How does qi charger work

The short answer is no. As long as the charger matches the wireless charging standard supported by your smartphone you can use any wireless charger. What is wireless charging and do I need it? The iPhone X on a wireless charger. Photograph: Apple. How do I wirelessly charge my phone?

What do I need? Is it faster? Reuse this content. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile. Log out. Smart Home. Social Media. More Button Icon Circle with three vertical dots. It indicates a way to see more nav menu items inside the site menu by triggering the side menu to open and close. Vivian McCall. Wireless chargers work by creating a magnetic field that your phone, watch, or other device absorbs to gain energy.

When you place a device on a wireless charging pad, a small coil in the device receives and harvests energy from the magnetic field, and uses it to power the battery.

Wireless charging is a hassle-free way to charge your phone, but the technology currently has a few drawbacks — for instance, it's usually slower than using a charging cable. Visit Business Insider's Tech Reference library for more stories. Additional comments. Email optional. Receive a selection of our best stories daily based on your reading preferences. Deal icon An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt. The base station and the mobile device each have coils—a transmitter coil and a receiver coil, respectively.

The receiver sends an error signal to the transmitter that simply shares a value equal to the difference between the required power level and the actual power level.

The transmitter adapts its output to achieve zero difference between the requested and delivered levels. The Qi standard allows up to 15 watts, which some Samsung chargers already support. The result is a slow, steady charge for the mobile device, but actual user experiences show that wireless charging is generally much slower than wired charging.

The coils are usually intended to be only a few millimeters apart, and a productive coupling between the coils requires accurate positional alignment. But how does the user know where to place their phone on a charging pad? This is typically addressed in one of three ways. The charging pad or base station can have visual or tactile signifiers of the optimal position for the phone; this is cheap and easy, but it presents challenges when dealing with phones of different sizes and configurations.

It can charge over longer distances but at a lower transfer efficiency. Many newer devices support both modes, but details on the new iPhones are still scant.