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"Wireless" charging

N

nStyle

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 6, 2009
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"Wireless" charging is such a misnomer. You’re still tethered to a specific place to charge (where the wire is). Nothing is truly capable of "wireless" charging until your phone is always with you and always charged.

The thing that bothers me the most is it's not even a little bit wireless. The charger itself is tethered to a wall therefore it is still a wired charger. The phone sits on the charger which is connected to a wire. Calling it wireless is stupid.

I know Apple isn't to blame for the terminology, I just thought I'd try to discuss this here. I'm sure I'm not the first.

About the only thing good about "wireless charging" (I refuse to refer to it without quotation marks) is that it's slightly more convenient. But at the end of the day, it's still totally unremarkable. It's actually less convenient if you like to use your phone while it's charging.
 
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I think you're making a mountain out of a mole hill. The iPhone is charging wirelessly. There's no connecting wires from the charger to the phone. Yes the charging unit has to get its power from somewhere so its plugged into the wall.

Its really not a big deal imo
 
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How is it not wireless charging? Does any wire go into your phone when it is charging via the wireless charging? No, hence wireless charging.

Think of it this way, through your thought process, wireless charging would never be a thing. Something will always have to be wired to something to provide power to whatever is pushing power to your device. Whether your phone has to be on top of it or can be 20 feet away, a wire will always be involved.
 
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Hater said:
Wireless telephone my arse. You still need a tower to transmit signals!
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False equivalency, although you're actually making my point. You don't need to be anywhere (comparatively) near the tower for your phone to make calls. As a consumer, you also don't ever think about where the tower is or that the tower even exists at all. That's my point about "wireless chargers". For it to be wireless, you wouldn't care where the charger is or that the charger exists at all.

With the charger, your phone is literally laying ON the charger which defeats the purpose of it being "wireless". You know exactly where your charger is and you are aware of its limits. Again, the slight convenience of not plugging your phone in is still not enough to call it "wireless".
 
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Which charger did you try?
I was pretty amazed by the technology myself. I hadn't even opened the box for the Samsung Qi Fast Charger I picked up and the phone just started charging! It was incredible!

Ok, sure, its incremental, but until proximity charging becomes a reality its still a pretty darned convenient bridge. I didn't expect to care much about it, but ended up grabbing a second puck for work because its already feeling so handy.

I think of it like keyless entry in a car. Its not a huge deal until you have to live without it for a bit, then wonder how you ever put that key in the lock every day...

Actually, the parallel kind of holds too. For years keyless entry still meant you had to pull out a key fob, now you just have to keep it in your pocket and when you get close enough you can just open the door and start the car with nothing in hand...

Qi is a great step forward IMO. If one doesn't care about incremental steps, might as well stay with an iPhone 6S as well. Its all relative.
 
This is like saying your remote control isn't wireless because your TV still has to be plugged in and within range.

It's such a stupid thing to be nitpicky about. Let's all take a few seconds to be thankful that this is the biggest thing we have to gripe about.
 
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kilcher said:
This is like saying your remote control isn't wireless because your TV still has to be plugged in and within range.

It's such a stupid thing to be nitpicky about. Let's all take a few seconds to be thankful that this is the biggest thing we have to gripe about.
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This! You prove my point exactly. By this guy's standards, nothing is truly ever wireless. Unless something has a built in solar panel or wind turbine, nothing is ever truly wireless by his definition.
 
nStyle said:
"Wireless" charging is such a misnomer. You’re still tethered to a specific place to charge (where the wire is). Nothing is truly capable of "wireless" charging until your phone is always with you and always charged.

The thing that bothers me the most is it's not even a little bit wireless. The charger itself is tethered to a wall therefore it is still a wired charger. The phone sits on the charger which is connected to a wire. Calling it wireless is stupid.

I know Apple isn't to blame for the terminology, I just thought I'd try to discuss this here. I'm sure I'm not the first.

About the only thing good about "wireless charging" (I refuse to refer to it without quotation marks) is that it's slightly more convenient. But at the end of the day, it's still totally unremarkable. It's actually less convenient if you like to use your phone while it's charging.
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Even if we had true "wireless charging", the base station would be wired to a power source. That part of your argument does not hold up at all.
 
Clearly neither of you read my second post. It's not that hard to differentiate between "phone setting on charger that is directly connected to a wire" and "being able to walk around literally anywhere with your phone while it's charging".
 
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There are already startups to charge mobile devices truly wirelessly using the same or similar technology. It may currently be in a primitive form but once upon a time the sheer size of a mobile phone barely made it "mobile".
 
I would like to break apart the term "Wireless Charging" to prove my point that this is in fact, wireless charging.

Wireless - This means that for your day to day use there is no use of a wire. That means at no point do you have to put your hand on a wire, plug it anywhere. This part of the term is true. Yes, the pad has to be plugged into the wall, and yes, your phone has to be on this pad, but do you have to plug any wire in? Do you have to touch a wire? Not only is this a convenience where you can charge your phone periodically while at your desk at work or quickly while you get ready at home, but it puts less stress on your Lightning port as well as the very flimsy Lightning cables. In your every day use, you do not touch a wire, so WIRELESS.

Charging - This one is much simpler. Is your phone charging via this pad without connecting it, yes! Did you ever have to plug something in for it to charge on the pad? No.

Put these together and you have wireless charging. Your device is charging without the use of a wire in your regular use. I would say more what you wish this would be is called "Free Roaming Wireless Charging" since in the most basic of terms, this is Wireless Charging.
 
"Wireless Charging But Not Really Because The Charger Itself Is Plugged Into The Wall So Really You're Just Kinda Contact Charging? Is That A Thing? Either Way It's Wireless But Not Really" is kind of a mouthful and doesn't really have a nice ring to it.

Maybe this is why I don't work in marketing.
 
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MistrSynistr said:
The funniest thing is it's more convenient to plug it in to charge and be able to USE it than to have it sitting on a mat and not being able to during charge.

What a gimmick.
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The way I see it is that there are some times wireless charging will be more convenient and other times a wire will be. When I am in bed I feel like it can go both ways. I would like to charge my phone while I use it in bed, but if I am not doing anything battery intensive I will just let the battery drain while I use it and then simply place it on the bad before I go to bed.

Where it is very useful is at work. Yes, I use my phone throughout the day, but I hate using a cable, so a lot of times I will not use it while it is charging. The cable always gets in the way of other things on my desk like my mouse or what not. So having the ability to use it and place it back on the pad and have ti charge periodically throughout the day will be awesome!
 
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MistrSynistr said:
The funniest thing is it's more convenient to plug it in to charge and be able to USE it than to have it sitting on a mat and not being able to during charge.

What a gimmick.
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This depends entirely on where you situate the mat. Mine is on my bedside table, so obviously I'm not using the phone while I'm sleeping. Also I'm trying to get out of the habit of playing on my phone while lying in bed so it's actually a good thing that I'm not plugged in.

I read somewhere that, in the morning, if you interact with your phone before your partner then you have an addiction problem. That hit home for me and I'm gonna try to get her out of the habit too.
 
MistrSynistr said:
The funniest thing is it's more convenient to plug it in to charge and be able to USE it than to have it sitting on a mat and not being able to during charge.

What a gimmick.
Click to expand...

wireless charging is a fantastic addition to any smartphone. I'd argue those who don't think so, haven't used it.
 
I wouldn't say I'm a fan of this "wireless" charging either. How many times are you using your phone with it plugged in / charging? My iPhone is sitting on my desk at work this very second charging and I can pick it up to use it. If it was sitting on a wireless pad as soon as I pick it up the charging stops. I often charge / top off my phone at the end of the day at home by plugging it in and continuing to use it as I get ready to go out to dinner, over to a friends house or out for the evening. This implementation leaves a lot to be desired. Here on MacRumors back in January they talked about Energous and WattUp. This is wireless charging. https://www.macrumors.com/2017/01/04/energous-wireless-charging-2017/
 
Generally speaking, wireless charging taken to its literal extreme would be a useless technology. Why have a battery to charge at all if power could be beamed straight into the device.

It’s wireless as much as anything is wireless. :p
 
It's convenience. Very much so on a bedside cupboard. The charging wire often falls behind the cupboard which usually means I have to pull the cupboard forward. Going to bed after your partner means you don't have to scrabble in the dark trying to insert a, seemingly at that time, 6ft plug into a 4ft socket. If the phone rings in the middle of the night and you forget you've plugged it in then that's everything on top of the cupboard on the floor and a couple of bricks missing from the wall.

I may have exaggerated in the last bit.
 
maflynn said:
I think you're making a mountain out of a mole hill. The iPhone is charging wirelessly. There's no connecting wires from the charger to the phone. Yes the charging unit has to get its power from somewhere so its plugged into the wall.

Its really not a big deal imo
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Do you really not see the difference between the wirelessness of your wifi vs the wirelessness of your charge mat? If you had to place your laptop on top of the router for when you needed WiFi, would you be making the same argument?
 
LiemTa said:
Do you really not see the difference between the wirelessness of your wifi vs the wirelessness of your charge mat? If you had to place your laptop on top of the router for when you needed WiFi, would you be making the same argument?
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If you want to argue the degree of wireless, than yes, wi-fi/cellular is more wireless than this wireless charging. But in the simplest definition of wireless, this wireless charging is wireless.
 
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