Wireless charging makes a ton of sense with wearables like smartwatches. We’ve been asking for it for a long time, wondering why watches like the Gear and Pebble don’t have any sort of wireless charging support. According to documents that passed through the FCC last week, the Moto 360 is going to recharge wirelessly via the Qi wireless charging standard. There’s even something called the “Motorola Wireless Charger” that is specifically designed to work with the smartwatch.
A wireless charger called the Motorola SPN5845A Wireless Charger passed through the FCC. This charging device has been tested with the Moto 360 and Motorola’s micro USB wall charger, so we know it’s being released special for Motorola’s new smartwatch. What we don’t know yet is whether or not the Motorola Wireless Charger is going to come with the Moto 360, whether it will be sold as a separate accessory, and whether or not the Moto 360 will support recharging via micro USB. It could be that the smartwatch will charge wirelessly and not through a cable, although we hope that is not the case. There remains the question of whether or not the Moto 360 will charge with any Qi wireless charger or just the Motorola specific charger that we are seeing now.
The Qi wireless charging standard is the one that most manufacturers have opted to use when building devices that support wireless charging. It’s still not something that is on the radar of most consumers. It’s also a different standard than the Powermat standard that Starbucks and Duracell recently announced would be going into Starbucks locations across the country. Wireless charging may be close to breaking into the mainstream, but it won’t get there until one charging standard comes out on top. The Moto 360 is expected to be announced at Google I/O in a couple of days, and it should be released this summer. It’s good to know that it will offer the convenience wireless charging.