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What Finally Killed AirPower

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Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#111

Post by accatyyc »

gpm wrote: post #90
skellera wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that have an effect on battery life though? Constant micro charges?

Possible positive? If it keeps it in the 20-70% range I'm told we are supposed to keep our devices in.

The things that kill smartphone batteries today are age and power cycles. It doesn’t matter if you charge from 0% to 100% in one go or from 90% to 100% ten times. Both add up to one power cycle.

To keep your battery fresh for as long as possible, always keep the phone connected to a charger. No battery cycles. It will get worse after a few years anyway.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#113

Post by Rebelgecko »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #11

So my phone is charged by a cable. It plugs into the wall on one side and then plugs into my phone on the other. This system works great - I plug my phone in when I go to bed and unplug it when I wake up. The cable is long enough to plug into my phone even if I want to use it in bed. It's easy, cheap and failproof. What is the draw of wireless charging? What is it that I'm missing? Did anyone ask for this?

I have a tablet with a broken USB port, so I can only charge it wirelessly. For my phone, wireless charging makes it easier to top off the battery. Less friction than digging around for a cable, plugging it in, and unplugging when I'm done.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#114

Post by rimliu »

sp332 wrote: post #61
rincebrain wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that not something many people can do one-handed? The last time I had any trouble doing that one-handed was in the era of proprietary inch-wide charge connectors.

Last I checked, I only had one opposable thumb per hand. I need that to hold my phone, so how would I grab the cable? With my teeth?

It’s not super convenient, but I do it this way: press the phone to the ball of my palm with the middle, ring and little finger and use the thumb and the index finger to pull the cable out. The trickiest part is the positioning of the phone in the palm, because that pulling motion has a very limited range.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#115

Post by accatyyc »

zaphirplane wrote: post #39
sp332 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can slap my phone down on the charger next to my bed in the dark. I can grab my phone off the charger on my desk at work with one hand. Before wireless charging, it wasn't much hassle, and I only rarely had trouble with my phone battery dying. Now it's almost no hassle, and I never have trouble with my battery dying. It's just a nice quality-of-life boost.

Constantly recharging your phone is suppose to reduce your battery’s max capacity over time I.e your battery lasts less

Constantly charging causes fewer power cycles and extends your battery life.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#116

Post by pkulak »

accatyyc wrote: post #111
gpm wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possible positive? If it keeps it in the 20-70% range I'm told we are supposed to keep our devices in.

The things that kill smartphone batteries today are age and power cycles. It doesn’t matter if you charge from 0% to 100% in one go or from 90% to 100% ten times. Both add up to one power cycle. To keep your battery fresh for as long as possible, always keep the phone connected to a charger. No battery cycles. It will get worse after a few years anyway.

I dunno. All the EV manufacturers still recommend not charging to 100% daily.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#117

Post by Phlarp »

accatyyc wrote: post #111
gpm wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possible positive? If it keeps it in the 20-70% range I'm told we are supposed to keep our devices in.

The things that kill smartphone batteries today are age and power cycles. It doesn’t matter if you charge from 0% to 100% in one go or from 90% to 100% ten times. Both add up to one power cycle. To keep your battery fresh for as long as possible, always keep the phone connected to a charger. No battery cycles. It will get worse after a few years anyway.

Age, cycles and heat. Inductive charging loops are going to generate a ton of waste heat, and worse yet a good chunk of that is going to be coming from the coil inside the phone.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#118

Post by perfect_wave »

eridius wrote: post #64
jachee wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Qi chargers that I have make it very clear if charging is happening. The "just plonk it down" problem is human, not technical. I'm sure you're most likely underestimating your wife's ability to learn what is, in reality, a quite simple task.

My problem is it's really easy to get just barely on the edge of the charge zone, and then at some point in the night you bump it ever so slightly and it leaves the zone and stops charging.

I've had my wireless charger for 4 months now and never once experienced this. You put it down and it makes a slight vibration to tell you its charging. Sometimes if I've had a few beers I don't hear the noise and I have to pick it up and drop it down again.

This is still way easier than digging out the cable from between my bed and my nightstand and fiddling with it 'till it gets in exactly the right spot. Now I use my phone in bed and don't worry at all until I go to sleep and then it just works.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#119

Post by Phlarp »

OriginalPenguin wrote: post #79
sneak wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of money Apple makes from selling replacement cables due to fatigue due to inadequate (in their opinion “ugly”) strain relief is negligible. Please stop spreading this inaccurate meme. Apple makes money because they sell metric shitloads of $1200 phones and $600 watches and, increasingly, software and services for them. Not cables.

Apple sold 2.2 billion iPhones and 360 million iPads before they stopped reporting numbers. Assume for every phone or iPad they sell, they average one extra cable (for work, for the car, because it breaks, whatever..) Apple charges $19 for an extra cable. Assume it costs them $2 to make the cable (and it probably costs much less). That's 43.5 billion right there. Which even for Apple is not small potatoes. Especially…

Who is buying $19 Apple branded charging cables? I guess if consumers want to lean into every minor expense it's hardly fair to blame the company for taking their money... Clearly they were eager to give it to someone in a hurry.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#120

Post by 7granddad »

the_pwner224 wrote: post #94
pg_bot wrote: post #74

Could you put a pressure sensor on the pad and only power on the coils directly underneath the object? I assume with software you could selectively turn on/off areas of the mat to manage the heat problems that come with multiple coils being on at once. I could see it being a problem if they were charging all at the same time but you should be able to fake it and call that good enough. All the devices have to charge,…

There wouldn't be any need for pressure sensors; this already happens. The charged device adds some power to its own coil and the charging station detects that (it's unidirectional communication). For example my charging station lights up about a second after putting my phone down, and can show the battery status with the light. I would assume that when there's nothing on them the coils transmit in a low-power mode,…

What I don't follow is how other multi-charging mats do exactly this. According to the article, by their estimation it was powerful harmonic EM interference that did AirPower in. If AirPower were only powering 3 coils at a time like other multi-charging mats why did it run into this problem when others had not
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