Rawen's Musings

I know, I know, this dead horse has beaten to a pulp, crushed to a paste and then squeezed into a juice but it’s 2026 and this gleeful ignorance of physics, efficiency and a display of engineering stupidity is still a thing. I’m aware that I’m harsh but seriously, the principles of how “wireless” charging works are taught in elementary here so even a kid can see how pointless this thing is. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s sit back and watch the shitshow I’m about to perform!

First thing’s first, what prompted me to write this down aside from my general distaste towards this piece of tech? Funnily enough, it’s the one thing where this is actually useful; reducing the wear on the charging port. Funny that I’m writing this at the time when this isn’t an issue anymore since my close to EOL Edge 30 Ultra has been succeeded by Graphene-powered “Husky” :3 (Pixel 8 Pro). But it’s true that the USB-C port on my E30U has indeed got to a point where the wear is significant enough (partly due to me being a little bit harsh on it occasionally) that the cable can easily slide out of it. This put an idea into my head that maybe I could give “wireless” charging a chance. Quite some time has passed so there was development done, right? Well, yes and no. Sure, there have been engineering solutions to its usability but you can’t just engineer yourself out of physics. What do I mean by that? Well …

Exhibit A: The lack of “wireless” in wireless

Yup, “wireless” charging isn’t wireless at all. Because you need to get the electricity into the charging pad/dock/cradle somehow. And how do you do it? You guessed it, by a wire. That same exact wire which you could move few centimetres and plug it directly into the phone. So congratulations, your “wireless” charging saved you a tiny move while blocking space on your desk/nightstand permanently. Although in the case of the latter it’s not that big of deal.

“But I don’t need to search for the cable” … Neither do I because that cables is ALWAYS in the same spot. And seriously, just having to “fish it out” is a gigantic first world problem. Or are you telling me your desk is in such a disorganised state that you have to conduct a formal investigation to find the right cable? Because this woof has quite a lot of experience when it comes to searching for the correct cables. Years of networking left permanent scars OwO.

“But I you can damage the port if you need to quickly grab the phone!” … Wow, no shit, Sherlock. Of course you can because USB-C isn’t designed to be yanked. Trust me, I did that occasionally which of course contributed to the wear on my previous phone (mind you this started being a little bit of a problem after almost 4 years of use). Long story short, don’t be a dick to your tech and it’ll last.

“But I have a dedicated charging spot” … So do I. It’s where the cable from the charging brick rests and surprise surprise, it’s always roughly in the same spot. And you know what’s even funnier? I actually have a charging stand with a port that I slot the phone into.

“But cables are ugly” … Then make sure your cable management doesn’t look like a pile of spaghetti thrown down the stairs. See the part about needing the cable to put into the pad. You still need to “manage” that one.

“But the pad can be as small as a puck” … Which is still bigger than the cable. The only difference then is that instead of pluging the connector “in” you “stick” the connector to the back. Which can’t be metallic because physics (more on that in a bit).

So yeah, now that I’ve torn down the “practical impracticality” of this “solution” let’s get into the meaty part which is …

Exhibit B: The comical level of inefficiency

This is where physics comes in and basically takes a massive shit all over your “cool tech”. But first, a quick rundown of how this works. The transfer of energy between the charger and the device is done via electromagnetic induction. In short, there’s a coil in the charger which is always powered and the coil in your phone which is normally innert only “powers on” when in vicinity of the charger or in this case a direct contact with the pad. In essence, the pair of coils creates a 1:1 transformer to transfer the energy from the charger coil into the phone coil and from there to the battery. You’ll also notice a distinct lack of conductive “core” in this ad-hoc transformer so the transfer comes through just air between the two.

Note that I’ve mentioned that the core in an actual transformer is conductive. Part of that is to minimise the losses in the transfer between the two circuits. But in this case, we have no core at all and air is a really, really bad conductor. Otherwise we’d be getting shocks all the time and part of why the actual wireless transfer of electricity is so difficult (unless you want to cosplay Red Alert Soviet Union and make Tesla coils to “defend your land”).

How does this relate to “wireless” charging? It’s the reason why it’s so massively inefficent. Seriously, the amount of power you need to put into the chager is ~2 times the amount you get into the recipient’s coil. Yup, the air and all the insulating materials between the coils eat almost half of the power you’re putting in. And where do the losses go? You guessed it, heat. The same heat the lithium cells in your battery really don’t like.

To pour salt into the wound, the coils can’t just be “somewhere close by”. Oh no, they need to be properly aligned. Most of that is that they have to fully overlap one another so you don’t have part of the coil “shooting” electricity into the air around or part of the phone’s body where it does nothing useful. And no, this can’t be solved by having multiple coils because you can’t selectively power parts of the coils that are “in contact“. So if you try this, you end up with a charger that wastes even more energy.

“But MagSafe/Qi2” … Oh my sweet summer child, I’m ready for this one. Yes, making the coil from a magnetic material or adding a magnetic ring to the back of your phone solves the alignment issue. You know what else solves this issue? And it ironically comes from the very same company that created the “new MagSafe”? And that “old” thing WAS CALLED MagSafe? AND IT’S STILL BEING USED BY THE VERY SAME COMPANY?! Yes, a cable which can magnetically snap into the charging slot. And you know what’s even better about that? The cable can be small and doesn’t need to “slot in” deep so it also solves the “yanking” problem.

If you feel like your brain is now buffering, don’t worry. You’ve just been faced with the reality that Apple ALREADY has probably the best approach to charging and didn’t manage to use it’s industry leverage (which it already had quite a lot of) to make sure it’s THE charging standard. Because not only it “looks better”, it’s more practical than USB-C for everything (hell, this could be used for data transfers too) AND has a “built-in” intrusion prevention because there’s no “hole” to get dust, sand or water into. The only thing you need to protect are the contacts which, since they’re easily reachable can even be cleaned from corrosion over time. Seriously, if you have a Macbook, look at the power adapter port and you’ll see what I mean.

So yeah, in the end, the “wireless” charging is, pardon my language, a crippled version of an already awesome piece of engineering. And before you ask about the “MagSafe accessories” … That could’ve been a thing even without this. Even better, we could still have phones with metallic back which you can’t have with “wireless” charging because a certain guy called Michael Faraday once built this thing called “Faraday cage” to demonstrate that the electricity travels on the surface of conductive materials so anything you put in that cage is isolated from any EM radiation (not ionising one) as long as it’s not in a direct contact with the cage.

In conclusion, “wireless” charging is really not a good piece of tech. And the true wireless charging would make the world really dangerous place to be in because I highly doubt you want to be anywhere near something that’s effectively a Tesla coil.

R.R.A.