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Ask HN: What is the point of smartphone wireless chargers?

2 points by palata ↗ HN
I get that manufacturers are happy to sell more crap, and consumers are happy to buy new shiny crap. And wireless chargers are more expensive than wires, so that's an incentive for the manufacturer.

But technically, is it really worth making wireless chargers? It seems to me that they are strictly more complex, require more material, charge slower and are less energy efficient. Moreover, they still require a wire: instead of plugging it into the phone, you align its magnetic end to the magnet on the phone.

So is there an actual technical argument in favour of wireless chargers? Like is it that hard to make a waterproof usb socket that it justifies wasting material and energy with a radically different approach?

8 comments

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andrewfromx
I think it comes down to a human coming home from a long day at work and dropping their keys and phone down on the table where they always drop them. Then there is that one extra step. Plug in the phone and make sure the connection is working and the cable hasn't gone bad yet. But with wireless the human can drop the phone with the same level of "I'm done" as he can drop the keys.
palata
> But with wireless the human can drop the phone with the same level of "I'm done" as he can drop the keys.

Making sure that it's aligned correctly, and that the cable hasn't gone bad yet, right?

I get the marketing story here, but I don't believe it somehow...

andrewfromx
dude my lighting cables go bad all the time! Also the connection to my iphone gets dust and lint in it preventing the connection from working. Every time I plug in I check to see if it's _really_ charging with the battery icon.
palata
I've had smartphones, too ;-).

I sometimes clean the dust off the connector, it helps. And then it is a problem that the connectors tend to break. But is the solution really to design a less efficient charging system (wireless)? I mean, maybe they could make the connectors more robust/easier to replace.

andrewfromx
I see the future: phones come with 1 tiny drop of plutonium (not actually plutonium) and they have enough power for years. Joking of course but we are not that far away from that.
palata
> Joking of course but we are not that far away from that.

I couldn't disagree more :). I think we are reaching the peak of fossil fuels, and we don't have relevant alternative energies. So we will have less and less energy in the future, and we will need to handle that. Chances are that hydrogen-based planes will be completely useless, because even if we can make them work today (in a world full of fossil fuels), we will need hydrogen for more important things than flying rich people going on holidays.

We talk a lot about climate change, but we have a global energy problem. Unfortunately, we still have enough fossil fuels to finish messing up the climate, so we will do that. But climate change is "just" a complication on top of it: one very big problem we have is that we don't have a replacement for fossil fuels, and fossil fuels are limited.

We will globally have less energy in the future. We should stop wasting it.

drewg123
I use a wireless charging cradle because

o It saves physical wear and tear on the lightning / USB port

o It allows charging when the lightning / USB port is damaged (its the only way my fiance could charge her old iphone after an accident damaged the lightngin port

o Its faster/easier to put down or pick up the phone to/from a cradle or charging pad while your hands are full.

palata
Right. I get that it is marginally more convenient (though I could imagine a stand on which you could plug your phone with one hand). Not sure if it's worth the wasted energy though.

Regarding the lightning/USB port, it feels like a bad solution to a real problem. Couldn't the manufacturer make them more robust/easier to replace, instead of selling more hardware that wastes more energy?