Wired is more efficient, you can pick it up and use it while charging, and the cable usually comes free with the phone. What is the point of wireless charging pads?
I have a wireless charger by my bed for charging overnight, it’s easier to just plop my phone on the stand when half asleep rather than fumble with a cable. Also, charging speed doesn’t matter because it’s going to be plugged in for a few hours when I and it’s easy to grab when my alarm goes off. But when I need a quick charge, then it’s a fast charge cable all the way
Yeah, to prevent the charging port becoming faulty?
I have one scenario where it’s useful. When in the car and entering a parking lot and you have to scan a qr/bar code on your phone, you can easily pick it up and get it out the window. That said, wireless chargers on cars are terrible.
I have a 6.5 foot cable for the car so I can yoyo that bitch out the window if I wanted to and have it still charging at high rate at all times
That said, wireless chargers on cars are terrible.
How so? I wired one into my center console and it works like a charm.
I’ve heard lots of complaints from people owning various brands that the built-in wireless charging pads are useless. Regularly cut off, phones don’t stay in place, etc. These are for the regular Toyotas, Hondas, etc., not the high end models.
Admittedly, charging ports are the first to break on any electronic unless it has a joystick. Wireless charging is a lot more robust, more water resistant, and allows you to do sleek shit without a weird hole in it
I use one in my car - it’s more convienet for short trips or trips with multiple stops. I do keep a cable for longer trips though, especially if I need to keep the screen on for GPS - the wireless charger makes the phone warm enough to stop charging over the course of an hour or so.
Probably if you’re too lazy to grab a cord, line it up with the plug, and press gently but firmly. With wireless, you can just lob it vaguely in the right vicinity and not overstrain your fine motor skills.
I thought it you don’t line it up exactly right it charges slowly and heats up a lot, ruining the battery
if it’s not aligned properly, it should shut off to prevent that from happening. (or, for example, if you place something else that’s metal over it.)
Mine didn’t, unfortunately. It just charged very slow and got hot. Hopefully newer ones are like you say.
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Thank you I didn’t realize the wireless chargers used magsafe.
Is magsafe built into the phone, or just in cases?
If you’re using an iPhone(12 or newer, Although not the 16e), then it’s in the phone. The bit in some cases is to add strength for accessories to snap to where it would be on the phone.
You can get MagSafe cases for some Android devices if you want to use MagSafe accessories with them.
My phone case is designed to attach a camera lens, and actually came with magsafe, but I didn’t have any magsafe attachments and ended up removing the magnets from the case because they interfered with the compass, despite promising not to.
If it’s completely misaligned yes. But there’s a wide spectrum between too far off to even turn on, and perfectly aligned.
This is what magsafe/qi 2 fixes by including magnets which should have been there from the start.
The amount of times I have tripped on a charging cord and sent my phone flying…
… but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?
It makes the phone harder to use, which is ironically useful to some. tbh I don’t understand lol
Most people can put their phone down long enough to let it charge, pause the doomscrolling and touch grass.
When I sleep at my mom’s house, there’s a smart lamp my brother put in the spare room that has 1 USB port on it and a wireless charging pad. I opt to use the wireless charging pad at night for my phone and the USB for my watch. Makes it so I can charge two devices simultaneously without having to switch out USBs.
in a car, having wireless charging pad is nice for the convenience of taking it with you and putting it on very quickly and easily, especially if you’re actively driving and just want to do it with the least amount of distractions. Even with USB type C being reversible, you still need to make sure the cable gets in the hole and that’s dangerous to do while driving. But with a wireless pad, you don’t have to look and the magnet helps guide it on correctly for you. You still shouldn’t do this while driving, but out of the two, a vastly safer alternative. Besides that, it’s nicer to be able to just grab your phone and go when leaving the car and also easier when entering. Another addition is that a wireless charging pad takes the place of two accessories and combines them together. So you now have a mount and a charger in one instead of both being separate.
Hygienically speaking, it’s cleaner in that you don’t have to touch the charger. Best for public use like a coffee cafe. People are gross and I try my hardest not to have touch contact with stuff if I can help it. So to be able to drop my phone down without touching a cable a million other people have been touching helps with that too.
Even though I like it…I still want a port. A lot of cases don’t allow you to make direct contact to have wireless charging, so it’s not always an option. Also don’t always want to have my phone laying down, sometimes I want to use it while it’s charging, especially when typing, and that’s near impossible with 90% of charging pads unless it’s a special type of MagSafe for iPhones. Then there’s also the fact that I like it as an option in case something breaks. If the port is dirty or damaged, I still have the wireless charging option. Same in reverse if the wireless function ceases to work for some reason.
I think the public use one is the most legitimate reason I’ve read so far, I would definitely prefer a wireless charger if it were public but I’ve also never used any sort of public charger before
It’s also safer, because you’re not connecting something that might carry data to the USB port. Wireless charging cannot transmit data. USB can, so delivering a virus or something that way isn’t out of the question, where it would be harder to do that over wireless charging.
Maybe a bit of an edge case but I use a wallet case and I still carry a credit card. Wireless chargers have cooked my credit card a few times… and nfc Google pay doesn’t always work.
On my S5, there’s a little flap that you had to open and close to maintain the IP67 rating. Constantly opening and closing it was a recipe to breaking it off, where wireless didn’t put that kind of wear in.
With my newer phone, it’s easier to keep the cable with a battery pack to charge when out and about, and charge wirelessly at home, since I generally don’t need it done with any great speed, and it saves having to buy/replace another cable, or forgetting to unpack and take it with me.
Qi charging is also pretty standard, which is also good if I have a few devices with different cable needs, but mutually support the same wireless charging standard, since I can put an iPhone and an android on the same pad, without having to swap cables back and forth.
I bought a wireless magnetic battery recently, and what quickly turned me off was that it charges at ~2/3rd efficiency (so effectively I have only 2/3rds of my powerbank capacity) and speed compared to its wired mode, even though it’s fast wireless and a solid brand and build. Also heats up my phone battery way more, so I just snap it to my phone and use the short and unobtrusive usb-c cable to charge it instead.
Now, if I was changing phones every year or two and I didn’t care about keeping its battery life - sure, I’d use the wireless charging without worries, although it will still be slightly slower than wired (but still fast charging anyway).
I just like being able to walk by the nightstand and have the phone “lock” to the charging pad when I lay it down.
In my car it is a lot more convenient than a charging cradle for being able to use turn by turn while driving.
It’s easier than putting a cord in.
Some charging pads also prop up the phone at an angle, making it easy to read the screen while also not having to hold the phone up. Most phones have their charging port on the bottom, so a phone stand couldn’t be used while charging with a cord.
Maybe I’m old and prefer having the phone in my hand rather than propped at an angle unless I’m watching some videos, in which case my phone would be landscape mode anyways so the port is easily accessible
Apple’s mag safe charger is pretty popular and you can easily hold the phone in portrait mode while charging (at 25W with the latest models). The puck is thin and sticks to the center of the back of the phone.
Does it charg as efficiently as a wired power bank?
The one I’ve used on my Samsung isn’t as fast as a wired power bank, but I don’t need to wrangle the cables like I do with the wired ones. I wouldn’t use a magsafe power bank to charge my phone from 0 (too slow). But leaving it attached gives me an extra couple of hours with just a little extra weight. Useful for things like conventions or travel.
Not even close. Ifixit did some testing, daily MagSafe wireless charging uses 36% more energy than a wire (which includes idle power draw). It also means slower charging.
That’s not physically possible.
But it is extremely efficient for what it is. The first number I found on google said it’s 95% efficient.
That doesn’t sound correct, considering the amount of wireless chargers that will take 10W, but can only deliver half that to the phone.
I’m also old, but I understand people do watch portrait videos. Sometimes a lot of them, in a single sitting. There’s a popular social media app which exclusively has short-form portrait videos.
I’m old enough that it would probably be creepy if I did use tik tok
My port isn’t worn out, but I’m worried it will become that way. I also don’t need it to charge at full speed overnight. Therefore, wireless charger.
