Mobile Phones and Wireless Charging

New technologies emerge on an almost constant basis and the smartphone industry has a knack at launching features that will ultimately lead to the loss of separate devices. The compact camera device is slowly disappearing with mobile phones boasting 13 megapixel cameras and GPS navigation can be downloaded as an app. The next thing to go could be the mobile phone mains charger!

Wireless charging has been around for a while, most electric toothbrushes use this, but the mobile phone manufacturers are signing up to the Qi standard so that mobile phones can be wirelessly charged on any charging base station. We could see in the near future a single wireless charging pad in a home that charges phones, tablets, iPods and any other small electrical device,

At present there are wireless charging pads in Heathrow Airport and McDonald’s is trialling the system in its European restaurants. The beauty of this system will be the convenience of being able to charge a mobile phone anywhere when out and about. There are several phones on the market already offering this service and we will mention these later on.

How it works

The system is fairly easy to understand. The charging pad takes a normal electric current and via an induction coil it coverts this into an alternating electromagnetic field. The mobile phone then does the reverse. An induction coil in the phone picks up the energy in the electromagnetic field and converts this back into an electrical current for charging the battery.

The Qi standard means any device can be charged on any charging pad. The mobile phone manufacturers have tackled incorporating this technology in several ways. Some smartphones have this built in, others use a special back cover and others simply slide into a charging sleeve. At the moment the charging pads, back cases and sleeves where needed, will be an additional accessory to purchase but this may well change before too long.

Pro’s and con’s

All emerging technologies experience a development stage and this highlights the pro’s and con’s. On the pro side of things the devices will make charging more flexible, there is a reduced risk of damaging the product as there are no charging pins to connect and there is also a reduced risk of electric shock and corrosion as there are no exposed conductors. 

On the con side of things the technology is slightly less efficient, slower to charge and the hardware is more expensive but newer models are tackling these areas.

The mobile phones

These phones are currently available in the UK marketplace and were released in either 2012 or 2013.

Wireless charging built in

LG/Google Nexus 4

HTC Windows Phone 8X

LG Optimus LTE2

Nokia Lumia 820

Nokia Lumia 920

Wireless charging via a special back cover

Samsung Galaxy S4 

Wireless charging via a sleeve

BlackBerry Bold

BlackBerry Curve

Apple iPhone 4S

Samsung Galaxy S III

Samsung Galaxy Note II

The list of mobile phones that support wireless charging was kindly provided by MobilePhones.com who provides contract phones and phone deals in the UK.