WPC: Wireless chargers get the same power as Quick Charge chargers

Wireless Qi chargers will soon have a power of 15W, the same as current Quick Charge 2.0 chargers. This has been announced by the Wireless Power Consortium, the partnership behind the Qi wireless charging standard.

It is not yet known when exactly chargers with a capacity of 15W will appear. WPC will keep such details to itself for a while. The specification itself is also still secret and available only to members of the partnership, including wireless charger manufacturers.

It appears that the WPC is using a technology that WPC member Freescale presented last year. That technology also provides a power of 15W for wireless chargers. The WPC points out that Qi chargers and Qi equipment with the new version will remain backwards compatible. New Qi chargers can therefore charge older phones with Qi, while new hardware can also be charged with older Qi chargers. However, the power will then be lower than if both the charger and the device to be charged support the new Qi version.

With 15W, wireless chargers can charge phones and tablets faster than they do today. Thanks to Quick Charge 2.0, many phones are half to three quarters full within an hour, depending on the capacity of the battery.

Qi is the best known standard for wireless charging in the telecom industry. The Samsung Galaxy S6, various Lumia devices and the Nexus 4, among others, support wireless charging via the Qi standard.