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What Finally Killed AirPower

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Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#271

Post by vsl »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #139
_bxg1 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes something easy and makes it effortless . Like AirPods, this has a surprising number of implications that you really don't think about until you try it. If I'm just setting my phone down on my desk and it's at 50%, and my cable is right there, I may not bother to plug it in. Especially if I might get up again in 5 or 10 minutes. But if I can just set it down in a particular place and regain a couple percentag…

This is what I never understood, even slightly. Why not just give an iPod / iPhone dock without all the wireless bullshit? I prefer a dock as it holds phone at a handy angle, syncs, and doesn't have the myriad of drawbacks of bluetooth. Smartphone battery life is so shit, on every model, that I always plug my phone in. Even if the cable / socket is only going to be around for minutes. So no saving here. In the days o…

All docks I’ve seen require careful insertion of the phone, to a) hit the spot where the cable goes in and b) not to scratch the phone if I miss. Wireless: just slam the phone on the puck (or stand), carelessly.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#272

Post by anotheryou »

Why can't they cycle through coils one by one and see where the biggest drain is?

I mean:

1. Cycle through coils until you discover a drain. (From two (or more) overlapping coils which both show drain, pick just the one with the biggest drain.)

2. Assume that's where a device to be charged is (or aligns best to a coil).

3. Give power only to the this best-fitting coil (one per device)

4. Pause charging for a few ms every 500ms to repeat at (1.)

As they have full control over the receiving hardware they could also easily hide the small pauses in charging when a "search cycle" happens.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#274

Post by xtrimsky1234 »

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 think wireless charging can be great for two reasons:

- hiding it visually, Ikea has done it very well. A cable is ugly, air power is ugly. but if your night table has wireless charging hiding, it is very pleasant to hide cables entirely in your bedroom.

- occasions where you want to be fast. at the office or when going to sleep you don't need to be fast. but in the car I think wireless charging is nice. If you travel frequently, being able to just drop your phone in your car and have navigation and wireless charging instantly is very nice in my opinion. Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/iOttie-Wireless-Samsung-Enabled-Devic...

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#275

Post by gargravarr »

zachberger wrote: post #243
mcguire wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean lining it up precisely on the surface? That's why I stopped using a wireless charger.

The two Qi chargers I've used don't really require much lining up. With the Pixel Stand the alignment is obvious, I've never missed the alignment on that. I also have used Samsung's round, flat charger. Its a circle. Its hard to miss the center of the circle.

The Qi wireless charger for my Galaxy S5 has a noticeable precision requirement for placing the phone - it doesn't charge at full speed unless the phone is accurately placed, which is infuriating and makes me cut back my use of wireless charging; I've confirmed this by having a USB power meter attached and watching the current draw change as I move the phone around the pad.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#276

Post by gargravarr »

Asooka wrote: post #169
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I never understood, even slightly. Why not just give an iPod / iPhone dock without all the wireless bullshit? I prefer a dock as it holds phone at a handy angle, syncs, and doesn't have the myriad of drawbacks of bluetooth. Smartphone battery life is so shit, on every model, that I always plug my phone in. Even if the cable / socket is only going to be around for minutes. So no saving here. In the days o…

I don't use Apple products, but I do use a wireless charger for my Samsung phone. The reason is that I keep it in a rather beefy protector case and fiddling with the charging port flap is annoying, which would also impede it working with any kind of dock, and I'm not about to carry a naked phone - I can't trust myself not to drop it.

The one distinct advantage of wireless charging is that my Galaxy S5 has the same waterproofing flap over the USB port, and I've already worn through one of these (thankfully Samsung had the foresight to make them very easy to replace when the clip breaks), so the charger does not require opening the flap.

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#277

Post by koheripbal »

xtrimsky1234 wrote: post #274
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 think wireless charging can be great for two reasons: - hiding it visually, Ikea has done it very well. A cable is ugly, air power is ugly. but if your night table has wireless charging hiding, it is very pleasant to hide cables entirely in your bedroom. - occasions where you want to be fast. at the office or when going to sleep you don't need to be fast. but in the car I think wireless charging is nice. If you tra…

Are cables really ugly?

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#279

Post by sfifs »

hopler wrote: post #214
sfifs wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I used to think the same until one day I dramatically learned the utility of wireless charging. I was traveling on a 30 hour journey with two airplane changes from Asia to the US. Some combination of temperature and humidity changes led to condensation in the charging port my phone basically refused to charge from USB C irrespective of what I tried to dry it out. I barely managed to save enough battery to send a "…

Where did you travel to? Southeast Asia?

Not to, from :-)

Re: What Finally Killed AirPower

#280

Post by X-Istence »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #269
X-Istence wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a wireless charger from Anker that sits at an angle that I use at my desk: https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Qi-Certified-Compatible-Fast-Ch... With the angle it sits at, when notifications come in FaceID will correctly ID me and unlock the device so I can at a glance see what the notification is. As for syncing? All of that is done to the cloud, so that's not really something I care much about.

Quite - why complexify and lower the charge efficiency it by making it wireless to hold it in exactly the same position as dock? A perfect example - to my mind - of where a dock would be better, and probably cheaper. As far as cloud goes, I realise I'm an outlier - perhaps not so much on HN - but I want local copies and start by mistrusting cloud unless I have adequate redundancy. So iPhone gets locally backed up sti…

My iPhone can wirelessly back up to iTunes on my Mac Mini while charging on my wireless dock using WiFi.
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