The first adaption of wireless charging in a phone happened almost a decade ago. Since than more or less all flagship phones offer wireless charging but is it really worth it, what is some of its best use case, and how viable is wireless charging during travel?
I think we all know the benefit of wireless charging – its the convenience of putting your phone down on a pad, stand, or whatever and seeing it charge, all while not having wire directly plugged into the phone. Some also like the idea of juicing up their phone here and there throughout the day by simply tossing it on the wireless charger whenever they are not using it. Some like to toss it in overnight and charge their phone slowly (most wireless chargers charger much slower than wired chargers).
But at this point the wireless charging market is very diluted to a point that you need a gimmick to stand out. For example, here is a 10W RGB wireless charger from RapidX. It will charge everything you can typically charge on a wireless charger but this one looks cool.
Now, one of my pet peeve against wireless charging is that it charges much slower than wired charging and it tends to make the device warmer too. Well, as it turns out there are now various high watt wireless chargers. At the forefront of it all you’ll find companies like Huawei, Xiamo, and OnePlus shell out 40+ watt wireless charger. The one pictured below is a 50 watt wireless charger and it comes with build in fan to cool the whole thing down, how cool! On this stand shaped wireless charger also charge a phone on in landscape or portrait mode. Obviously, you can also charger other things on it.
Anyway. Huawei in particular even has a 27W fast wireless car charger clearly isn’t as fast as what is displayed above but 27W is still impressive. For reference, my current daily driver phone, Samsung Note 20 Ultra, charges at 25W while….wired! Meanwhile my Note 20 only charges at 15W wirelessly. So, to get the full benefit of ultra fast wireless charger one either needs to switch to phones that support it or needs to wait a few more year before Samsung, Apple, and other manufactures allow for faster wireless charging.
But as it stands, I think the best wireless chargers are one with gimmicks. for example, desk lamp with wireless charger or maybe even something as far fetched as mousepad with wireless charger seem like cool ideas to me. However, right now let’s talk a UV-C sanitizer that is also a wireless charger. the Einova Mundus Pro can sanitize up to two phones simultaneous and can also simultaneously wirelessly charge up to two phones at 10 W.
The idea is rather simple – the inside of the Mundus has enough space (see first two pictures above) for two phones. Obviously you can also sanitize other items using this device. The sanitization technique is the uses the usual UV-C lamp that you’ve probably heard of 10 times by now. Then, the outside of the device allows you to wireless charge up to two phones (see 3rd figure. Yes I’ve phones flipped the wrong way but it looks cooler okay?)
But I still wouldn’t carry any of these products with me during travel. If the vacation is long enough then maybe carrying a small wireless charger is worth for some. Maybe it is convenient to carry a single wireless charger comes than carrying charging pugs of various smartwatches.
Anyway, I think constant cool interactions with wireless charging will happen when it is adapted and embedded more widely into tech we already use. It would be super cool if the stand of bedside lamp in hotels had wireless charging capability. Until then I will pick carrying a power brick over wireless charger every time. Admittingly, I rarely carry a power brick but carrying a compact power bank wouldn’t be too terrible of an idea. And yes there are power banks that can charge at very fast pace like the lightweight 1200 mAh 40W power bank pictured above or the 20000 mAh 63W power bank from Einova.
Disclaimer: Above amazon links above are affiliate links.
