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?

  • dukeofdummies@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    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

  • flop_leash_973@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    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.

    • ReanuKeeves@lemm.eeOP
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      21 days ago

      I like keeping my desk clean too but there is the inevitable person who says “clean desks are for simple minds and true geniuses thrive in chaos” so I have to keep a corner of loose wires to look smart

  • loopedcandle@lemmynsfw.com
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    21 days ago

    The battery packs that are wireless enabled were the thing for me.

    I can recharge my phone in my pocket, while walking around the city, without a rats nest of wires popping out of my pants.

    • T156@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      I’m surprised that you can wirelessly charge like that. In my experience, wireless chargers are really finicky about positioning, unless they have some multiple-coil trickery going on, which a lot of battery pack chargers generally don’t. Having them in a pants pocket seems like a really good way to throw that alignment off.

      • TheRealKuni@midwest.social
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        21 days ago

        Qi2 standard really helps with that. It incorporates the magnetic alignment and higher speeds from Apple’s MagSafe. Magnetic alignment makes wireless charging much better. Still less efficient than wired charging, but much more efficient than Qi without magnetic alignment.

        If your phone doesn’t have the magnetic ring baked in you can often find cases that provide it, or magnets you can add to the outside of a case. Though my phone does have the magnets baked in, I also have a Snap 4 Luxe and I 3D printed a case that fits around it, to minimize the distance between charger and phone. Works really well!

  • Krudler@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    I know people love these and I’m not going to go and break anyone’s balls but the reality is, because it is inductive charging you will never get clean voltage

    Anything electronic, it really doesn’t matter what it is, is going to suffer basically the equivalent of “mechanical damage” when powered/charged with unstable current

    An inductive charging is always going to be highly unstable, there’s no way around that

    Anybody who tries to tell you different just doesn’t understand that this is a real thing, and yeah, really nobody should ever use wireless charging unless they’re willing to accept continual device (battery) damage

    • friend_of_satan@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      Can you explain why it’s not possible to stabilize the voltage on the receiving side before the power is sent to the battery?

      • Krudler@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        That can be done but the voltage that it receives is variable so that’s causing damage. Which ripples down the chain, it’s not avoidable no matter how much you put in capacitors and diodes

        It’s really just an unavoidable aspect of electricity, people think of it as magic fairies floating through wires but really it’s like ropes pulling on things, and just like mechanical things, ripples and vibrations fk things up!

        If you’re really want to get down to it, electricity is destroying things by its very flow. But you want to reduce the unwanted harmonics as much as possible and wireless is not the way to go

        • Wolf314159@startrek.website
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          21 days ago

          You just repeated your claims without explaining them or backing them up with any details. You sound like someone selling essential oils and crystals as medicine. Try again?

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        it shouldn’t.

        There shouldn’t be any heat at all from the signal passing through the plastic (It’s basically transparent to RF’s,). The heat mostly comes from the RF interacting with the metal in the receiving antenna and inducing an electric current.

        • MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net
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          22 days ago

          The extra space isn’t going to cause more heat on its own, but the phone is still going to get warm, and a thick case can prevent that heat from dissipating properly. A good charging design will already have taken this into account, and start limiting current if the temp gets too high.

          The primary downside to using induction charging through a case is decreased power transfer efficiency due to the greater distance.

  • ThatFuckingIdiot@sh.itjust.works
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    22 days ago

    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.

    • potustheplant@feddit.nl
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      22 days ago

      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.

      • Sleepkever@lemm.ee
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        21 days ago

        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.

        • dustyData@lemmy.world
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          21 days ago

          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.

  • DrFistington@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    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

    • batmaniam@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      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.

      • DrFistington@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        My issue is typically also with Android Auto. The sound fidelity, especially low end, is much better with a good cable, and when the cable starts to go bad it will default to just Bluetooth for audio which is noticable