The “wireless charging is vaporware” argument, and more

(Written by Hadlee Simons)

We’ve recently seen both Motorola and Xiaomi demonstrate true wireless charging, allowing you to charge a phone over the air instead of plonking it down on a wireless charging pad.

Motorola technically posted a video a short while before Xiaomi detailed their tech. But this video seemed more like a rushed response to Xiaomi’s comparatively polished announcement, which was teased beforehand. 

Nevertheless, the cynic in me can’t shake the feeling that we should be a little cautious about this tech seeing the light of day. After all, Xiaomi and Motorola aren’t the first companies to demonstrate true wireless charging.

• Energous and Ossia are two of the earliest players in the space, and they’ve been a fixture at trade shows for what feels like years now. In fact, I distinctly remember sitting in on an Ossia demo back at MWC 2019.
• Energous touts its so-called Watt Up technology. The firm’s solution offers traditional, contact-based wireless charging and true wireless charging at distances of up to 15 feet (4.5 meters).
• Meanwhile, Ossia has its “Cota” true wireless charging tech for over-the-air topups. The company says its charging solution is able to bounce charging beams off walls and around people and pets.
• Energous and Ossia haven’t brought this tech to the commercial wearable or smartphone space just yet.
• The closest we may have gotten to a smartphone with true wireless charging was Ossia announcing a partnership with accessory maker Spigen back in 2019. This resulted in the reveal of the Forever Sleeve case for iPhones.
• The duo initially said that they planned to ship and produce these cases by 2020. Of course, it’s 2021 now. 
• I asked Ossia and Spigen about the fate of the case, but with no response forthcoming. That’s not an encouraging sign.
• For what it’s worth, both Ossia and Energous have announced partnerships with other companies for this tech. Ossia, for example, announced a pilot program with Walmart to deliver electronic store labels that charge wirelessly. Walmart and T-Mobile were also using its so-called Forever Tracker device that charges over the air for asset-tracking.

In any case, it’s clear that we haven’t seen a commercial smartphone or wearable with true over-the-air wireless charging just yet. 

There are points in Motorola and particularly Xiaomi’s favor though. 

• For one, Ossia and Energous are startups that don’t have nearly the same level of resources. Meanwhile, Xiaomi and Motorola parent Lenovo are massive companies.
• Size doesn’t guarantee success and breakthroughs, but Xiaomi also generally has a decent track record of demonstrating charging tech and then bringing it to market. 
• For example, it showed off 100W charging in March 2019 and then debuted a commercial phone with 120W charging in 2020. 
• It also showed off 40W wireless charging in March 2020, and later released the Mi 10 Ultra with 50W wireless charging.

In other words, a breakthrough here could happen.

• But even Xiaomi is saying you shouldn’t hold your breath:
• “We won’t be launching any commercial products with Mi Air Charge Technology this year,” a company representative told us shortly after the tech’s reveal.

There are plenty of concerns regarding true wireless charging tech too. While some are shouting scam, it’s more nuanced than that. 

• Efficiency seems like a major concern here. Just how much energy will be wasted on the charging-over-the-air process? And what happens when the charging station doesn’t need to be used? Presumably, it just goes to sleep after a given period of time. But these are still questions yet to be answered.
• Another potential issue is that your phone battery might age a little faster if it’s constantly charging over the air. Hopefully, something like Mi Air Charge gives you more granular control in this regard.
• Will this simply be too finicky for some? Xiaomi promises that its solution can work through obstacles, while Ossia touted its solution as being able to bounce beams off walls. Nevertheless, the last thing anyone wants is to have to hold the phone in a specific way/direction to initiate charging. This is an especially pertinent question for Xiaomi’s mmWave-based solution.
• What about the size of the charging receiver in supported phones? Will it require manufacturers to implement a smaller battery or forego a hardware feature or two to fit? 
• 5W over-the-air charging as promised by Xiaomi is also pretty slow, especially with today’s phones offering 20W, 40W, 65W and even 120W charging.
• What about regulatory approval? The likes of Ossia have indeed received the desired FCC certification, but this is another hurdle for any company to overcome in the nascent space.

For what it’s worth, some of these concerns were also relevant for Qi-based wireless charging when it first gained popularity in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Prominent concerns included slow charging speeds, poor efficiency, the potential for excess heat, the need to have charging coils in the phone, and having to line up the device properly to get charging. 

Either way, it looks like we’ll need to wait until 2022 to find out if over-the-air charging is the real deal or just the latest in a string of unfulfilled promises.