The leading wireless smartphone charging system Qi (“chee”) has always had a catch when it came to the car. At home it was great, because you need only slap your phone down on a charging pad and it would charge without wires. But in the car, the phone might get jostled around and then lose its charging connection on the pad.
Now the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) which created Qi, has come out with a new version of the standard, which allows for a short gap between the pad and phone. Your smartphone will charge up to 1.77 inches from the pad, which will allow for some in-car jostling.
This new 1.2 version of the Qi standard is backwards compatible with any Qi chargers already on the market. And it also allows several devices to charge up at the same time as long as they are in range.
Qi is the leading standard, and it is the most widely adopted in cars (although only a handful of cars offer wireless phone charging). Up until now Qi charging pads used inductive charging with a coil that creates an alternating electromagnetic field. A smartphone, sitting on the pad has a receiving coil that picks up the field and converts it to energy that can charge the battery.
With the new 1.2 standard, you also get resonance charging which makes use of vibrations in coils.
Qi competes with Rezence and the Power Matters Alliance, who are already using resonance charging. For more click here.
Qi wireless charging requires Qi-compatible phones. Cases are available for most leading phones and many models offer built-in capability. A listing of Qi-ready phones is here.
Photo via Engadget
