Google Nexus Gets Wireless Charger

judgecorp writes "Wireless charging has had little success so far (except for toothbrushes) but Google is giving it a good try, with a Nexus Wireless Charger that works with LG's Nexus 4 and 5 as well as the latest version of Google's tablet, the second generation Nexus 7. The charger operates using the Qi standard, which seems to be ahead of rival Powermat."

Comments

The distinction is minor

[i kan reed]

You magnetically drop your device into place onto a block on a power cord. Instead of plugging the power cord into your device. The actual distinction in convenience is a half a second of fiddling per day.

Re:The distinction is minor

[FunkyELF]

It wears out your port. I wish these phones came with tethered but removable inserts for charging.
My brother for example works in a pizza restaurant... he gets flour stuck up his charger all the time and has to pick it out.

Re:The distinction is minor

[MondoGordo]

assuming you only plug it in to charge once a day ...

If, like me, you use your phone throughout the day, letting it sip juice while stopped at my desk for 10 or 15 minutes several times a day, the time savings adds up; not to mention the wear and tear on the port that isn't happening and when i leave the office it's usually got a decent charge left.

In addition since going to cordless charging I've never once forgotten to unplug the cord and accidentally yanked it out of the port or the wall

Re:The distinction is minor

[HornWumpus]

Granted my old Defy isn't the loudest phone. It is water proof enough that I've gone swimming with it in my pocket.

Water proof is apparently a very popular option in Japan. Social bathing etc.

Re:The distinction is minor

[umafuckit]

In most usage scenarios, pizza restaurants excepted, I doubt "worn out charging port" is going to be the reason you ultimately stop using the phone. I don't think I've ever had a device fail due to the charging port. For most people, wireless charging is a nice luxury rather than a genuinely useful feature.

Re:The distinction is minor

[Andy Dodd]

The most likely part of a connector to wear out are the springs - which is why in the MicroUSB standard, the springs are in the plug (e.g. the cable) and not the socket.

Re:The distinction is minor

[compro01]

Also, it's not magnetic - just induction.

Actually, it is magnetic. Google's charger has a magnet in it and a bit of steel or something in the phone so the coils line up on their own rather than having to position it yourself.

Re:The distinction is minor

[goldaryn]

You magnetically drop your device into place onto a block on a power cord.

Wow, that's cool. I drop mine using boring old gravity.

Re:The distinction is minor

[compro01]

Not really. Just use an appropriate membrane over the speaker/microphone. Lifeproof has been doing it for years with their cases.

Granted, you lose a bit in volume, but that can be accounted for if you're designing the device from the start to be a sealed unit.

Re:The distinction is minor

[Ravaldy]

May not look like much now but it's baby steps like this that makes these kinds of technologies eventually become much better. If they don't start somewhere there will be no R&D money to continue and improve.

The long term objective would be to enter your house and the darn thing starts charging regardless of where you are.

Re:The distinction is minor

[tchuladdiass]

For that to happen, the charging would have to be via beamed RF energy instead of magnetic induction. What I'd rather see is a return to devices that only needed charging or battery replacements once per month or so. Like the old 2-way pagers I used to carry.

Re:The distinction is minor

[mythosaz]

After sitting for 5 days in a container of rice, it powered back up without issue.

Leaving your phone in rice will attract Asians, who will fix your phone for you.

Re:The distinction is minor

[xaxa]

No, he means e.g.

He's providing a concrete example, not a hypothetical result.

e.g. is Latin exempli gratia, "for the sake of example".

i.e. is Latin id est, "that is".

He should have used i.e..

Re:The distinction is minor

[bemymonkey]

Do you use your phone before going to sleep? Connecting it to a loose charger cable on the nightstand in the semi-dark while I'm half asleep from the eBook I was just reading on the phone is pretty much a nightmare. I can't wait to get a phone that supports Qi charging...

Giving it ANOTHER good try?

[sitkill]

Google already sold a wireless charger for their Nexus 4 phones:
https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Nexus_4_Wireless_Charger?id=nexus_4_wireless_charger&hl=en
I own one, works fine, and I think it also works with the new Nexus 5's as it's using the Qi standard already.

Re:Giving it ANOTHER good try?

[compro01]

I'm not sitkill, but I use a Qi charger (unbranded Chinese-made charging pad) with my Galaxy S3 (with a Keedox Qi receiver) though my lifeproof case and it works nicely.

It won't work through my otterbox armour case though. There's just too much distance between the back of the phone and the back of the case.

I haven't tried it with any other cases.

$17 chargers elsewhere

[FunkyELF]

I just ordered 5 wireless chargers for a grand total of $85 as stocking stuffers for my family members with Nexus 4's and Nexus 5's.
I think they came from China since they're just being delivered today. Reviews of them on newegg were good. We'll see.
I just can't see spending $50 on a charger unless its the size of a mousepad and can charge multiple thins.

Re:$17 chargers elsewhere

[mspohr]

I have the cheap Chinese QI chargers and they work great.
They don't have the magnetic positioning so you do have to take a little more care in setting it down but they give a little beep when connected so it's easy.

Re:$17 chargers elsewhere

[PhrostyMcByte]

AT&T stores have a deal going where you can get a Nokia Qi charger for $25, or three for $50. I picked up the three. One for my desk at work, one for my desk at home, and one for my nightstand.

Not having to plug anything in is awesome. They're compatible with all the other Qi devices, including the new Nexus ones. Highly recommend.

Except for that previous Wireless Nexus Charger...

[mathimus1863]

Yeah, they had one before. I got it for my Nexus 4 six months ago. But there's a reason it got 1-2 stars: it's angled and doesn't hold the phone:

http://www.amazon.com/Google-Nexus-Wireless-Charger/dp/B00BGSPIP2

I almost threw it out but then discovered this 3D printed adapter that actually fixed all of its flaws. It now works great, and it charges the phone fast when plugged into the wall! But since most people don't have a 3D printer, it makes sense they'd want to sweep the memory of that one under the carpet.

What ever happened to pogo port charging?

[hawguy]

I don't really need wireless charging, I'd be happy to drop my phone into a dock with pogo port pins to allow easy charging without connecting a cable (and without wiggling the phone to get it to seat on a microUSB connector in the bottom of a dock). Seems like a cheaper and easier solution than wireless charging.

Why didn't more phones use that simple technology? I never did find a compatible dock for my CDMA Galaxy Nexus.

Power efficiency

[__aaqvdr516]

I've checked a few places and it seems as though you can expect a 70% power efficiency with this type of inductive charger. Some of the higher end models reach as much as 85%.

It strikes me as odd that in a time where we want as much energy efficiency as possible, we'd push towards something much less efficient with the potential to be so widespread.

Sources:
http://www.wirelesspowerconsortium.com/technology/total-energy-consumption.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_charging

Re:Power efficiency

[hawguy]

I've checked a few places and it seems as though you can expect a 70% power efficiency with this type of inductive charger. Some of the higher end models reach as much as 85%.

It strikes me as odd that in a time where we want as much energy efficiency as possible, we'd push towards something much less efficient with the potential to be so widespread.

Sources:
http://www.wirelesspowerconsortium.com/technology/total-energy-consumption.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_charging

A phone battery is so small that it's not really that much power -- throwing away 30% of a 3.7V 2300mAh battery's capacity is 2.5 watt-hours, or just under a killowatt-hour in a year's time if you charge your battery daily - less than 15 cents for most people.

Seems like a small price to pay for the convenience. if it saves just 1 second/day in a year's time, it will have saved around 6 minutes/year, or $1 worth of labor for someone that earns $10/hour.

If you want to make up for it, walk or bike instead of driving - gasoline contains around 35KWh of energy per gallon, so if you bike or walk for 1 mile instead of driving, you'll have saved an entire year's worth of wasted power from a wireless charger.

Re:What ever happened to pogo port charging?

[chihowa]

The pogo pin docks seemed like a great idea, but they were inexplicably expensive. They sold for $90, or more than a quarter of the cost of the entire phone. I ended up buying some pogo pins from mouser and making my own dock for $5 (it's only that much because you have to do some signalling through the third pin with a uC to get it to charge at a higher rate).

Re:If we had not ignored telsa

[HornWumpus]

That wasn't one of the times. 1 or 2% efficiency for power transmission is unacceptable. Pneumatic power was better then that. Whale oil lamps were better then that.

He could never have proven it. Period. It did not work in a practical sense. It can never work.

You can beam power, if you build big fucking antennas at both ends.

If you could build a magic transmitter that didn't radiate into the sky, you'd still lose intensity with the square of distance. Field intensities strong enough to power a house could also start fires on things like aluminum window frames.