The dream stalled
Chronicle: Wireless Charging - A Distant Dream Without Cables
When wireless charging first appeared, there were many hopes. I remember Nokia was an early adopter. Cables would become obsolete, and there would be charging pads integrated into café tables, waiting halls, trains, and homes.
In the long run, phones would be made completely without connectors, and the cords would thus become obsolete. There was talk that Apple, instead of switching from lightning to USB-C, would completely skip wired charging and only have wireless. That didn't happen, at least not yet.
Actually, the best thing about wireless charging is that the infrastructure, so to speak, that is, the charger itself, is independent of the phone that is to be charged. I don't want to carry any charger with me; the wireless chargers should just be everywhere I need them. And of course, they should work regardless of which phone I have, that's kind of the basic requirement.
Today, my main chargers are the one by the bed (wireless) and the one on the desk (also wireless). That dream of wireless chargers being integrated into the car, public transport, and other places still feels distant. Perhaps not entirely practical either. Firstly, wireless chargers have been such that the phone must lie precisely right against the coil to charge effectively, and even then, wired charging is often significantly faster.
At least now there is some movement in the development of wireless charging. Apple's Magsafe with magnets that keep the phone and charger in place has spread with the Qi2 standard. I have just tested the new Oneplus 13 which, with the help of its case, obediently stays attached to Magsafe-certified chargers. Rumors suggest that the upcoming S25 series from Samsung has the same feature, and then we quickly have a de facto standard that is actually used.
In the iPhone, the magnets are integrated into the phone itself so that accessories can be connected without a case. Oneplus and Samsung seem to be integrating it into the case instead. I can live with that. Most of us always use a case anyway, and you don't want to remove the case to charge or connect an accessory.
Oneplus is investing in several wireless magnetic chargers in connection with its launch. A regular power bank that is magnetic and charges wirelessly, and a round, magnetic one with a fan that also charges wirelessly. The idea is that you should have them when you're on the go, but considering that the magnets may not necessarily be strong enough to keep the charger in place if you have the phone in, for example, your pocket, and wired charging is significantly faster, it feels like a misguided investment that hardly solves any problems.
