CES 2018 Trend 4: Wireless Charging Starts to Go Mainstream
Call it the Apple effect — one of the biggest changes in the new iPhone 8 and iPhone X is the added support for wireless charging based on the Qi standard. Now that it’s officially in the mainstream market, wireless charging devices exploded at this year’s show, with accessory makers eager to profit off a massive user base of over 90 million. Qi emerged as the clear front-runner over Powermat. And with a silent white flag, Powermat, which for years pushed the PMA standard, ceded to Qi’s market leadership and opened their platform to the Qi standard.
Another sign of wireless charging going mainstream is how it has been embedded into many gadgets and smart furniture on the CES show floor. There are alarm clocks, mousepads, and underwear that all can juice up your phone without a cable.
As we look ahead, the next big hurdle for wireless charging to overcome is distance charging. Currently, most wireless charging technology requires that consumers physically place their phone on top of the wireless charging pad, so that the charger and the phone are physically touching. Even technologies like Powercast’s, which recently received FCC approval for a wireless charger with an 80-foot range, are far from perfect — most decrease in efficiency the farther away the phone is placed, and the charge has some trouble moving around physical objects. Distance charging would unlock new possibility with processors and new sensors once distance charging becomes reliable and widely available.
For brands, wireless charging may not seem like that big of a deal on first glance. But for a generation of consumers that use mobile as a primary channel to engage with brands, the improved ease of charging will become an integral part of the consumer experience that brands operating physical locations need to consider. If your vehicle or store or restaurant or hotel does not offer wireless charging when more and more people start to ditch the USB cable, then you would be undermining a major part of your consumer experience.
