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News flash: when you carry the phone around in your pocket, the bending and vibrations stress the solder bumps and will eventually cause the phone to fail. Clearly, you must keep the phone in a nitrogen-purged, vibration isolated, ESD-safe glovebox. Oh forget the gloves, it causes the oleophobic coating to wear off.

My phones have seen many drops and the battery always wears out first. Further, my phones have never experienced such disconnections despite years of use.

The employment of sarcasm in a sensationalist post doesn’t make it a typical truth.
 
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Slicecharge Pro, now available for sale directly from Hard Cider Labs



Really? How so? Mine haven't given me any issues, aside from when the watch puck is in stand mode, it relies on the magnets to also support the watch (meaning if you bump the charger, there's a good chance the watch will fall off and not charge).
I like this charger. Although I wasn't looking for a "charge all 3 wirelessly" solution, just something to charge all 3 devices at once. The build quality on this is really good. I tried a cheaper 3-in-1 and it was a "you get what you pay for" kind of thing. So I opted to spend the extra money and get something that is good. This nomad looks good as well, and I probably would've opted the apple watch edition of the nomad charger, if I had the airpods with the wireless charging.

Mangotek 3-in-1
 
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Nomad today shared a behind-the-scenes video that focuses on its upcoming "Base Station Pro" wireless charging mat. Similar to Apple's canceled AirPower accessory, the Base Station Pro can charge up to three devices at once in any position.

nomad-base-station-pro.jpg

Nomad worked with Aira and its "FreePower" wireless charging technology to build the Base Station Pro, which features an 18 coil matrix and proprietary algorithms that locate your smartphone in any orientation. The mat supports the Qi standard, so it's compatible with Apple's latest iPhones and any other smartphone that has Qi wireless charging support.

In the box, Nomad includes a 2 meter USB-C to USB-C braided cable and a 30W USB-C power adapter. The Base Station Pro itself measures about 8.7 inches long, 5.5 inches wide, and 0.5 inches thick.

Nomad's video shows off the Base Station Pro and how the company went about creating the device. The video and Nomad's website showcase the iPhone and AirPods on the mat, but Apple Watch charging will not be supported. Nomad currently sells the Base Station Apple Watch Edition as another AirPower alternative, which includes a dedicated charging puck for the wearable device and is priced at $139.


You can also purchase the original Base Station for $99, which charges up to two smartphones wirelessly or up to four with the integrated USB-C and USB-A ports.

Nomad has yet to reveal a price or a release date for the Base Station Pro, but those interested can sign up to be notified when it will be available for pre-order. You can head to Nomad's website for more information.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Nomad. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

Article Link: Nomad's Upcoming 'Base Station Pro' is the Latest AirPower Alternative, Able to Charge 3 Devices in Any Position
5W it’s already a fail, it will take 5 hours to charge a iPhone.
 
I’ve tried about four different charging pads and there have been issues with all of them. One of them almost overheated my AirPods case (Berlin), another is very specific about placement of the device and my most recent purchase, the SliceCharge, is extremely unreliable. So in my opinion, we are still quite far from seeing a proper AirPower alternative. I hope I’m wrong though.

Has anyone tried Nomad’s Apple Watch Edition? And is it working properly with Apple Watch, AirPods and iPhone charging simultaneously?

I own one, and it’s pretty good. Will charge my iPhone XS, AirPods, and watch at the same time, albeit not very quickly. My main complaint is that the watch is very particular about its placement, and is easily dislodged.

I mostly charge my devices overnight, so I don’t mind if it’s slow, but waking up with 20% charge on the watch is not ideal.
 
Nomad has come along way, I think their products and accessories are fair for what they charge in terms of quality, It just usually seems like they sell out of something, takes forever to get it back in stock, maybe they just have a shorthand of suppliers? Anyways, looks like the perfect product in comparison to what the Airpower was supposed to be in some respects.
 
Anyone else find that video a little weird me utterly pointless? It's entirely people pretending to be designing something (in some shots they're gesturing at lines that already exist!) that isn't exactly a masterpiece of industrial design interspersed with shots of it doing the same thing, several times!
 
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I have their Apple Watch + 3 device pad. It is an INCREDIBLE pain in the ass to position a device properly for it to charge. To me this defeats the entire purpose of Qi charging. I see it as a big upgrade to the nightstand to just put your device down and have it charge, instead of fumbling for fugly cables.

But when you have to sit there and fidget the device one direction or another until it starts charging, purpose = defeated.

I appreciate what Nomad is trying to do here, but given the fact that Apple couldn't do it with 2 years ( at least ) of effort, and effectively gave up because they not only failed but concluded that success wasn't possible...I'd be very cautious about any product trying to do the same.

What needs to happen is very, very clear. The Qi standard is absolute garbage and needs to be replaced. It was a fine tech demo for the androids of the world, but now that it is higher quality products it is insufficient to meet the demands of the user experience.

Someone (like Apple) needs to spearhead a new standard, designed to meet expectations. How the Qi standard ever made it out of the lab I will never understand.
 
5W it’s already a fail, it will take 5 hours to charge a iPhone.
Funny considering everyone's iPhone sits on the charger for 8 hours every night. Seriously, this is just a non-issue. Wireless charging is about convenience, the nightstand is its #1 home.

The entire "fast charging" thing is bizarre anyway. What the hell are people doing that requires them to recharge their phone as fast as possible? There is no common, realistic use case that involves someone starting a day with fully charged iPhone, blowing through the battery, and desperately needing to recharge as quickly as possible for that they can start blowing through it again.

iPhone lasts more than long enough now to get through an entire day with normal use. With an ounce of personal responsibility, fast charging is never necessary. Charge your phone overnight. Charge your phone while in transit (car, bus, etc.). If you do both of those things, and still blow through your battery, your habits are unhealthy and need to change.

What doesn't need to change is the charging speed of wireless charging.
 
Still doesn't do it. Watch needs to be in a specific spot.

9to5mac puts this explanation out there:
The issue, and likely the difficulty Apple has with AirPower, is that standard wireless charging coils are too large to charge the Watch – while Watch coils are too small to charge an iPhone. The only way around that is to have overlapping coils of both standard and Watch size, which creates interference issues. Hard Cider Labs hasn’t attempted this, likely figuring that if even Apple hasn’t done it yet, it’s best left alone.
You can just build an array of the smaller coils and energize as many as you need to have enough flux for the phone.
 
Dman. I just got my Nomad. It’s disappointing how accurate the aligning has to be. I’ve woken up to an iPhone with a near dead battery because it was off by a few millimetres.
 
I’ve tried about four different charging pads and there have been issues with all of them. One of them almost overheated my AirPods case (Berlin), another is very specific about placement of the device and my most recent purchase, the SliceCharge, is extremely unreliable. So in my opinion, we are still quite far from seeing a proper AirPower alternative. I hope I’m wrong though.

Has anyone tried Nomad’s Apple Watch Edition? And is it working properly with Apple Watch, AirPods and iPhone charging simultaneously?
Slicecharge Pro works absolutely fine?
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The mat is way too big. Anyone with a sense for minimalistic design wont be interested in it. If it was considerably smaller, I’d be all ears.
 
I wish people would stop giving that same old tired justification for being too cheap to buy a $15 Qi pad.

The heat from USB-C wired charging, which operates at 24 watts, far exceeds 5-7.5 W wireless charging, and puts far more wear on the battery.
Who said anything about a 24 watt, USB C charger?
 
Not a fan of wireless charging. Which introduces more heat. Which, ironically, could benefit from a fan.

I keep seeing people comment on wireless charger heat. Is this like many of the [insert gate here] or is it a real concern?

I ask because my wireless charging experience has quietly been a game changer. Can't fathom going back to playing that stupid try-and-dock-the-Space-Shuttle-to-the-floating-fuel-line-in-the-dark-of-night game. Dumb.

It's kind of like when the Home Button was removed in favor of the all-screen design of the X. Within about 13-seconds of swiping around, it made the Home Button feel like 1992.

My wireless charger easily represents the best $10 I ever gave Amazon.
 
I keep seeing people comment on wireless charger heat. Is this like many of the [insert gate here] or is it a real concern?

It isn't. It's people who are jealous trying to justify their lack of technology. As I pointed out, the included wired charging in the 11 Pro, and the optional capability in the X through 11, charges at up to 5x the rate of wireless and definitely generates more heat.

Chargerlab found that the all time worst configuration is USB-C on Apple's own 29 W charger. The phone selects 15 V instead of 9 V and gets very hot.

The entire "fast charging" thing is bizarre anyway. What the hell are people doing that requires them to recharge their phone as fast as possible? There is no common, realistic use case that involves someone starting a day with fully charged iPhone, blowing through the battery, and desperately needing to recharge as quickly as possible for that they can start blowing through it again.

You took a intercontinental flight and blew the battery over 12 hours. Now you have 2 hours at the airport to charge before connecting to another 5 hour flight.

Line of business applications like POS and delivery where you want to charge it as quickly as possible in between shifts. (One of the reasons why they sell Android devices with removable battery packs)

People who are going on a hike after work and want their phone topped off to 100% for peace of mind.
 
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It isn't. It's people who are jealous trying to justify their lack of technology. As I pointed out, the included wired charging in the 11 Pro, and the optional capability in the X through 11, charges at up to 5x the rate of wireless and definitely generates more heat.

Chargerlab found that the all time worst configuration is USB-C on Apple's own 29 W charger. The phone selects 15 V instead of 9 V and gets very hot.



You took a intercontinental flight and blew the battery over 12 hours. Now you have 2 hours at the airport to charge before connecting to another 5 hour flight.

Line of business applications like POS and delivery where you want to charge it as quickly as possible in between shifts. (One of the reasons why they sell Android devices with removable battery packs)

People who are going on a hike after work and want their phone topped off to 100% for peace of mind.
You don't know that they are jealous, or not using the technology. I have a wireless charger. It's okay. Not a game changer, in my opinion. Everybody has their own opinion.
I definitely wouldn't use it in the car in the summertime. It does cause the phone to warm up more than a standard wired charger.
 
You don't know that they are jealous, or not using the technology. I have a wireless charger. It's okay. Not a game changer, in my opinion. Everybody has their own opinion.

It's OK to say they don't have the capability or never tried it or that it's too slow or that they charge in a moving vehicle, but the excuse that it generates excess heat that reduces device life over standard wired charging is simply wrong.
 
I have their Apple Watch + 3 device pad. It is an INCREDIBLE pain in the ass to position a device properly for it to charge. To me this defeats the entire purpose of Qi charging. I see it as a big upgrade to the nightstand to just put your device down and have it charge, instead of fumbling for fugly cables.

But when you have to sit there and fidget the device one direction or another until it starts charging, purpose = defeated.

I appreciate what Nomad is trying to do here, but given the fact that Apple couldn't do it with 2 years ( at least ) of effort, and effectively gave up because they not only failed but concluded that success wasn't possible...I'd be very cautious about any product trying to do the same.

What needs to happen is very, very clear. The Qi standard is absolute garbage and needs to be replaced. It was a fine tech demo for the androids of the world, but now that it is higher quality products it is insufficient to meet the demands of the user experience.

Someone (like Apple) needs to spearhead a new standard, designed to meet expectations. How the Qi standard ever made it out of the lab I will never understand.

I don't get it, that's not my experience with Qi charging at all. I bought a cheap $10 charging pad at the campus bookstore and I just plop my phone on it and it charges. I don't have to align anything precisely at all, just make sure it's reasonably centered on the pad and off it charges.
 
I’m curious why/how Apple couldn’t finalise AirPower being the biggest tech company in the world.
I’m not a wireless charging fan as of yet but these alternatives make me wonder
Technical innovation often enough comes from smaller companies (partially because somebody had a great idea of a product and partially because somebody or rather a small group of people happen to have the right knowledge and the right ideas how to implement the product idea).

And to be a stickler, Apple also attempted to enable Apple Watch charging which so far, I think, nobody has managed to implement with free placement of three devices.
 
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I’m curious why/how Apple couldn’t finalise AirPower being the biggest tech company in the world.
I’m not a wireless charging fan as of yet but these alternatives make me wonder

Apple have high standards and won’t sell something half done.
 
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