Since our mobile phones became smart and their batteries began lasting hours instead of days, our daily routine is usually attached to a USB cord in order to put more juice in our devices and keep them (and our lives) running. Wireless charging is an amazing feature that allows a battery to be charged via electromagnetic induction and as a result, you just have to leave your phone on a charging surface for a while and it will replenish the battery. However, the technology available today has the downside of being significantly slow when compared to wired charging, making the gap even bigger if you include fast-charging technologies that are becoming standard on the latest smartphones. Samsung has the tip of the spear on it and both Galaxy S6 edge+ and Galaxy Note 5 are the industry first devices to feature fast wireless charging, which can take the battery from 0 to 100 percent in just 120 minutes (2 hours), a great improvement when compared to the minimum 3 hours of other devices. However, for it to happen, users need Samsung’s own fast wireless charger with Qi technology.
A curious fact revealed by Android Police is that the charger has a built-in fan below the charging surface, a neat solution for solving one of the no-cord charging problems. The thing is, in order to transfer energy, wireless chargers generate a lot of heat on both sides – the surface and the phone. The fast-charging technology from Samsung generates even greater amounts of heat and, to make things worse, the the chargers are usually located in poorly ventilated areas. By adding a fan, Samsung appears to have completely solved this problem. Another cool aspect is that the gear is very quiet, according to Android Police, and you could not tell there was a fan if not by putting it near your ears.
Despite it’s limitations, wireless charging is a promising technology, as charging surfaces can be easily embedded in desks at work or at home, so you could just leave your device as you always do and it would be automatically charged. With regards to charging speed, Samsung’s new charger is around 30% faster than others, but still it cannot take a phone from 0 to 60% in 30 minutes, like Qualcomm’s Quick Charge. However, both technologies are evolving fast and we should see great improvements in the next couple of years.