One common question among users moving from the stock ROM to a custom ROM like LineageOS, OmniROM, Pixel Experience, and others is related to the charging speeds. Do proprietary charging solutions like WARP Charging or DASH charging from OnePlus, VOOC from OPPO, DART, Super Charge or Quick Charge works?

The short answer is yes.

Let’s look at this in more detail.

Official vs Unofficial builds

Before going in to more details, it is important to understand that unofficial builds often have issues, bugs, and limitations not found on official builds. This is due to the requirements that projects have. For example, for a device to receive official LineageOS status, the developer needs to meet the LineageOS charter.

If you’re using an unofficial build, it’s possible that fast charging is broken. We’ll assume you’re using an official ROM from a more serious project like LineageOS.

Does it Work?

It does! If you use the supported cables and chargers, speeds should be similar to the stock ROM.

Since custom ROMs still use proprietary firmware, everything that is needed for the “negotiation” between the phone and the charger should be there.

But the phone doesn’t mention WARP/DASH/DART/Super Charge/etc. Why?

ROMs like LineageOS are based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), essentially the “stock Android” code. AOSP doesn’t use the marketing name each brand/OEM uses for their charging technology. It simply tells you if it’s “Charging” or not.

Sometimes the custom ROM will report it as “Fast Charging”, “Charging Rapidly” and/or use a different icon when faster speeds are detected (example: the battery icon has a “+” or “++” over it). The text and icon used depends a lot on the ROM and the Android version it is based on.

Custom ROMs also don’t hide the negotiation process that happens behind the scenes. While the stock ROM will report WARP/DART/etc Charging right away, the custom ROM will often report what’s actually happening:

1. Phone starts charging at low speeds.
2. Phone “talks” with a chip inside the charger or cable to get faster speeds.
3. If successful, the device starts receiving more power.

While this is hidden from you by the stock ROM, your device doesn’t start charging at full speeds right away. That’s why a custom ROM will often report it as “charging” and only after 10-30 seconds changes to “charging quickly”.

How to test?

Before testing, keep in mind that you’ll only get “peak” power when the battery is at 10-50%. To protect the battery life, speeds are usually lower when the state of charge is too low or too high. The points at which speeds start to drop depend on the device, but you should get the fast speeds when the battery is between 10 and 50%.

Another thing to be aware are the temperatures. The device will throttle (slow down) speeds if temperatures increase. When comparing between stock and custom ROM, make sure the conditions are the same: similar room temperatures, no phone case, etc.

1. Compare charging times

This doesn’t require any apps or hardware. All you have to do is compare how long it takes the phone to charge with the stock ROM and with the custom ROM.

Let’s say it takes 30 minutes for a phone to go from 20% to 80% when you’re not using it with the stock ROM. It should take more or less the same time with a custom ROM in the same conditions.

If it takes 35 minutes with a custom ROM, that’s inside the margin of error and fast charging should be working fine. But if it goes from 30 minutes to 1 hour, you know that there’s a problem.

2. Measure the maximum speed

The other way of knowing if WARP, DART, DASH, Quick Charging, etc, is working is to look at the peak speeds it can reach. You can compare between the stock and the custom ROM, but you can also make an educated guess by only looking at the results of charging with a custom ROM.

Here you have two options. Use an app, which may not be very accurate or a power meter that sits between the charger and the wall plug.

Again – and this is very important – make sure that:

1. The phone isn’t very hot.
2. The battery is ready to receive peak power (between 10 and 50%).
3. Wait at least 30 seconds before measuring (so the phone has time to negotiate the faster speeds).

Measuring with an App:

You can use apps like Ampere (Play Store, APK Mirror) to tell you how fast charging is going. Apps aren’t super reliable and often don’t account for things like the power the display is using, but they will give you an idea of the speeds.

To use, plug the charging cable, wait 30 seconds, lower your display brightness and then open the app. Wait another 20-30 seconds and see what the app reports.

Normal charging often doesn’t go past 5V/2A, so if the app reports anything past 2000mAh, the phone is likely to be fast charging. Then it depends on the device, but phones should be able to go past 4000mAh while fast charging.

Here’s an example of a OnePlus 8 Pro fast charging at WARP speeds and running LineageOS:

Measuring with a power meter:

This is more accurate, but you need something to measure the electricity the charger is pulling out of the electricity socket.

These are often called “power meters”, “electricity usage monitor”, “kill a watt”, and so on. These devices allow you to know how much power something has used and, the useful feature in this case, the peak power.

While sometimes it’s not worth buying one of these devices just to see if fast charging is working, they’re useful for to measure things around your home. Is your computer using too much power? Are you going above the limit supported by a power cord or extension?

It was working, but no longer fast charges. Why?

First, make sure it’s not a hardware problem.

• USB cables can become damaged without you noticing. If it stops making proper contact with the USB port, it won’t fast charge.
• Make sure the USB ports are clean. Blow some air or brush (with something soft) the USB port on the device and cable to make sure it’s making proper contact.
• Do you have a different cable or charger that fast charges your device? Try them.

Secondly, can it be a software change?

• Did it stop fast charging after update?
  • Have you tried flashing the previous build/update?
  • Are other users reporting the same problem? (check Reddit, XDA Dvelopers, Telegram, etc).
• Did the text / icons change on Android? This sometimes happens when upgrading to a major Android update.

No one seems to be having the same problem?

• Factory reset the device. This will delete everything (make your backups!), but often fixes the problem if it’s cased by software.
• Get a new official USB cable and charger if you suspect that your hardware may be damage.
• Go back to the stock ROM and see if fast charging is working there.

How to get help:

The best way to seek help is to find a place where other users are. For example, if you got the ROM from a XDA thread, then that’s the place where you should ask for help. If you’re using an official build/custom ROM, see if the project has a support chat, forum, etc.

Conclusion

This article got a bit long, but it probably covers most questions regarding fast charging on a custom ROM.

The different types of fast charging (DART, WARP, DASH, Super Charging, Quick Charging, USB-PD) should work normally like they do on the stock OS (OxygenOS, MIUI, ColorOS, etc), but since you’ll be using something closer to “Stock Android”, the phone won’t use the same marketing names.

At the end of the day, what matters is if the device is charging quickly or not and a different text or icon doesn’t really matter.

If you have any questions, leave a comment!

The post Fast Charging, VOOC, and WARP Charging on LineageOS appeared first on droid.tips.

Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android are the two most popular operating systems for phones. While no system is perfect (eg: iOS apps are updated with a system update, not via the Play Store), iPhone users get better long term support (5 years) than Android users. Google, which is the main force behind Android, only provides 3 years of software support. Other brands don’t go over 2 years and those that do usually take a long time to update.

This happens for a few reasons:

• Each brand maintains their own Android fork.
• Google can only update their products.
• Brands don’t have an incentive to upgrade. They make money selling phones, not upgrading them.

While the average user doesn’t care about Android versions and software upgrades, the lack of security upgrades can be dangerous and slow upgrades to new versions means that the adoption of new features and technologies are way slower on Android than it is on iOS.

Project Treble

One of the major attempts to make system updates was introduced by Google in 2018. It was called Project Treble and aimed to give Android a modular base.

When a new phone is developed, manufacturers need to make sure that the software is able to communicate with the hardware (eg: allow apps to use the camera). This is done via HALs (hardware abstraction layer) and before Treble brands had to go over this lengthy process every time a new major Android version was released.

To speed up this process, Project Treble created a division between the operating system and the HALs. By creating an API that allows the system to talk with the modularized HALs, brands could now upgrade Android without wasting time making these HALs compatible with new Android versions. If the camera, fingerprint sensor, bluetooth, etc, was working on Android 8, it would also work on Android 9 or 10.

In order to be certificated by Google, all new phones released with Android 8 had to support Treble and pass Google tests while running a generic Android image not made for that device.

Project Mainline

While Treble was a huge step in the right direction, it still relies on manufacturers to update their fork of Android and all their exclusive features. The problem is that after they sell you their phone, there’s no incentive for them to keep it up-to-date. Most see it as an additional cost.

With Project Mainline, Google is now able to directly update some modules:

Security: Media Codecs, Media Framework Components, DNS Resolver, Conscrypt.

Privacy: Documents UI, Permission Controller, ExtServices.

Consistency: Timezone data, ANGLE (developers opt-in), Module Metadata, Networking components, Captive Portal Login, Network Permission Configuration.

These updates are delivered via the Play Store as if they were app updates and should work on all devices released with Android 10. Some brands added Mainline support with their Android 10 update, but it was an optional feature for older phones.

While a major Android upgrade or a full system security patch still needs a proper OTA software update, this small step allows Google to send security patches and support new features without having to wait for brands to update their phones.

Even in this initial state, Project Mainline will allow you to receive some updates even if your phone is no longer supported. Assuming Google keeps pushing this idea, we should expect an expansion of supported modules in future Android versions.

This is how it looks on Android 10:

China-only devices won’t benefit from this

Since updates are delivered via Play Store, Project Mainline won’t work on phones without Google Mobile Services (GMS), as it is the case with all phones sold in China. These still need regular software updates to patch problems.

This shouldn’t be a problem if you live outside China as most Android powered devices come with the Play Store and fully comply with Google rules.

For more detailed information about how Treble and Mainline work, check the following links:

• Project Treble on Android blog
• Project Mainline on Android blog

The post Android’s Project Mainline appeared first on droid.tips.

Android is an open-source project built on top of the Linux kernel. This means that anyone can look at the source code and create something better, with less clutter, or simply more up-to-date than the original OS used by your phone.

In the early 2010’s, “custom ROM” meant lots of options and new functionality. In fact, some of the features that are now part of Android started in community projects like Paranoid Android, CyanogenMod, and many others.

These days custom ROMs are way less wild than they used to be. Most are simple and close to stock Android and give users (some) security updates before many OEMs, speed up things by not using slow UIs, add privacy settings, and in many cases allow users to be on the latest Android version before the manufacture releasing an official update.

Custom ROMs are popular among users with older devices that are no longer supported. To give you an example, the OnePlus One was released in 2014 and dropped by OnePlus in 2016, yet you can install Android 10 (the latest Android version available at the moment – 2019).

Where to find custom ROMs?

One of the best places to find custom ROMs, instructions, and help is to visit the XDA developers forums: forum.xda-developers.com

1. Start by searching for your phone’s name and model. If your phone is from a mainstream brand, then it’s very likely that they have a forum for each of their phones.
2. Look for the ROMs and Kernels subforum. This area will list the custom ROMs for your device.
3. Check the Guides subforum. Usually you can find tutorials that teach you everything, from unlocking your phone to installing custom ROMs.
4. Only in very rare cases, ROMs for one phone will work on another device. DO NOT install ROMs for other devices on your phone!

Depending on the phone you have, installing a custom ROM can result in a bricked (broken) device, so backup all your data and proceed only if you can afford to lose your device.

Well known custom ROMs

Some of the well known custom ROMs are:

• LineageOS: The most popular custom ROM, a continuation to the CyanogenMod project. Clean Android with some privacy enhancing features. They also have strict quality rules, so if a phone is supported, then all basic functionality should work.
• OmniROM: Created after some disagreements with the CyanogenMod project. Stock Android with some customizability built-in.
• Paranoid Android: Also an old project and probably the smallest from the 3, but also one of the more professional out there. Sadly they support a small number of devices.
• CarbonROM: A well known name for those that have been using ROMs for a long time. Similar to OmniROM.
• Resurrection Remix: Lots of options! Probably one of the most cutomizable custom ROMs out there.

This list is far from complete. There’s crDroid, AICP, and others that might not be as popular, but are very well known.

Depending on the device, you’ll also find Havoc, NitrogenOS, PixelExperience, etc, all with their set of functionality. The quality of these ROMs will vary as they are community projects, not something created by huge companies with big budgets.

Best brands to use custom ROMs

Brands like OnePlus, Xiaomi, ASUS, Motorola, LG, Google, etc, usually allow you to unlock your device’s bootloader (the first step when flashing a custom ROM for the first time).

You need to check first if there are custom ROMs for your device though.

Brands to avoid

While some brands are happy to allow users to install whatever they want on their devices, others aren’t and you should avoid them. They usually stop users from unlocking the bootloader and/or don’t provide the code needed for developers to do their job.

If you plan to use a custom ROM, avoid phones from brands like Huawei, Samsung, Nokia, etc, as they are not “development friendly”.

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