Why Wireless Won't Work

So, after the experiment that was the standalone smart watch, last year I bought a nice, big, shiny new phone. A Windows Phone no less – yes, I’m one of the few (or the “early adopters” as I like to think).

One of the features of the phone is wireless charging. Some prophets have predicted this to be the next “must-have” feature, just as all mobiles have cameras. They are rolling out wireless charging facilities at McDonalds and Starbucks. So, will it be the end of all cables?

No.

Despite the phone having the facility, it didn’t have a charging plate in the box (you still have the ability to charge by microUSB). That was a luxury extra which I had to buy. So I bought a couple – one for home, one for work. And this is the reason why it won’t work – I couldn’t buy one for the car because they don’t exist yet. You see, it order for the plate to charge the phone, the phone has to be so close so as to be almost physically in contact with it. I couldn’t have bought a charging plate for the car because unless it was built into a cradle, the phone would slide off at each and every corner.

Now, it may well be that they create a cradle which does charge your phone whilst driving. Great. It’s going to save me all of that one second of not having to connect a cable as well as clip it into the cradle. And I will still have to cope with cable-clutter – don’t forget, there is still a cable going to the charging plate, even if it is hidden under the bar of table of your McDonalds.

But it isn’t a normal cable. Well, not “normal” yet. What do I mean? Well, microUSB cables are ten-a-penny. When I randomly woke up in a hostel in San Francisco for a long weekend, my hostel bed had a normal electricity socket and then two USB ports. Similarly in the UK there are planes, trains and automobiles which provide USB ports as standard. But the wireless plate doesn’t use USB so that you can use your normal plug adaptor. It uses its own transformer – it has to. The 5volt-1amp output of the USB is not powerful enough for inductive charging – it needs 12volts.

So compatibility is an issue on the one hand; but compatibility is an issue on the other hand as well – as well as not being compatible with existing technology, it isn’t compatible with competing technology. Remember the disc wars – when HD-DVD competed against Bluray and eventually lost. There are two competing standards of wireless charge: Qi and PMA. Oh, and of course, Apple has gone off all on its own. Now, this isn’t a killer. Remember when you used to get an “all staff” email asking if anyone had a charger for a Nokia 8210 and Deborah would reply-all that she only had one for a Motorola Razr? Now all phones (except Apple, obviously) have standardised. They all use MicroUSB, they all use microSD memory cards, they all use Jpeg format for photos. Wireless will get there. Maybe. Until then you may have to choose whether to go to McDonalds (Qi) or Starbucks (PMA).

So, you’re going to have to buy a whole new, incompatible infrasystem to charge your phone. But – and I’ve hinted at this – it isn’t even wireless. As I say, you have to have your phone in such close proximity to the plate that it’s just easier to place it on it. But what it doesn’t have which cables do have, is stability. Which I found out to my cost. One evening I put my phone on the charging plate next to the bed and then fell asleep. At some stage I obviously dreamt that I was a dog, bounding through fields, and knocked the phone off the plate. Charging stopped and I spent most of a busy next day fretting that my 34% battery would not last. With a cable, it connects in and – particularly violent dreaming aside – it stays plugged in despite a few knocks. Indeed, the cable is actually more useful  for this – if I connect my phone by cable, then I can go round my roundabouts and watch it sliding around in the footwell. Moreover what I can do is actually hold and use the phone whilst it is on charge without having to hold an actually-quite-chunky charging plate against the back.

The novelty (and it really is novelty) has worn off. Indeed, only if charging plates become so widespread that they are embedded in train tables; bar tops and dashboards will I be able to travel without my single microUSB cable. In fact, I’m actually going to unplug my charging plate and revert to cabled charging. Not only is it not a function, it’s actually a disruption now. I have my worry which I don’t have with cables that there may be a disconnect; but there is a further interference – the transformer, because of what it is doing, makes a slight pulsing sound all the time. All the time – not just whilst connected. There is also a tiny little light on the plate which illuminates to let you know it is charging; presumably to alleviate that niggling fret that the phone is not correctly placed on the plate; but that tiny little light illuminates an entire bedroom when connected.