I've been using old-school Anker wireless stand chargers since my first
phone capable of using the technology (~2020) and they've always worked
perfectly. Last week I found that the charger on my nightstand was acting
flaky. I'd put my new Pixel 9 Pro on it and after a few seconds the blue
charging light on the charger would start to blink and charging would stop.
The question came: phone failure or charger failure. I answered that by
putting the phone on another on in my office and it worked perfectly so it
had to be the charger so the next logical step was to swap the two. The
'bad' charger worked fine in the office and the 'good' charger failed in
the bedroom. Same problem.

At that point I was thinking that there were only two possibilities: the
USB wall changer feeding the wireless was going bad and that seemed the
most likely culprit so I dragged the massive hand-crafted cherry bed away
from the wall and crawled behind it as swapped the charger. Pushed the bed
back (an error) and tested again and had the same problem. By then it
seemed that the only culprit must be the cable between the charger and the
stand - had it gotten pinched and damaged? So, drag the bed out and
replaced the cable pushed the bed back, full of confidence. Same problem.

By now I was thinking that maybe I was doomed to wired charging but then,
quite by accident I rearranged the nightstand items and move the charger
all of six inches diagonally. It worked. OK, serious spooky things here.

I finally came to the only possible conclusion -- it was a feng shui
problem. Then, after a bit of cogitation I came to the conclusion that
placing that combination of phone and charging stand too close to the New
Amazon Echo which had replaced an old Dot on the 18"-square nightstand top
could induce insanity into either the phone or charging stand or perhaps
just interrupted their handshakes. I've come to think that maybe the Zigbee
hub in the new Echo is the culprit. Maybe I'll never know.

And to think that I used to be considered an expert troubleshooter...

On 2024-10-27 23:12, BenignBodger wrote:
> I've been using old-school Anker wireless stand chargers since my first
> phone capable of using the technology (~2020) and they've always worked
> perfectly. Last week I found that the charger on my nightstand was
> acting flaky. I'd put my new Pixel 9 Pro on it and after a few seconds
> the blue charging light on the charger would start to blink and charging
> would stop. The question came: phone failure or charger failure. I
> answered that by putting the phone on another on in my office and it
> worked perfectly so it had to be the charger so the next logical step
> was to swap the two. The 'bad' charger worked fine in the office and the
> 'good' charger failed in the bedroom. Same problem.
>
> At that point I was thinking that there were only two possibilities: the
> USB wall changer feeding the wireless was going bad and that seemed the
> most likely culprit so I dragged the massive hand-crafted cherry bed
> away from the wall and crawled behind it as swapped the charger. Pushed
> the bed back (an error) and tested again and had the same problem. By
> then it seemed that the only culprit must be the cable between the
> charger and the stand - had it gotten pinched and damaged? So, drag the
> bed out and replaced the cable pushed the bed back, full of confidence.
> Same problem.
>
> By now I was thinking that maybe I was doomed to wired charging but
> then, quite by accident I rearranged the nightstand items and move the
> charger all of six inches diagonally. It worked. OK, serious spooky
> things here.

Interesting.

> I finally came to the only possible conclusion -- it was a feng shui
> problem. Then, after a bit of cogitation I came to the conclusion that
> placing that combination of phone and charging stand too close to the
> New Amazon Echo which had replaced an old Dot on the 18"-square
> nightstand top could induce insanity into either the phone or charging
> stand or perhaps just interrupted their handshakes. I've come to think
> that maybe the Zigbee hub in the new Echo is the culprit. Maybe I'll
> never know.
>
> And to think that I used to be considered an expert troubleshooter...

You did find the cause :-)

Something in the Echo alters the electromagnetic field sufficiently.

--
Cheers, Carlos.