I have been using Anker Products and recommending them for years upon years. They made the best USB battery banks, cables, and wall chargers, but I no longer recommend them, and here is why.
2015 - The Beginning
Our story starts in 2015 when I purchased my first power bank from a small, enthusiast-focused power bank company named Anker. I bought the Anker PowerCore+ 10050 which at the time was the pinnacle of USB battery packs. An all-metal frame, super high-quality batteries, QC3 support, as well as best-in-class warranty, and customer support, all for a very slight premium over its rivals. I would shortly thereafter purchase a Micro-B Powercore + cable which lasted longer than the all-metal power bank. (Until I lost it sometime in late 2019.)
At the time Anker had the brilliant philosophy of, "We will make two products: the best in the world, and the one that's better than that". A simple distinction between the Powercore line and the Powercore+ line. Anker would typically be the company that I would recommend for just about any product they made, without a second thought. I probably have sold 100s of their products to friends and family. And have never had such overall positive feedback on any other company.
2017- Cracks In the Armor
But as time moved on, things got more and more confusing, often due to their new revisions each year. Trying to find the exact model and the year that you wanted slowly got more and more difficult, with very little consistency from year to year. After a while, the supple, high quality, braided, red cables somehow had look-alikes that were waxy and stiff. The power banks went downhill as well, going from aluminum to plastic, in the never-ending quest for lighter and smaller. They also began to generally fall behind their rivals in technology.
They were slow in creating new, quick-charging standards as well as basic things like pass-through charging, which they still don't have available in most of their battery banks. Additionally, USB C is still not the standard on all of their power banks. Constant naming scheme changes and more obtuse and varied product lines only added to the confusion. As Anker became bigger, it started spinning off many other brands like Eufy, Nebula, and Roav, and their focus on making their own best products changed.
2022 No Longer The King
Quite recently, I decided to replace my aging Anker PowerCore Speed 10k. After taking a deep dive into power banks again, as I looked for a USB c power bank with PPS and passthrough charging, Anker just wasn't there. I ended up purchasing a INUI B61 for now.
11/23/2022 The Killing Blow
Then, a week later, Paul Moore reported that the Eufy sub-brand was uploading “private" images/faces & names to the cloud, when he didn't even have a cloud subscription! Not only were the credentials not encrypted and therefore viewable remotely, anywhere on VLC, (which wouldn't have been such a big deal as the internet is super insecure in general), but then Eufy denied the claims, at least initially. And on December 16 2022 they decided to delete there privacy polices per the Verge,
That was the final nail in the coffin for me, and I will not be buying or recommending Anker or any of its sub-brands again.
Henceforth, I will be removing everything Anker from my recommendations and will try to find alternatives. Feel free to send in recommendations as always.
AY