I doubt anyone in the world has ever uttered, “I wish I could charge my Android phone with this Lightning cable.” But, DIY engineer Ken Pillonel made that dream (or nightmare) come true, with a bizarre project that swaps out the USB-C charger on a Samsung Galaxy A51 with a Lightning port.
There’s probably never a situation where you want Apple’s proprietary charging design on any device, even on iPhones. That’s especially the case when you consider the fact that Lightning offers slower data transfer speeds and charging times than USB-C.
That didn’t stop Pillonel from pursuing this unnecessary engineering exercise, though. Before we write any mean comments, they did acknowledge in his teaser video that it was a “tongue in cheek project” that was purposely posted on April 1. They also noted that it was, in fact, real, but not to take the project too seriously.
It’s alive! —
In the 47-second video, Pillonel showed off the modded Galaxy A51 and proved that it could charge via Lightning cable. They also say that the Android device supports data transferring with the Apple wire.
Pillonel says it was “quite a technical challenge” and describes the project as “complex modification that required some out-of-the-box thinking.” There is clearly a bunch of soldering and customizations that most certainly voided the warranty, but it must’ve been a real breakthrough moment when the Lightning charger finally worked with the Galaxy A51.
It’s not the first time Pillonel did something like this. Before this, they actually went for the opposite build, making an iPhone with a working USB-C port. While the Android with Lightning charging project was more of a joke, the iPhone that could charge via USB-C was something that many people are still angrily demanding from Apple.
Video coming soon —
You’ll have to keep an eye on Pillonel’s YouTube channel if you want to follow the method to the madness. Even though it doesn’t serve a practical purpose, the upcoming video will presumably be a very revealing insight into how smartphone makers design their internals and maybe how useless Lightning charging really is.
There’s no reason to believe that this will see any traction beyond a silly YouTube video, but hey, at least the next time Pillonel is at a strictly Apple-only household, they’ll be able to charge their atrocity of a Samsung A51.
