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?
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 wireless charging 99% of the time. It’s convenient to plop your phone or earbuds down and effortlessly grab them when it’s time to go.
The other reason I like wireless: less wear on your phone’s USB port. Even though USB-C is supposedly good for millions of plug/unplug cycles I’ve had several phones with USB-C that get wonky after about 2+ years. “Wonky” as in having to hold the cable just right to transfer data or even successfully fast charge.
Wireless charging drastically cuts down on the amount of times you’ll be ramming a USB cable into it’s port, hopefully prolonging it’s useful life.
That wonkiness often times is just lint jammed into the charging port, and a thorough cleaning fixes the issue
It’s heartening to see someone else sharing what’s usually my line! I recommend a wooden toothpick for the aforementioned cleaning.
Ditto. The plastics floss/pick combos work even better. Being thinner and super flexible, they are less likely to cause damage and reach the tiny crevices better.
Yeah, the USB port on all my phones was the first thing to go, and then you’re just stuck doing the stupid little dance of getting the cable to go in at the exact right angle to get it to charge. With wireless (especially with MagSafe), you just put it on the charger and you never need to worry about cables. I’ve got a plug on my USB port to keep dirt out now.
Wow, I’ve never had any issues with USB ports on any of my phones. Which one of us is the outlier? Do you ram the cable in too hard? Do you bend the connector in weird ways?
Nah, it’s just lint and other crap getting into the port. You can clean the USB-C ones easier than the micro-USB ones, but eventually they all go.
You do realize that wireless charging is also very inefficent and reduces your battery lifespan, right? It’s also kinda weird that your port goes bad after such a short time. Maybe you should clean it more often and make sure not to put any tension on it when you use it. I even have a 10 year old phone and the port (micro usb) still works perfectly fine.
It is more inefficiënt, yes. But why would it reduce battery lifespan? Is it because of the added heat from the wireless charging coils? My battery probably stays cooler with wireless charging then using the wired turbo charger. Which is more and more standard these days.
All our modern charging methods are really bad for batteries. Wireless is inductive which means the charging voltage is noisy and very variable, this means heat and that stresses the batteries faster. But, wired charging with PD uses really high voltages, which are sometimes way too fast. Also stressing the battery. We’ll see what comes of it but the recent couple of phone generations are prone to be the ones with the worse battery life expectancy.
Companies are usually aiming for 80% at two years time. That means that a phone that barely survives a day when new, will not make it through the day two years after. As the battery loses capacity, it requires more charges per day, accelerating the degradation.
Here’s iFixit assessment of wireless charging.
This is MKHB on why heat hurts batteries and how companies try to fight back the damage of fast charging.
Wired turbo chargers are bad as well. However, although I don’t know about iOS, Android lets you plan your charge cycle. That makes my phone take about 8 hours to charge while I’m asleep.
Or you could just not use a fast charger and not worry about that. Either way, you’re moving the goalpost. Not all phones support fast charging and not everyone has a fast charger. I’d wager most people charge their phones with lower power (15/20w more or less).
I’ve been wireless charging exclusively for 5 years and had minimal change in battery life.
I’d be interested to see how you measure that. It’s also not really a matter of opinion. Even though you may not notice a wild difference, your battery did degrade more than it would’ve, if you’d used a wired charger.
Also, the inefficiency is bad enough for me to rule it out. You literally waste at least twice as much power compared to a wired charger (source). Although we’re not talking about a crazy amount of power, it’s pretty selfish to waste it just because you don’t want to plug in a charger.
I’ve had the phone for 6 1/2 years. It has a small 3000 mha battery. Initial reviews had it at 8 1/2 hours battery life at release. When I posted that I had been using the phone for 2 hours and was at 72% so extrapolated that 7 3/4 battery life. So less than a 10% drop. Granted I’m not a heavy phone user so I probably put less wear on my battery in general.
Yes use it for convince, but I’ve also had to replace phones for broken USB ports which in the grand scale is probably more wasteful than the extra power use.
I’ve also had to replace phones for broken USB ports which in the grand scale is probably more wasteful than the extra power use.
On one hand, yes, your port can break at some point. On the other, why would you throw away the whole phone if the usb port can be replaced? Going even further, you could always use your usb port for charging until it breaks and after that you could start using wireless charging. For data transfer there are plenty of apps and ways to wirelessly transfer data so that wouldn’t be a problem either. At the end of the day, you’re barely using your usb port and you’re also wasting twice as much (or more) energy that you would if you used a wired charger.
Follow up: does it work well with cases?
Wireless charging is unaffected by normal plastic or silicone cases (unless it’s super thick, like an OtterBox). Metal cases don’t work.
Thanks. Also love your username
I’m actually really impressed because I’ve had a pixel 6 for over 2 years and the USB c port is doing great. But you’re right, I should probably get a simple wireless charger just to cut down on some of the plugging
Yep, convenience of plopping the phone down really is 100% of it for me. Especially with Apple’s magnets setup, it’s a one-hand, one-second operation, and then the phone is standing at attention on its cradle stand. The thought of having a dangling cable on my desk and picking it up and fiddling to plug it in then laying the phone flat seems like something from 10 years ago. I’ve even forgotten once or twice what kind of port my phone has.
I don’t trust public wired charging ports to anything other my mobile battery.
Since I can’t verify if a weird charging port won’t upload malware on site, I’d use wireless charging instead.
You should be able to use the charging only mode that’s under developer settings on your phone.
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.
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
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.
It’s convenient to place my phone on at my computer and it’s just always charged. It is a little less efficient, but if you’re running a heater anyway then technically they’re both lossless (though gas heat may be cheaper for you if you have gas heat).
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).
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.
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?
I travel on the go often, wireless charging is too inefficient for me. I’d rather charge with my PD battery pack.
Another point, I use my PD pack to charge everything from my phone, drone, camera, to my laptop, ear buds.
Most of those don’t have a wireless charger so I just stick to wired PD charging.
I’ve noticed that with the varying quality of USB cables, and them having broken/cracked wires over time, I usually get much faster charging when doing it wirelessly. If anything is way more consistent. With cords it’s a crap shot. Is this a fast charge cord? Was it cheaply made, is it deteriorating? I can use 4 different cords and get different results from each
Similar. I got a vehicle that had android auto, but not wireless. Plugging and unplugging all the time I’d go through a cable every few months. Power would work, but the shielding would break and it would screw with cell/GPS until I replaced the cable.
Got a wireless android auto adapter to stop buying cables. That’s great but I knew I wouldn’t plug in my phone every time like normal, so I use the wireless charging.
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.
Are those qi2 chargers or qi1? The magnets make a huge difference.
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
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.
Well, I don’t have a ton of use for my phone while sleeping, personally.
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.
This is one of those things where you either live it and love it, or never understand.
Qi charging changes your very life.
This cannot be explained in words.
