Your Nexus 6P & Nexus 5X Charge could be Defective, Dangerous & Unsafe

When you buy an original company accessory, you purchase it with a vote of confidence that brand has indeed verified and tested the products for all safety precaution. Because playing with electrical safety standards is not a thing you want to do and risk your life. That is why it is recommended to buy electrical accessories with certified standards and ratings.

Now you would think why any OEM would offer defective accessories and risk the damage to your device. Well, this video posted by one Nathan K on YouTube and then got distributed on Reddit showcase otherwise. Apparently, the chargers bundled with Google’s Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P are defective units and are quite dangerous and unsafe from safety points of view.

You might be thinking that they may fry your phones, well, don’t jump to the conclusion yet. They may, however, pose a potential danger, but only if the user is bit careless and insert them the wrong way in another device. As demoed by the concerned user, it is pointed out in the descriptive video that Nexus 5X charger has no failsafe in position and rather it puts out the 5v/3A at all times.

In comparison to good superior class, wallchargers will pose voltage safeties in place, which makes them safe as they don’t generate power unless the cable is plugged in the chargeable device. As shown in the video, even the USB hub devices, which are supped to give charger can be seen powering by Nexus 5X wall charger.

Are you wondering how is this a bad thing? One thing is that it is not recommended to leave wall charger plugged in while your device is not charging because it will just continue working, i.e. generate output. The Second thing is that you may mistakenly connect another outputting side of another USB device. And it might damage something on that device, as that device isn’t supposed to receive power but give it.

Talking about the Nexus 6P’s charger, it doesn’t have an output of 5v/3A when plugged in with its own cable. Here Nathan demos 6P’s wall charger with a smart cord, like the lightning cable that charges iPhones and iPads. As he did that, it immediately starts generating output power. That was regardless of whether it’s connected to a device or not.

Well, you have to admit that plugging your charger in reverse or either using Apple cables with your Nexus wall charger is admittedly niche situations. But it is not believed to create a situation where your charger and device gets damaged but do consider this can be proved dangerous at times. So, it is recommended you either get replacement of the Nexus 5X/6P charger, or buy a new third-party high-class charger, because we do not advise using the bundled chargers. It is unknown that how many of them are actually behaving like they did in the video posted above.