There's a shit ton of factual misinformation about wireless charging in posts in this thread.
Yes, wireless charging is less efficient than wired charging. Wireless charging will be at best, about 80% efficient, and arguably, Apple's Magsafe is likely the most efficient in the industry.
Wired charging isn't 100% efficient either, and generally peaks at about 95%. Wireless charging is at best, 15% less efficient compared to wired charging.
Still, the context should be the relative amount of global electrical energy that is used for charging phones, and the reality is that it is many magnitudes less than all of those electrical appliances that we rely on in our daily lives.
Pop quiz: how much electricity (to the closest 10 kilowatt-hour) does it take to power your iPhone or Android for a year? 1 kWh? 10 kWh? Or 100 kwh? The answer: 1 kWh.
This is the amount of electricity you'd need to power ten 100-watt incandescent lightbulbs for an hour. Far from anything worth being sheepish over, 1 kwh costs about 12 cents.
To be specific, your iPhone battery holds a charge of 1,440 mAh, or about 5.45 watt hours. If you fully drained and recharged your phone everyday, then over the course of a year you would have to feed it about 2,000 watt hours, or 2kWh. At an average price of 12 cents that means that your phone uses about one quarter's worth of electricity per year. As for your iPad, keeping it fed costs just $1.36 a year, according to the Electric Power Research Institute. Your average laptop, with its far bigger screen, uses about 72 kWh, costing some $8 a year.
That's right, you can run your phone, iPad and laptop for a whole year for about $10 -- less than the cost of three gallons of gasoline.
So don't worry about plugging in that charger and bumming a little juice. Don't worry about the ongoing carbon footprint of your electronics devices. Ignore the worryworts who try to make the case that your phone uses the electricity of two refrigerators if you add up all the processing power going on in the cloud. That's been thoroughly disproven.
Instead, if you want to reduce your electricity (and overall energy) use, better to think holistically about the entire scope and scale of your energy diet rather than the tiny loads being sipped by your favorite toys.
As Michael Bluejay (who goes by the nickname Mr. Electricity) says: "Obsessing about whether it's better to boil a cup of water on an electric burner or in a microwave, or whether you wear out your lights quicker by turning them off rathr than keeping them on, is a waste of time and misses the point. Such trivia won't make a dime's worth of difference in your electric bill. It's the bigger things that matter."
The good news is that the big energy suckers in the your home -- air conditioner, refrigerator, clothes washer, and even lightbulbs -- have become far more efficient. Compared with 1980 models, clothes washers now use 70% less electricity. New LED lightbulbs use 80% less. Refrigerators use 60% less.
As for damage to the battery from wireless charging,
With greater ease of charging via wireless technology, the question becomes: Is it bad for your mobile device battery to be fully charged all the time?
"Frankly, the higher you are in the [charge] state, as you creep up to 90%, 95% to 100% charge, the more degradation the battery will see," he said.
As a lithium-ion battery charges and discharges, ions pass back and forth between a positive electrode (made of lithium-cobalt oxide or lithium iron phosphate) and a negative electrode (made of carbon graphite).
As a battery charges, the positive electrode gives off lithium ions that move to the negative electrode and are stored as energy. As the battery discharges, those ions move back to the positive electrode to be used as electricity. As those lithium ions move back and forth, the electrolyte that acts as the transport medium degrades over time.
The higher the state of charge, the faster the electrolyte degrades, Srinivasan said.
Therefore, it's best not only to keep your smartphone below its top charge, but also to keep the charging and discharging pendulum from swinging wildly.
"In general, if you swing the battery charge from top to bottom, that's the worst thing you can to for the life of the battery. If you can cycle the battery between 45% and 55% that's the best thing you can do," Srinivasan said. "But, in general, just make sure you don't keep it fully charged."
Personally, I don't care if Apple is forced to switch to USB Type C connection, nor if it opts for wireless charging, but the idea that the EU is going to reduce electronic waste by banning the lighting port for USB Type C on the iPhone, in lieu of a 2 gram dongle option is complete bullshit.
So please amplify - if Apple or Samsung has a new charging port in development that they wanted to launch say next year, that offer demonstrably better performance or features, that was not USB-C based, how would they implement it?
They would submit their ideas to the USB-IF (or Wireless Power Consortium) for inclusion in the next USB standard. If it's demonstrably better, it'll be adopted without issue.
Then you wouldn’t have a universal standard which is what is being proposed. Apple or Samsung ( whoever “invents” the new tech would have it, while others would remain usb-c. So you’re back where you are now.
And who gives a hoot if some consortium thinks it’s good or not. That should be up to the company inventing and investing in the technology. Let the markets decide. Things like this are so poorly thought out when it comes to an innovation perspective. It’s really not saving anything. Everyone still needs a charger, regardless of what port it has.
And Apple removes the charger from the phones bill of materials, (since there are so many out there and in deference to reducing environmental impact), and some judge in South America decides against Apple stating they should pay a consumer $1000 because he was “wronged” by Apple for NOT not including it! How do companies navigate this inconsistent nonsense across the world.?
So please amplify - if Apple or Samsung has a new charging port in development that they wanted to launch say next year, that offer demonstrably better performance or features, that was not USB-C based, how would they implement it?
They would submit their ideas to the USB-IF (or Wireless Power Consortium) for inclusion in the next USB standard. If it's demonstrably better, it'll be adopted without issue.
Then you wouldn’t have a universal standard which is what is being proposed. Apple or Samsung ( whoever “invents” the new tech would have it, while others would remain usb-c. So you’re back where you are now.
And who gives a hoot if some consortium thinks it’s good or not. That should be up to the company inventing and investing in the technology. Let the markets decide. Things like this are so poorly thought out when it comes to an innovation perspective. It’s really not saving anything. Everyone still needs a charger, regardless of what port it has.
And Apple removes the charger from the phones bill of materials, (since there are so many out there and in deference to reducing environmental impact), and some judge in South America decides against Apple stating they should pay a consumer $1000 because he was “wronged” by Apple for NOT not including it! How do companies navigate this inconsistent nonsense across the world.?
They use USB-C and include a charger when the law requires it. Pretty simple.
So when Apple stopped including chargers with their devices, everyone cried wolf. What they want is a charger and a cable with every new device yet expect e-waste to be reduced? Not sure how this regulation reduces e-waste.
Who wants "a charger and a cable with every new device"?
I wouldn’t mind if Apple standardized on USB-C since all their other new stuff has it but the last thing anyone should want is for it to be forced. Luckily USB-C is nebulous enough it should last for a long time, since governments are notorious for taking FOREVER to update laws once passed so it’s not as disastrous as being forced to standardize on something truly awful like micro-USB, but long term it will likely be worse than just letting companies and consumers sort this stuff out on their own.
It’s kind of a mystery why Apple hasn’t moved to a USB-C port in the iPhone by now.
It should have happened many iPhone generations ago.
It would make things SO much simpler.
For me, it’s having 2 cables, actually LOTS of cables of various lengths, that do essentially the same thing. I would love to halve that number.
Lightning is the dinosaur.
Would a USB-C port make an iPhone half a millimeter thicker? OMFG, what a disaster!
Because it isn't waterproof.
Bullshit.
There are waterproof (actually resistant) phones with USB C ports. I suppose you tried to claim that they needed to remove the headphone jack to make the phones water resistant, too?
Comments
So for EU-compliance, they can state the Phone+Dongle as "the device that meets the EU requirement"
But part of "the device" comes off, which is surely permissible. EU can't state how many pieces/parts a "device" has.
Oh and only ship "the device" to the EU (if it makes sense to have EU vs non-EU packaging/process). Non EU gets a nice Lightening Phone.
E.
PS: To Tim: I'll trade that idea for any one Mac Studio with 32GB and 2TB....
Yes, wireless charging is less efficient than wired charging. Wireless charging will be at best, about 80% efficient, and arguably, Apple's Magsafe is likely the most efficient in the industry.
Wired charging isn't 100% efficient either, and generally peaks at about 95%. Wireless charging is at best, 15% less efficient compared to wired charging.
Still, the context should be the relative amount of global electrical energy that is used for charging phones, and the reality is that it is many magnitudes less than all of those electrical appliances that we rely on in our daily lives.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2013/09/07/how-much-energy-does-your-iphone-and-other-devices-use-and-what-to-do-about-it/?sh=613644ed2f70
As for damage to the battery from wireless charging,
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3229750/is-wireless-charging-bad-for-your-smartphone.html
Personally, I don't care if Apple is forced to switch to USB Type C connection, nor if it opts for wireless charging, but the idea that the EU is going to reduce electronic waste by banning the lighting port for USB Type C on the iPhone, in lieu of a 2 gram dongle option is complete bullshit.
Have a nice day
And who gives a hoot if some consortium thinks it’s good or not. That should be up to the company inventing and investing in the technology. Let the markets decide. Things like this are so poorly thought out when it comes to an innovation perspective. It’s really not saving anything. Everyone still needs a charger, regardless of what port it has.
Not the EU.
There are waterproof (actually resistant) phones with USB C ports. I suppose you tried to claim that they needed to remove the headphone jack to make the phones water resistant, too?