Yesterday Apple announced the new iPhone 8 and iPhone X. Both these new handsets will support Wireless Charging.
You can find Qi Wireless Charging devices on Amazon, starting usually from £16.
Wireless charging in itself is not new technology and a few other manufacturers have been trying to get it into the mainstream for years.
In an unlikely move for Apple their new phones support an open interface standard called Qi charging.
Before you ask it’s pronounced ‘CHEE’ and comes from the Chinese word for Energy Flow.
Qi charging is a standard set by the WPC, the wireless power consortium.
They have been established since 2008 and is now on version 1.2.2 of the standard.
It works in a similar principle to ZigBee – meaning all tech that uses it will in theory work with each other. This means you will be able to use any Qi device or pad to charge your new iPhone 8 or iPhone X. However Apple do plan to also have their own version of Qi with ‘expanded specification’ they they call ‘AirPower’.
One company that must have seen this coming is IKEA.
In 2015 they released a range of Qi Wireless charging furniture and lamps. Allowing you to buy cheap, integrated wireless charging solutions.
This is the second time they have been spot on with their tech integrations, they also released a range of Smart Bulbs that work on ZigBee. The same standard as Philips Hue.
Other mainstream adopters of Qi are McDonalds, they also started rolling out Qi charging points in their restaurants in 2015.
Apple fans everywhere will rejoice that no longer are they forced to buy expensive certified cables, that often break.
We are pretty excited by this move by Apple as it’s yet another move by a big player into a shared smart ecosystem. Moving away from walled gardens and closed tech!
What do you think of Qi Wireless Charging? Let us know in the comments.