But as premium this feature is, for a market like India, it is almost useless. There are many reasons for this including the pitfalls of wireless charging technology itself. These days, wireless charging can be found as a premium feature on many cars, including many new models that cost less than Rs 8 lakh but don’t get fooled by the hype.
- Most smartphones sold in India are priced below Rs 20,000, while the iPhone SE is counted among the most affordable phones to offer this feature – which starts at Rs 39,990. Yes, one of the most affordable and popular phones to provide the feature is two times more expensive than the average price of a smartphone in India. Wireless charging is utterly a fringe benefit at most.
- Actually, that’s also not true because wireless charging isn’t even truly wireless.
- You need a pad on which you keep the phone. So the moment you pick up the phone, the phone does stop charging. Many people still use their phones while charging it with a cable and via wireless charging, this isn’t possible. Of course, it is unsafe and highly ill-advised to use a phone while it is being charged, but people do it.
- Most wireless chargers don’t enable a magnetic connection, the charging can stop randomly. It is unreliable, to say the least. This may change with Apple’s MagSafe charging tech, but then again automotive OEMs will have to incorporate it but it is likely to remain an Apple exclusive tech which again can’t be a solution..
- In case of wireless charging being slow.
- Recently smartphone companies like Xiaomi, Oneplus and Huawei have come up with fast wireless chargers which work with proprietary chargers. But the standard Qi-based wireless charging is gated at 5-7-watts wherein even an iPhone now gets charged at 18-watts. So your charge speeds are reduced to 50 percent.
- Wireless charging also heats up the phone – so unless you have a cooling pad, In a place like India, where the temperatures can get pretty excruciating in the summers, this is an even bigger issue as overheating can reduce the life of your phone’s battery and can cause all kinds of damage to the phone.
- This is stupid plain, The iPhone 12 Pro has a 6.1-inch screen and that phone can’t be charged on some vehicles because the pad is too small for the phone. Most smartphones these days have 6-inch plus screens.
- This is again a bad habit that wireless charging inculcates.
- The older wired charging is better it’s faster and reliable and cheap and it works everywhere.