Anyone know why the M1 Air only pulls 5W from a 5V/2.4A charger?

[Citizen45]

I have an Anker USB 3.0 (USB Type A) charger that can output 5V/2.4A for a maximum of 12W per port.

When I charge my iPhone with a USB-A to Lightning cable, it pulls the full 12W.

But when I use a USB 3.0 Type A to USB-C cable to charge my M1 MacBook Air, it only pulls 5W from the charger according to the system.

Does anyone know why it doesn’t pull the full 12W available?

 

[Wokis]

The MacBook is looking for a USB-C PD handshake for anything above 5V/1A. I think your brick is too old for that. Also as the name implies it expects USB-C on both ends.

I don’t know why they didn’t aim to support older standards but I suspect it would have added some form of complexity that they deemed not worth for serving a niche user base.

Sorry, you’ll have to use a different brick.

 

[jdb8167]

I have an Anker USB 3.0 (USB Type A) charger that can output 5V/2.4A for a maximum of 12W per port.

When I charge my iPhone with a USB-A to Lightning cable, it pulls the full 12W.

But when I use a USB 3.0 Type A to USB-C cable to charge my M1 MacBook Air, it only pulls 5W from the charger according to the system.

Does anyone know why it doesn’t pull the full 12W available?

You need a power delivery USB-C charger to get more than the default 5 W. It’s likely that the non-USB-C lightning port on the iPhone has a special mode to support higher power over standard USB. Try an USB-C iPad Air, mini 6 or Pro and they probably only draw 5 W too.