Charging a protected Li-Ion without a charger (still confused about charger vs protection)
Does a charger require a protection circuit?



Yes and no. Most reputable charger have built in safety mechanism, however reputable manufacturer would add them (eg DW01) to give them extra safety. Cheap product just don't have the budget to add in a protection circuitry for their battery.



  Do all protection circuits require a charger? 



You can charge the battery just applying a fix voltage, just like in this case. However this design with the protection will open the mosfet inside the board once voltage exceed preset settings. It's not a good design to keep triggering the safety circuit.



  If so, why having protection circuits attached to the batteries after all?
  What is missing in a protection circuit to also allow charging? (since both the 8205A and DW01 are present in the protection circuit and charger)



The circuit is to prevent batteries exploding in the event of overcharge.
8205A is the mosfet that open the circuit. DW01 is the IC that measure the voltage. It is possible to charge the battery with a fix 4.2V voltage thru a resistor without protection, I had done it but I don't recommend if you're not experience to know what's going on.
In addition, it also protects the battery from over discharge to a voltage that is too low that may damage the battery. Other PCM also have current limit and NTC to measure the temperature.



  How come my speakers don't have a charger IC but still work?



Dedicated charger uses CC (constant current) and CV (constant voltage) to charge the battery. For your case it's just CV, the downside is it may charge at a higher current than the battery spec allowed. More details can be Google.
Example for your board, if there's 2.2V drop across your 2.2 ohm resistor; that's 1A into the 1000mAh battery. Whereas the batt manufacturer only spec 0.5A charging. The outcome is the battery capacity will drop very fast.




Looking at the PCBA. This lousy design I draw out in the schematic below, the manufacture is hopping the protection circuit will stop the charging when the voltage rises upon a certain voltage. Do not use this product, it's a fire hazard.







simulate this circuit &ndash; Schematic created using CircuitLab