Bosch will be releasing a new fast charger with bluetooth connectivity in the UK this October with the Bosch GAL 18 V-160 C Professional Charger.
This new charger will be their most compact professional 18V charger yet. In the UK Bosch names their blue tools as professional since they have a homeowner range known as their green tools. Here in the USA they don’t need to classify their tools as professional in the name as people who know, know that all Bosch tools in the USA are for pros.
This new charger is claimed to be a fast charger and is said to charge the new 18VCORE batteries to 80% in 35 minutes. This doesn’t say much as most chargers charge very fast in the beginning and then slow down towards the end and also Bosch doesn’t specify which size 18VCORE battery as they currently have a 6.3 ah fatpack battery and will soon have an 8.0 ah fatpack battery and 12.0 ah 15 cell battery. I still don’t know what to call 15 cell batteries. This charger has built in air cooling to help keep fast charging batteries cooler.
The new charger also has built in bluetooth connectivity to connect with the Bosch app and will give detailed information about battery health and easy change of the charging modes due to Bluetooth connection to the smart phone.
What’s neat about the charger is that there is a built in fuel gauge to display charging level as the battery charges. What’s strange about this bluetooth connected device and all other Bosch bluetooth tools is that the bluetooth module is removable. I’m not sure why you’d ever need to remove the module? I could understand if the bluetooth feature was optional as it is on the USA brushless grinder, but when it comes packaged with the tool, it doesn’t make sense.
While this new charger is headed for release in the UK, I have a good feeling we’ll get our own here in the USA soon after as we tend to get the UK leftovers/hand-me-downs quite often from Bosch.
Big thanks to SP for bringing this to my attention!
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I like the idea of the charge level fuel gauge but I don’t know how useful it would be in reality. Myself and the guys I work with all carry enough batteries to easily cover our days work, so we never need “that little extra” to finish the job. I suppose it could be handy for those with limited batteries.
The health check function though, could be a good thing. I have a couple of suspect batteries and it would be handy to be able check them.