Methodology
wattaire does not test chargers in a lab. What it does is reconcile what manufacturers, retailers and independent measurement sites each claim about the same product, keep a source against every individual number, and show you how solid that number is. This page explains the rules, and the counters below come straight out of the database, so they are current rather than aspirational.
A number gets promoted to cross-checked only when two independent sources agree on it. A manufacturer page and a retailer copying that same page are not independent, so that pairing does not count. When two sources disagree, we do not average them and we do not quietly pick one: the disagreement is stored as a conflict, it shows on the product page, and it pushes the data score down until someone resolves it. Right now 78 values are sitting in that state.
Most comparison sites cite a source for a product. We store one for every value: the wattage, each port rating, the width, the weight, the power split. That is why a product can be excellent on power data and sparse on physical dimensions at the same time, and why we can tell you which half is which. Across the catalogue that is 717 rows, drawn from 149 sources: 66 manufacturer documents, 32 independent measurements and teardowns, 35 retailer listings.
The score out of ten is a documentation score, not a product review. A cheap charger can score higher than an expensive one simply because its maker publishes more. It combines how complete the record is, how much of it is sourced, how much has been confirmed by a second source, and how much has been physically measured by someone. Unresolved conflicts subtract from it. Nothing about price, brand or commission enters the formula.
Tier A means the record has been through a full reconciliation pass across independent sources. Tier B means catalogue depth: the product is here, its specs are sourced, but it has not had the full cross-check yet. We label it rather than hiding it, because a shallow record that says so is more useful than a missing product. Today: 19 tier A, 22 tier B.
Prices are periodic snapshots with the date we checked them, not live feeds, and anything older than a week is flagged as such. Within a market we show the gross price you would actually pay. Across markets we strip VAT before ranking, because a Hungarian gross price carries 27 percent tax and a German one 19, and comparing those would rank tax systems rather than chargers. US prices exclude sales tax, which is added at checkout.
Two honest limits. First, we depend on what others publish, so a manufacturer that documents badly will look worse here than a product that is genuinely worse. Second, we have almost no first-party measurement (15 values so far); where an independent teardown or review has measured something, we cite it, and that carries more weight in the score than a spec sheet.
Found a number you think is wrong? That is the most useful thing you can send us. Every value has a source behind it, so a correction can be checked in minutes rather than argued about.