Wireless Charging Standards Groups Agree To Merge

jfruh writes: The world where our gadgets all charge wirelessly has been delayed by several factors, one of which is that there are three industry groups promoting rival technological standards. That problem is now a little closer to a solution, as the Alliance for Wireless Power and the Power Matters Alliance announced a plan to merge.

Comments

Re:How does it help?

[AmiMoJo]

Qi has already won. Almost all wirelessly charged devices use the Qi standard, especially phones. Qi has the advantage of not requiring any data transfer, so the "free" chargers in coffee shops don't get to spy on you. Receivers can be extremely simple and retro-fitted to almost anything that uses USB for charging.

The other guys have lost, this is just their way of buying in to the winning standard while maintaining their contracts with people like Starbucks. What worries me is that those contracts may require future standards to log unique IDs as the competing wireless charging systems already do. No thanks.