Power tool companies have discovered USB-C — and DeWalt’s two-way charger sounds awesome

Power tool batteries are some of the densest batteries on the market, but they rarely play nice with the kind of batteries that top up your laptop, phone and PC. One of the options being tested by DeWalt and Ryobi looks really neat.

It's easy to argue that the idea of a charging port on the battery is the furthest away from reality.

Image by Ryobi

The 4V 2Ah batteries are not compatible with existing tools and are not powerful enough for the power tools that dominate the market today. Instead, you'll have to buy into a new line of tools with similar power to a Dremel.

Image by Ryobi

This spring, both DeWalt and Ryobi will be releasing snap-onusb-c-adapters that will allow you to charge their 18V and 20/60V batteries with ausb-c.

The DeWalt 20V Max USB Charger/Adapter (DCB094K) will be hitting stores in March and will come with a 100WPD port.

Image: DeWalt

Sean Fitzgibbons, DeWalt battery product manager, told me that the kit can turn any of the company's 20V or FlexVolt batteries into a five-amp, 100 watt, 20 watt, or 20 watt, 20 watt, 20 watt, 20 watt, 20 watt,

He points out that the company's popular 5Ah DCB205 battery has a capacity that is more than the 1.3Ah or 1.5Ah batteries that come with the company's impact drivers. The 1.4-pound pack is theoretically capable of filling the largest laptop batteries on the market. Laptops are limited to 100Wh batteries because you can't board an airplane with larger ones in many countries, and you'll lose some juice due to transfer losses.

DeWalt's highest capacity battery is 12Ah, but you can pay $379 for a monster 15Ah/300Wh battery pack that could charge a 16-inch MacBook Pro three.

Fitzgibbons says he expects them to be popular because they were designed up to the threshold of the standard.

Only a few of the DeWalt's lighter power tools have 5 or more charging ports, so it might not be the fastest way to charge your DeWalt batteries.

It's weird that DeWalt doesn't ship it with a 100W one, but instead with a 65W one, so you may need to provide your own power source for the fastest speeds. It comes with a braided 100Wusb-C tousb-C cable, so you should be covered on the battery-to-laptop front.

The 18V One+ 150 Watt Power Source is slated for the spring and has some fancy features like a three-prong AC outlet, a built-in light, and a pair ofusb ports. The charging port is limited to 30W, less than a third of DeWalt's, and it skimps on the most important part. Milwaukee also has a 45Wusb-C port, but it can't charge your power tool batteries to start.

Image: Ryobi

While these might be useful for people who already own a bunch of power tools and batteries, the bigger question is when we will see charge ports built into batteries.

He thinks that the DCB094 may be a test of sorts.