Review: R1 Gen 2 wireless charging pad vs. TWRAPS dual-magsafe charger

[carsly]

Not compensated, not sponsored and I purchased my own vehicle and TWRAPS charging mat. Looks like there are some changes to the charging mat in Gen 2 beyond the ridge. Worth a look/see if you're considering purchasing an R1S/T as it's tough to absorb everything in quick demo drive (if one is even available in your area) and charging a phone is something I think we all do in our vehicles.




PS, used the TWRAPS mat yesterday on a two-hour drive and it did a great job keeping my phone securely in place and charging me from 50ish percent to 80 percent (my set limit) during the trip without any noticeable heating to my iPhone which is adorned in a magsafe case.

https://amzn.to/438VSF4

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[twraps]

Not compensated, not sponsored and I purchased my own vehicle and TWRAPS charging mat. Looks like there are some changes to the charging mat in Gen 2 beyond the ridge. Worth a look/see if you're considering purchasing an R1S/T as it's tough to absorb everything in quick demo drive (if one is even available in your area) and charging a phone is something I think we all do in our vehicles.




PS, used the TWRAPS mat yesterday on a two-hour drive and it did a great job keeping my phone securely in place and charging me from 50ish percent to 80 percent (my set limit) during the trip without any noticeable heating to my iPhone which is adorned in a magsafe case.

https://amzn.to/438VSF4

Thank you for the review!
A few notes:
* These are neither injection molded nor 3D printed. They are CNC cut out of high density acrylic.
* Noted about the leather top, it's on todo to find something suitable actually. The issue so far has been that all leathers I've tested add such thickness (about 1mm) that makes the magnetic attachment less stable. We used to do this actually in our previous generation chargers, and people were complaining.

 

[PaythePiper]

I’ve had our Twraps charger for a few months, and it’s worked every single time I’ve put the phone down and that single handedly makes it far superior to the Rivian ‘charger’

 

[Cortles]

I bought the TWRAPS mag-charger straight after we got the R1S Gen 1 a year ago. The “mag” part of the charger works perfectly and as others have stated, is a great upgrade to the crappy charger Rivian had as standard. My only issue with TWRAPS is the amp-rating - it is SO SLOW to charge and depending on what we’re doing with the phone, hardly even maintains a charge. So if we have our two phones on charging and one of them is tethering or using Google maps, hours will pass and we hardly get an increase in charge. Not sure why they didn’t just make it a fast charger.

 

[DD4ST]

I bought the TWRAPS mag-charger straight after we got the R1S Gen 1 a year ago. The “mag” part of the charger works perfectly and as others have stated, is a great upgrade to the crappy charger Rivian had as standard. My only issue with TWRAPS is the amp-rating - it is SO SLOW to charge and depending on what we’re doing with the phone, hardly even maintains a charge. So if we have our two phones on charging and one of them is tethering or using Google maps, hours will pass and we hardly get an increase in charge. Not sure why they didn’t just make it a fast charger.

But doesn’t high charging = high heat? As long as you don’t LOSE charge that is still a win And better on your phone. I’ve noticed my phone getting really hot in other cars and the standard Rivian when on USB. The only car that hasn’t had an issue is my Audi eTron where it actually feels like they AC the recess where the phone goes.

 

[Cortles]

But doesn’t high charging = high heat? As long as you don’t LOSE charge that is still a win And better on your phone. I’ve noticed my phone getting really hot in other cars and the standard Rivian when on USB. The only car that hasn’t had an issue is my Audi eTron where it actually feels like they AC the recess where the phone goes.

I’m not worried about the phone heating up a little bit - fairly normal for charging. I don’t have a case on my phone so I never really have a problem with it heating up - I have a fast charger at home and it works perfectly and is much needed when I use my phone all day for work and tethering my laptop.

 

[keith023]

I have the same TWRAPS Charger for gen 2 and I love the mag safe part of it and when it charges it works great. However, about 50% of the time it seems to not start charging when placed on the mat and only resolves after leaving and coming back to the car. I assume it must be an issue with the USB-C port in the car but I haven't figured it out yet.

 

[twraps]

I bought the TWRAPS mag-charger straight after we got the R1S Gen 1 a year ago. The “mag” part of the charger works perfectly and as others have stated, is a great upgrade to the crappy charger Rivian had as standard. My only issue with TWRAPS is the amp-rating - it is SO SLOW to charge and depending on what we’re doing with the phone, hardly even maintains a charge. So if we have our two phones on charging and one of them is tethering or using Google maps, hours will pass and we hardly get an increase in charge. Not sure why they didn’t just make it a fast charger.

I have the same TWRAPS Charger for gen 2 and I love the mag safe part of it and when it charges it works great. However, about 50% of the time it seems to not start charging when placed on the mat and only resolves after leaving and coming back to the car. I assume it must be an issue with the USB-C port in the car but I haven't figured it out yet.

This is Rivian's fault unfortunately (i.e. beyond my control to fix it). Rivian's supposed 60W PD is nowhere to be found. If you use a tester you will see Rivian only negotiates 5V most of the time (hit or miss...sometimes it negotiates 15V). Some folks went through the hassle of sniffing the communication and confirmed it's Rivian's fault:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Rivian/s/jLoU3mlyBW

Another independent way to test (i.e. don't take my word for it) is - take our charger in a 20W home outlet and you will see it charges faster.
Another test you can do (fun one!) is this - plug a laptop to be charged into the USB-C and within minutes, the e-fuse will trigger and the USB-C ports will "die" until you reboot the vehicle.
I hope Rivian fixes that soon but who knows...it's been like that for a while.

 

[keith023]

Thanks for the update and good to know the problem is isolated. Hope for a Rivian fix soon

 

[stewart]

Not compensated, not sponsored and I purchased my own vehicle and TWRAPS charging mat. Looks like there are some changes to the charging mat in Gen 2 beyond the ridge. Worth a look/see if you're considering purchasing an R1S/T as it's tough to absorb everything in quick demo drive (if one is even available in your area) and charging a phone is something I think we all do in our vehicles.




PS, used the TWRAPS mat yesterday on a two-hour drive and it did a great job keeping my phone securely in place and charging me from 50ish percent to 80 percent (my set limit) during the trip without any noticeable heating to my iPhone which is adorned in a magsafe case.

https://amzn.to/438VSF4

Thanks. That was very helpful. I appreciate it

 

[TomServo2112]

I have the same TWRAPS Charger for gen 2 and I love the mag safe part of it and when it charges it works great. However, about 50% of the time it seems to not start charging when placed on the mat and only resolves after leaving and coming back to the car. I assume it must be an issue with the USB-C port in the car but I haven't figured it out yet.

I have this issue too. The TWRAPS will charge for maybe 30 minutes sometimes and then just stop and just randomly will start charging again much later, after I’ve either unplugged the usb-c for a long period of time, or just left the car and come back later. I haven’t figured out a rhyme or reason to it. My opensourceev insert works well and has never had these dropouts - also plugged into usb-c. But is not built quite as robustly.

 

[twraps]

I have this issue too. The TWRAPS will charge for maybe 30 minutes sometimes and then just stop and just randomly will start charging again much later, after I’ve either unplugged the usb-c for a long period of time, or just left the car and come back later. I haven’t figured out a rhyme or reason to it. My opensourceev insert works well and has never had these dropouts - also plugged into usb-c. But is not built quite as robustly.

That's certainly unexpected behavior... question and ask:
Question: Does that happen when you charge 2 phones at the same time?
Ask: Can you try taking the charger to a home outlet and let your phone charge on it for prolonged time - does the same issue happen? /trying to figure out if it's a charger issue or a Rivian issue/.
For the record - I don't observe this behavior. Gen2 R1S here.

 

[carsly]

Thank you for the review!
A few notes:
* These are neither injection molded nor 3D printed. They are CNC cut out of high density acrylic.
* Noted about the leather top, it's on todo to find something suitable actually. The issue so far has been that all leathers I've tested add such thickness (about 1mm) that makes the magnetic attachment less stable. We used to do this actually in our previous generation chargers, and people were complaining.

makes sense about attachment issues. What about milling the surface 1mm below the top of the puck and applying some kind of rubberized finish? This way the surface around the puck and the puck itself remain flush. Just an idea, really like the product and it's far superior to the Rivian original and Rivian updated offerings.

 

[twraps]

makes sense about attachment issues. What about milling the surface 1mm below the top of the puck and applying some kind of rubberized finish? This way the surface around the puck and the puck itself remain flush. Just an idea, really like the product and it's far superior to the Rivian original and Rivian updated offerings.

That would be too much manual labor, on top of existing a lot of manual labor (we sand these, as they come a bit rough out of the CNC, and then after sanding we have to clean them in a 2 step process - first use a blow gun and then wipe them with alcohol...on top of it, on those that have a skin we now pre-apply the skin ourselves as a lot of people were failing this task when we provided the skin for them to apply). The issue with that is that we're in California, and labor is expensive - I am trying to maintain reasonable prices. I am going to experiment something else though - leather-like vinyl. That's thin and looks like leather, but I am yet to find out if there are any that will also feel nice when you touch them.

 

[carsly]

That would be too much manual labor, on top of existing a lot of manual labor (we sand these, as they come a bit rough out of the CNC, and then after sanding we have to clean them in a 2 step process - first use a blow gun and then wipe them with alcohol...on top of it, on those that have a skin we now pre-apply the skin ourselves as a lot of people were failing this task when we provided the skin for them to apply). The issue with that is that we're in California, and labor is expensive - I am trying to maintain reasonable prices. I am going to experiment something else though - leather-like vinyl. That's thin and looks like leather, but I am yet to find out if there are any that will also feel nice when you touch them.

Maybe a 4mil satin PPF in different colors? Large sheets wouldn't be that expensive but would probably need to be precut. Not sure how much that would add per piece with the labor. Just brainstorming

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