Anybody that follows the technology world will tell you that while standards are great, there are often too many of them. Just taking a look at the history of video and audio formats can give you a headache, and it seems the industry’s answer to encourage consolidation of said standard is, naturally, to create another standard. That fifteenth standard isn’t going to solve the problem caused by the previous fourteen. One area where things are changing for the better however, seems to be wireless charging. With two of the biggest names in wireless charging recently merging, to hopefully make wireless charging less confusing, it leaves just the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) and the Qi standard standing on its own.
Earlier this year, the Power Matters Alliance (PMA) and the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) joined forces, merging the PMA’s magnetic resonance standard with A4WP’s Rezence standard. While the merger of these two alliances is now complete, it’ll take some time before we see products hit shelves that support both. In any case, the idea is to create wireless charging transmitters as well as devices that support standards from the PMA and A4WP, however a name for the new entity has yet to be chosen.
Meanwhile, the Wireless Power Consortium looks set to stand by the Qi wireless standard, instead of merging with this new entity. If there were a winner in this war of wireless charging standards, it’d be the Qi standard. Not only are devices with Qi wireless charging far more prevalent, but the charging pads themselves can be found for very little online. Not to mention that many devices can be converted to Qi charging very, very easily. In fact, IKEA just launched a new range of furniture with Qi chargers built right into the cabinets and lamps. Whether or not the Qi standard continues to be adopted in large numbers in the face of the merger of these two groups is unclear, but it looks like Qi charging is winning.