How Wireless Charging Works and Why It's Terrible
You’ve seen wireless chargers, the tech is now as common as the smartphones they power. But did you know that they come with a big catch? Today we go over the tech behind wireless charging and just how much it actually takes to get your battery full again.
Check out our blog on Wireless Charging!
https://www.ifixit.com/News/94409/wireless-charging-trading-efficiency-for-convenience
Grab our 65W USB-C GaN iFixit Fast Charger!
https://www.ifixit.com/products/ifixit-65w-usb-c-ac-adapter?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=ifixitchannel&utm_campaign=WirelessChargingExplained&utm_content=Description
Big thanks to Creative Electron for the x-rays they sent us!
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:18 What to know about wireless chargers
00:36 How does wired charging work
01:11 How does wireless charging work
01:47 Wireless charging issues and some solutions
02:49 Worst Case Scenario of Wireless Charging
03:13 A look at the Tesla wireless charging platform
03:55 Final thoughts
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Wireless charging has the advantage of durability and it’s unaffected by liquids. It’s not ideal of course, but with magnets (MagSafe) it is not that much worse.
Why is wireless charging getting popular despite the drawbacks? Easy. Charging with a USB-C cord is more efficient – until a microscopic speck of lint or dust clogs the port! Now you get 0% efficiency. Because the EU forced this crappy port onto the world, we have to all cope. I use magnetically held cords myself, but wireless chargers are ubiquitous at phone stores while you have to look for magnetically held cords online.
In a lab with a precision machine in a clean room to test the durability and it gets 10,000 plug/unplug cycles.
In the real world, you give the phone to a fur-free ape. Our fur-free ape fumbles with the cord to charge the phone, then because he’s fur-free he wears clothing, with pockets. Guess what pockets ALWAYS have in them? Lint! Result: ~150 plug/unplug cycles.
Lawmakers really need to keep their noses out of technical trades like the EU lawmakers with USB-C – or Texas lawmakers trying to practice medicine. (OB-GYN)
My first phone was an iPhone 4s, then I had the 5c which ended up having battery issues along with charging port issues, a bad combination. After a while with the iPhone 8 the same issues that I had with the 5c occurred, but it had wireless charging which extended the life a little but. I’m on Android now.
my xiaomi 50w wireless charger is much faster than samsung and iphone wired charging methods, and it comes with a built in fan, so never over heats, on top of that it only costs 20 quid
00:25 the air here is 50c I think my phone is already cooked when I am in the car and the phone says it’s too hot when it’s in my hand
Too convenient to be terrible.
Super useful in magnetic power banks though
Great video. Yeah, f**k wireless charging.
What is 30° centigrate? He keeps saying centigrate. You mean Celsius.
There is a power rectifier in your USB charger plug to convert 230V/120V AC to 5-20V DC, a power inverter to convert it back to AC in the wireless charger, and the induction coils in both the phone and the charger which only take and give AC current, while your phone needs DC, which means another rectifier. All of those components have a loss factor, especially the induction coils, which wastes power into the ether due to impedance or resistance.
My wife has destroyed countless charging cables and a handful of phone charging ports. Wireless charging is the lesser of two evils for us
First time I used wireless charging was when I got my iphone x at release, 6 months later the battery was down from 100 to 84% and I was really shocked.
Used cable only for 6 months and checked again battery was at 82%.
Never used wireless charging ever again since then and will avoid it as much as possible.
Speedrun killing batteries to ensure your device needs to be replaced after max 2 years.
Watching this video while attaching my phone to a wireless charger
Wireless charging is rubbish. That’s all I gotta say!
Lmao. I got a Google stand for my pixel 7, Anker magnetic charger as a backup, and Energizer wireless power bank as a backup backup. Never have to worry about my usb-c port breaking, loose cables, or bringing cables at all which can bend and fray in a bookbag.
I’ve never understood wireless charging, since you’ve gotta leave your phone in 1 spot, making the entire point of wireless useless. At least with a wire, you’re able to move around a bit
"wireless charging is here to stay"
No they won’t
The EU has mandated that every phone has a removable battery, hence will most likely kill wireless charging and I am all for it
Unless wireless charging adapter becomes a thing 😂
Still cheaper in my opinion compared to the oblatory worn out USB C port in your phone. USB C doesn’t seem to hold up like its predecessors,,, Replacing that is prohibitive.
this is a poor persons argument against wireless charging.
Thanks for the awesome info.
I thinks is amazing for small device like a smartwatch
MagSafe is the only acceptable form of wireless charging
Then there’s people with chinese phones that charge in 30 mins tops
The environmental impact comes in the form of e-waste. The energy consumption of mobile phones may feel significant, but your home appliances consume significantly more. If you’re really worried about energy, ignore the phone and start with your oven, stove, vacuum, heating, air conditioning, etc. Making a few minor changes in those can save more energy than your phone uses even if you charge it 5 times every day.
What’s a chi 1 or chi 2 standard?
This video seems to exaggerate the negatives of wireless charging. While it may produce some heat and potentially cause minor battery degradation, if it were truly detrimental, it wouldn’t be a feature in modern smartphones. Consider the scenario of using wireless charging to incrementally charge the battery throughout the day. I maintain my battery between 20-80% and avoid leaving my phone on the charger overnight. Having used wireless charging since the early 2010s, I’ve observed no significant impact on my phone’s longevity. It’s worth noting that older Samsung wireless chargers included a built-in fan to mitigate overheating. I still use the older version, I think it was a 2018 or 2019 model.
Nope..NOPE!.. Missing points: Internal temp,near battery poach temp,where does the excess energy go,smaller vs larger coils,higher voltage vs lower voltage wireless charging standard,etc.
Of the last three devices I’ve had fail on me, two (iPod touch 4th gen, Kobo Glo e-reader) it was the charging port connector that failed. (The 3rd was a flip-phone that broke in half when I dropped it.)
So now, with my iPhone SE 2nd gen, I’m using the wireless charging whenever possible. It doesn’t have magnets, but he charging disc sits in a DIY cardboard cradle that keeps it aligned with the phone.
Did you try taking the phone case off? The rubber (which is an insulator) phone case…
I would love if they got rid of the wireless charging coil in phones and put in a bigger battery instead of
That direct connector is a broken female port waiting to happen.
My wireless car charger is vent mounted and used summertime with the A/C on blast.
Every little bit of cooling helps. Including insurance on my phone breaking.
Ohh wow … Centigrade….. hello 1947.
What’s the song name
I’ve enjoyed wireless charging cuz on my past 2 phones the usb-c port ended up failing and had no way to charge…other than wireless
I just wish manufacturers offered options here. Give me one "rugged" skew with a high quality plastic or aluminium back, and one "fancy" skew with glass back and wireless charging. Glass backs are an actual bane to me
Batthery
Anyone who went to schooland didn’t sleep through science class, know electromagnetic induction is totally inefficient, that’s why he add ferrite core in transformer.
YOU HAVE TO
VERY
VERY
VERY
CAREFULL
WERE
YOU
BUY
ANY
ELECTRONIC
DEVICES
Meanwhile I’m already switching from wired to wireless for a while now. I’m find it OK with the extra inefficiency and "supposedly" worse battery life. I’m sick with the hassle of repairing usb port (not to mention it always broke again shortly afterwards, always. No one here seems able to replicate like the original port)
Only thing I dislike about wireless charging is that you cant have an aluminum backed phone with it -.-
Tf is centigrade? Pretty sure it’s called Celsius
I charge wireless slow charge, phone is cool and battery benefits from slow charge. If i need my phone charged quickly I use wired charging.
i wonder if you have similar video about modern fast charge tech (wired), its anything between 50 to 120 watts, temps are similar, i regularly get 40c batt temp with 70w charger
Certain alphabet agencies in america really, really hate iPhones and almost all Android phones. Why? Because they know the data and privacy on them is next to nothing in terms of security.
Part of privacy and security is actually knowing never to trust any public charging device. But if public charging actually used wireless (and magnetic) charging, then data theft or attempted uploads would not be an issue. The one single benefit to wireless charging
Wireless charging would have been awesome if I could place my phone anywhere and still charge it, not on the wireless charging platform pad. But obviously there’s not going to be a true wireless charging system anytime soon. If I can bring the phone to a wireless charger pad, I can very well connect it with a charging cable. They could have designed a system which uses magnetic alignment to make electrical contacts to charge normally.
benefits of a 3rld world country: never used one, never wanted one, never will. Again, 1st world countries creating 1st world problems to implement 1st world solutions lol
It’s inefficient and damaging to phone longevity. I don’t see why we can’t just ban this… (Exeptions for where it may be necessary)
Its not terrible
Especially when usb c wont work
Or mix water and fire and use magnetic cable adapter
What about testing the chinese phones which have much faster charging?