Starbuck's Wireless Charging Stations Won't Work With Most Devices 114
Lucas123 (935744) writes Starbucks today announced that after beta-testing wireless charging in several locations, it will roll it out to all of its cafes in the U.S. Unfortunately, the Powermat wireless chargers they chose to use doesn't support the overwhelming number of mobile devices that are enabled for wireless charging using the Qi standard. Of the 20 million consumer devices estimated to have shipped in 2013 with wireless charging capabilities, nearly all were built with the Qi specification, according to IHS. The majority of the Qi technology was built into devices such as the Google Nexus 4 and 5 smartphones, Google's Nexus 7 second-generation tablet and a number of models in Nokia's Lumia smart phone range. The battle between the three wireless charging consortiums is expected to continue to adversely impact adoption of the technology.
Re:Why not just an outlet? (Score:4, Interesting)
What about a MicroUSB cable? That would have supported 99% of stuff.
Or just a USB plug. Side benefit -- you could have a remote computer secretly sucking the data off the phones.
Wait, never mind.
Re:So the people behind the competing standard... (Score:4, Interesting)
Apparently most of the phones already out in the market use the Qi standard, like the Samsung S4 and S5, the Nexus 4, 5 and 7 and a bunch of Nokia phones.
Maybe the Samsung S6 and future Nexus devices will support PMA but none of the current ones do.