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.
What a waste of effort (Score:4, Insightful)
Not just because they picked the wrong standard. (I'm picturing Gil Gunderson making the pitch.) The real problem is that wireless charging doesn't transfer very much power. My new phone has a 2 amp charger but it gets less than half that thru a wireless charger. 2 amps can get me a good chunk of charge in 20 minutes. Wireless can't. If I'm low enough that I need to charge on the go, I need the maximum current that my device can handle.
A wireless charger is fine for keeping the phone topped off at my desk where the phone's sitting for hours with the display off. It's pretty much useless when I'm only going to be sitting for a few minutes.
Just put an outlet at each table and be done with it. You know they had to run power to the wireless systems so it would have been simple to install outlets.
Could be useful (Score:4, Insightful)
If they market heated coffee mugs that work with this technology.
So the people behind the competing standard... (Score:2, Insightful)
So the people behind the competing standard... claim that the PMA devices won't work with "the vast majority" of devices that are out there, yet according to this article: http://bgr.com/2013/04/17/sams... [bgr.com]
It's going to work with Samsung, HTC, Google, Blackberry, and LG devices.
What exactly are these "vast majority" Qi devices, and who is building the things, because it's not these guys...