{"id":5149,"date":"2026-08-07T14:26:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T14:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=5149"},"modified":"2026-08-07T14:26:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T14:26:50","slug":"werewolf-vflex-usb-c-dc-barrel-jack-preview-hands-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=5149","title":{"rendered":"Werewolf transformed my old gadgets into USB-C powered ones"},"content":{"rendered":"


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When I haul my 27-inch desktop monitor into the garage to film fun gadget videos<\/a>\u2026 or want to play Japanese SNES games with friends\u2026 or lose the AC adapter for my old external hard disk\u2026 I can now power them with a USB battery instead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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None of them came with USB-C ports; the entire USB protocol was barely a twinkle in its creator\u2019s eye when Nintendo shipped the Super Famicom in 1990! But a tiny programmable dongle, from a company called Werewolf<\/a>, can transform old power ports to accept USB-C electricity. I\u2019m so impressed, I just bought a second kit for a friend\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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With these dongles, there\u2019s no surgery required to add USB-C. You plug the $8 Werewolf VFLEX dongle into your phone to program it, plug it into your USB charger or battery, then attach a $4 barrel jack tip.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s like having a universal A\/C adapter, one you don\u2019t even need to plug into the wall, because modern USB-C batteries offer far more power than yesteryear\u2019s gadgets did.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Here\u2019s my Asus monitor, my Super Famicom, and a cheap RCA-to-HDMI adapter all <\/em>powered by a single Shargeek 300<\/a> portable battery and two VFLEX adapters:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Yes,<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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At its current rate of drain (2W for the game, 24W for the monitor, and less than 1W for HDMI), that big battery will last hours this way. With my wife\u2019s original 1989 Game Boy, which I measured draining just 0.33 watts playing Tetris<\/em>, even my pocket battery<\/a> could theoretically power it for over 90 hours straight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I have non-theoretical examples, too: When I held a classic gaming party on the Fourth of July, I genuinely powered this Super Famicom with a VFLEX for some five-player Bomberman<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When I recorded my Steam Machine video<\/a>, I used an old Atomos recording device whose aging batteries died too fast \u2014 so I used a VFLEX to plug it in.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And when I shot my Sharge Disk Pro 2 video<\/a> just the other day, I didn\u2019t want to rip my monitor\u2019s carefully cable-managed power supply out of my desk just to film in my garage for a day. I turned it into a portable<\/em> monitor by plugging in a VFLEX and a USB-C battery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"This<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This Litepanels Croma takes six AAs, but it also has a barrel jack\u2026<\/em><\/figcaption>Photo by Sean Hollister \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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It\u2019s practical, and it doesn\u2019t require surgery, but the VFLEX does take some<\/em> forethought. Before you plug it into a gadget, you should always plug the USB-C end into your phone to set the right voltage. It does store settings in non-volatile memory, but I hate to think what might happen to my vintage Game Boy if I accidently shoved my monitor\u2019s 19 volts into it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The genius of Werewolf\u2019s system is that it doesn\u2019t need to convert<\/em> voltage \u2014 it asks for the power you want. It uses the same protocols that other USB-C gadgets do to negotiate power, only here you get to specify how much.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But you can\u2019t just buy a VFLEX and expect your existing chargers to do everything else. For example, my Apple 140W USB-C power adapter, the most powerful the company makes, can\u2019t deliver the 19 volts my desktop monitor wants. Like every 100W USB-C PD charger, it\u2019s comfortable delivering 5V, 9V, 15V, or 20V, and because it\u2019s a 140W Extended Power Range (EPR) charger, it can do 28V as well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"You<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

You can add your own devices for easy selection.<\/em><\/figcaption>Photo by Sean Hollister \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Those voltages might be fine for many of your gadgets, and Werewolf claims the VFLEX can even go up to 48V if you\u2019ve got a 240W USB-C power adapter to feed it. But if you need USB-C voltage below or between<\/em> the standard 5, 9, 15, 20, 28, 36, or 48, you need what\u2019s called a programmable power supply (PPS)<\/a>, and Apple\u2019s charger isn\u2019t that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Thankfully, you don\u2019t need to think about most of this. You can save profiles for each gadget and charger to the Werewolf app \u2014 and use the VFLEX dongle itself to test your power sources. Press the scan button, plug the dongle into your charger, plug it back into your phone, and the app will store your charger\u2019s capabilities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Not<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Not every power supply is equal.<\/em><\/figcaption>Photo by Sean Hollister \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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When it\u2019s time to plug in my 19-volt monitor, I don\u2019t need to pick \u201c19 volts\u201d or remember which of my chargers can deliver \u2014 I just tap the picture of my monitor, and the app tells me which of my saved chargers are compatible. Tap that charger, hit \u201cUpdate\u201d to program the dongle, then plug everything in correctly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How did I know my monitor needed 19 volts to begin with? The VFLEX can\u2019t test a dumb barrel jack, unfortunately. I had to look up that spec on the monitor itself, or the old power brick. Usually, you\u2019ll find the device\u2019s input voltage or the charger\u2019s output voltage, though you can also look them up online.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"The<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The VFLEX is modular; you can swap out different barrel jack tips by yanking them out. They only fit one way.<\/em><\/figcaption>Photo by Sean Hollister \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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But there is one additional wrinkle: Some devices, including guitar pedals and my Nintendo Game Boy and Super Famicom, have a negative<\/em> center pin instead of a positive one, so you have to use a reverse-polarity connector to avoid feeding them backward. The Werewolf app doesn\u2019t let you program this (even though there\u2019s a non-working toggle there) and you can\u2019t just flip the connector upside down.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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If you see the center negative symbol<\/a> on your gadget, you need to use an orange-tipped plug:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"These<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

These are both the same size barrel jack, but the orange one is wired center-negative.<\/em><\/figcaption>Photo by Sean Hollister \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Werewolf\u2019s Kevin Spangler (who has since left the company) said the team knows VFLEX \u201cmay not resonate with the average consumer\u201d because of these wrinkles; it\u2019s working on specific adapter cables for retro gaming consoles, CPAP machines, and M12 connectors for industrial environments too. And founder Luke Beno says he\u2019s planning to slowly phase out the orange connectors in favor of a reverse-polarity version of the VFLEX itself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe main reason why is that it can convert any adapter size to reverse-polarity, so we do not need to build two variants of each connector,\u201d he says. Once that happens, the Werewolf app will also be able to warn you if you\u2019ve got the wrong type of VFLEX connected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I\u2019m selfishly loving my modular USB-C power trip, and I want my Werewolf to be even more powerful and flexible than it is already. The dongles are already firmware updatable, there\u2019s a public API<\/a> and a web app<\/a>, and Spangler said the company might even build its own power supplies to unlock more voltages in the future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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