. (Of my Type-A meters, I like the ones that have a short cable permanently attached, allowing the meters to dangle off of the port without fear of torquing the USB connection.)

All-in-all, I'm happy with the Satechi Type-C meter. As I write this, it's the only one that I can find to purchase. I imagine as USB Type-C becomes more ubiquitous, other manufacturers will be offering Type-C meters. For now, this is the one that I'm carrying with me in my "tech bag."

10 people found this helpful

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santonm

Works only if you are actually charging something.

Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2017

Verified Purchase

This item works only if you are charging a device, in my case a MacBook Pro, with a USB C charging adapter and cable. If you plug the device into the ac adapter it does not register any power coming from the adapter. If you plug it into the laptop, it does not register anything; indeed, in both situations it does not show any activity, no lights, at all. The only way to use the device is to have the male end plugged into the device being charged and have a charger and USB C cable plugged into the female end of the device so that the Satechi is between the MacBook Pro in my case, and the charger. I was expecting to use it to see if an USB C, AC Adapter was working, but realize now that USB C chargers will only provide power when something is being charged. As someone else stated, power is pulled from USB C, and so they require a device to charge to come to life, so to speak. Still, it would make sense, to provide a testing device that would allow you to test a USB C charger when it is not charging something.

The photos attached show how a USB C charger puts out a voltage even if not charging something. In the photo an Apple USB C charger with an Apple USB C male to USB 2 Female adapter is connected to a voltmeter showing 5.25 volts. My point was that the Satechi USB C power meter could have been designed to show that an AC charger was actually providing a voltage. Many people have written comments indicating that you cannot test a USB C charger unless it is actually charging something. This may be true in a strict sense, but a simple voltage test of a charger to show that it is not dead could have been added to the Satechi USB C Power Meter that would have made it more useful.

16 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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C. Frey

Drei Anläufe Dank Amazon und DHL - Gerät selber macht aber einen ordentlichen EIndruck

Reviewed in Germany on May 22, 2021

Verified Purchase

Vorwort:
Nachdem ich schon zwei Lieferungen bekommen habe, die ich gleich wieder zurückschickte
(besch... verpackt in einer Papphülle durch Amazon und mit plattgedrückter oder -getretener Originalverpackung durch einen oder mehrere "Grobmotoriker" beim Paketdienst, konnte ich
im dritten Anlauf dann doch endlich ein Exemplar ohne nennenwerte Blessuren in Händen
halten.
(PS: mir ist egal ob der Artikel dabei Schaden nimmt oder nicht. Amazon bzw. seine "Logistiker"
müssen endlich lernen, die Ware der Kunden sorgfältiger zu verpacken. Besonders dann, wenn
man es mit einem meiner Meinung nach unzuverlässigen und rücksichtslosen Lieferservise zu
tun hat.

Das ist aber nicht der Grund der geringfügigen Abwertung !

Nun zum Produkt.

Der Posermeter / der USB-C Tester kommt sehr kompakt daher und macht dabei trotzdem
einen soliden und wertigen Eindruck. Er tut genau das was er soll. Er misst Spannung (V)
den Strom (A) und die zu erwartende Ladekapazität (mAh). Ein Pfeil im Display zeigt die
Richtung des Stromflusses an.

Einstellmöglichkeiten gibt es keine. Eine Speicherfunktion hat der Tester leider ebensowenig,
wie ein automatische Berechung der Ladeleistung (W), man muss dann doch wohl noch einen Tasschenrechner bemühen, um diesen Wert zu ermitteln. Den Namen Powermeter verdient er
deshalb meiner Meinung nach eigentlich nicht. Seis drum.

Ich gehe mal davon aus, dass der USB C Tester zuverlässig misst, die Abweichung vom zu
erwartenden Spannungswert liegen im Millivolt-Bereich und können von einem Verbrauch
(Spannungsabfall) zwischen Messgerät und dem Messobjekt (Tablet, Smartphone, etc.)
herrühren. Auch eine Toleranz im Output der Spannungsquelle (Ladeadapter, PD-Netzteil
etc.) könnte die Ursache sein.

Für eine Ladeüberwachung ist dieser "Powermeter ohne Watt-Anzeige" durchaus zu empfehlen.
Ob er auch für eine zuverlässige ud aussagekräftige Messung taugt, kann ich nicht beurteilen.
Das müsste man in einem Labor prüfen.

NACHTRAG
Wer die Qualität der Akkus (Kapazität) einer Powerbank prüfen will, indem er Ladung und Entladung des Akkus mit dem Satechi-Powermeter überwacht, dem sei folgendes gesagt:
Das Meßgerät hat nur eine 4-stellige Anzeige der Kapazität (des Energiespeichervermögens) bis 9999 mAh, danach beginnt es wieder bei 0. Also nicht gleich denken der Akku ist "platt" nur weil am Ende ein Wert um die 7000 angezeigt wird, es könnten auch 17000 sein :-)).
Das ist gerade bei den neueren und leistungsstärkeren Powerbanks mit 15000 bis 30000 mAh der Fall.

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RB

Very handy and, for the time being, unique tool.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 14, 2018

Verified Purchase

A very useful bit of kit to work out whether your devices(s) are really being charged at the power claimed. Useful because of the sometimes wild claims of chargers, power banks and the various cables which variously do support Type C higher voltage power or not
As far as I could find this little device is unique in being able to do this for USB Type C / 3.0 devices.
Took but a few seconds to find out that my power bank really does provide 14V power to a MacBook and is charging at about the same rate as a mains charger. This will find a place in my cable pouch when travelling and using various supplies. Certainly helps you figure out if cables a screwing charging up too.
Nice feature is that it can be used either way round (i.e. socket or plug to power supply) and shows direction of current flow.
One star off because it doesn't display Watts and you have to work this out yourself from Volts x Amps (not exactly difficult). Slightly lightweight build quality but my unit seems like it is put together ok.

Holibob

Misst am USB-C Port V, A und mAh

Reviewed in Germany on August 16, 2017

Verified Purchase

Zu dem kleinen USB-Multimeter gibt es nicht viel zu sagen. Es ist mit einer beleuchteten Anzeige ausgetattet, die sich leider bei starkem Umgebungslicht nicht so gut ablesen läßt. Dann muss man näher ran gehen, aber bisher konnte ich immer alles ablesen.

Die Funktion ist einfach: Man steckt es an den USB-C-Port, hängt ein Netzteil dran und kann dann sehen wieviel Volt anliegt, wie hoch der Strom ist und wieviele mAh schon "durch" sind. Die mAh werden nach jedem Ausstecken auf 0 gestellt. Der Pfeil zeigt noch an, in welche Richtung Strom fließt. Wenn man zB eine externe Festplatte an das Messgerät hängt, dann fließt natürlich Strom vom Computer an die externe Platte. Auch dies zeigt das Messgerät an. Leider ist hier dann die blaue Beleuchtung hinter der Schrift aus, was es nochmal ein bisschen schwerer macht, das Display abzulesen.

Ansonsten verfügt das Gerät über keinerlei Knöpfe. Es gibt nur USB-C Eingang und Ausgang sowie das Display.

Für meine Zwecke reicht der Funktionsumfang voll und ganz. Es gibt mit normalen USB-Steckern schon Multimeter, die eine deutlich höhere Funktionsvielfalt haben und auch eine besser lesbare Anzeige besitzen, aber ich denke, da es noch recht überschaubar auf dem Markt der USB-C-Messgeräte ist, darf man hier die Latte nicht zu hoch ansetzen.

Auf meinem Blog Sir Apfelot habe ich einen ausführlichen Test zu dem Gerät geschrieben. Wer mehr wissen möchte, kann dort nachlesen!

5 people found this helpful

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Roger

Wonderful Product

Reviewed in Australia on January 17, 2020

Verified Purchase

One day, after using my MacBook for several hours, the random thought crossed my mind "How much power is this thing using?"
After searching around for a while, I bumbled across this wonderful device and slung a few bucks at it and proceeded to wait by the mailbox for it arrive.
The device duly arrives and, with shaking hands, I opened the package. The packaging was very snug and after an exhausting 30 seconds, I got it open. Lo and behold, this device looked very neat and compact.
Still trembling from excitement, I plug it into my trusty MacBook and the thing lights up!
Shouting to the wife to come look at this piece of 21st century kit, we watched as the milliamp and milliamp/hour display flicked around, proudly showing me how much money I am donating to the local electrical company.
By this point, I am totally over the moon, and thought "How can I fool this thing?" so I plugged in the trusty battery pack and suddenly, the arrow changed direction. I was awestruck! my Mac can charge things!

CPN

Does exactly what it says on the tin!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 30, 2019

Verified Purchase

Works really well on a multi-voltage supply such as the Google 60W USB-C Pixel Slate charger and is capable of working in either direction of current flow so, for example, it can show the output from the Slate when charging another device e.g. a phone.

Update Apr '21: There is only one slight criticism I would have of this device and that is that the male plug end is rather weaker than I would like and can be easily bent. I cured this by carefully prising the case open (plastic pin/socket arrangement at each corner) and using some epoxy resin around the plug and its exit from the case. Since there is really never a need to open this again, I went around the whole case with a fine layer to make for a really well sealed (and now) robust device.

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Brand	Satechi
Power Source	Battery Powered
Style	Digital
Item Weight	18.14 Grams
Item Dimensions LxWxH	4.49 x 2.44 x 0.79 inches

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Satechi USB-C Power Meter Tester Multimeter - Compatible with 2020/2019 MacBook Pro, 2020/2018 MacBook Air, 2020/2018 iPad Pro

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