What I find most frustrating is that if you're going to go as far as using magnets to ensure "perfect" alignment for the coils, you might as well use them to align metal contacts. Same convenience as "wireless" charging, but with the efficiency of wired charging.
That wouldn't work well due to cases and camera bumps. Do keep in mind that many wireless chargers are integrated into flat surfaces like you'd find in cars, they don't all just flop around with a wire.
Glad to see this video. I worked in a phone store, where I would continuously correct everyone I worked with including my manager, that no, wireless chargers were not in fact better for your battery longevity and to stop telling that to the customers that weren't knowledgeable enough to know otherwise, so they had to trust our experience and advice. I quickly realized that they either didn't choose to believe me or do any research themselves before making recommendations, or didn't care because selling an additional $40-$70 charger as essential for phone health was part of their commissions. I remember them saying they "trickle charge" like it was some feature of the wireless chargers when it's just something most modern phones do. Mind you I still sold a decent amount of them being completely honest with people, as there are still use cases even without a claim of better battery longevity. Convenience, an alternative if your port fails, to name a few. This is one of the many reasons I chose to move into the electronic repair business instead, a lot more honesty there compared to retail phone sales.
It's frustrating to me when I see anyone put their full trust in an "expert." It's so easy to be deceived either intentionally or by the negligence of said "expert." That's why I try to do my own research before buying anything.
It really infuriates me when the seller tries to sell items beyond their expertise with half-assed sales pitch. Went to buy laptop, seller doesn't know what type of CPU it has. He just says intel i5 or i7 or Ryzen 5. [CPU have H,P,U,G,E etc lineups that indicates how intense it can perform & how power effecient it is. As well as the generation of the cpu.]
@@monad_tcp In ideal scenarios transferring energy through magnets is close to 100%. Many/most transformers use some variation of this, and reach efficiencies exceeding 95%, and many over 99%. This includes the power from the grid to 120/240/110v or from 120v to 12v in your desktop computer. The issue is that the formulas are extremely well known, documented, and explored. Power is directly proportional to the distance squared. You can't really get closer than what we are doing now. If the coils were essentially touching we would see even higher efficiencies, but that's unreasonable for a multitude of reasons.
Another important note is how much of our power really is lost this way? Charging a phone, even at 25% efficiency takes 50 wh. Assuming you charge your phone about 1 time per day, this amounts to a very small overall amount of energy still. This energy is comparable to using a kettle, running a dishwasher for 2 minutes, or watching 30 minutes of TV. Personally I'm not convinced that the difference in energy from wireless to wired charging is really worth the inconvenience given that the difference in energy is pretty insignificant compared to so many other daily human activities.
@@arcmchair_roboticist if you look at it yearly it becomes more obvious how much power it is. Suddenly you're looking at enough power to run a kettle for over 7 hours. Multiply that by millions of users and suddenly we're looking at enough power waste to run cities and a major carbon impact too.
@@MichaelLargent yeah and the electricity consumption of producing a single hamburger is in the tens of kwh, will this change the consumption habits of people? Saving a couple of kwh a year per person is not worth much.
This is exactly why Apple never released AirPower, even Apple realized so many coils in a wireless charger is too much heat to manage properly. Honestly it’s good they pivoted to MagSafe and the Qi 2 standard adopted the same tech.
I don’t know if it is necessary heat from too many coils: -The biggest problem is many coils and even if intelligently managed, there is still a. high chance of bad alignment. That bad alignment is then creating more heat during charging, then it otherwise would.
@@sippingthe right. also we are sending rockets in to deep interstellar space, to Mars so wireless charging tech is actually piece of cake and it should be. But apple actually underestimated the tech. Or else airpower actually could have been a great product in my opinion.
@@asifabdullahzamee7476 the problem with airpower isn’t just the heat, but also the fact that it had different 2 coils stack top of each other. the ordinary Qi coil and the apple watch magnetic coil.
Living in a subtropical country, 30°C temperature feels almost like late fall or early spring. It's usually 40-42°C during summer and 35-38°C most of the year. So our phone batteries are constantly getting degraded even without charging.
its the rapid charge and discharge that will definitely wear the battery faster as long as battery temp is within 45C you dont need to worry i have my iphone for 4 years with 83%capacity left and the climate is usually as tropical as yours is
I'm told in extreme cold conditions the battery will also have a lot less charge capacity. There's always a temperature rating with batteries, and at either extreme of the operating range they are much less efficient.
@@MMuraseofSandvichdownright nonfunctioning, in my experience. I used to work in a warehouse where we couldn't take our phones, so I would leave it in my car turned off. In the winter when temps got below freezing, when I got off work, I couldn't turn it back on until I warmed it up with the car heater.
Lithium batteries have a narrower charging temperature range than operating (non-charging/discharging) range. For instance, a typical LiPo may only be recommended to charge between 5-45C (closer to room temp is still better because less heat related wear). Whereas typical LiPos are recommended to be discharged between -20C and +60C. So there's still some heat related wear on batteries discharging in a hotter climate but its not as bad as charging in a hotter climate.
*UPDATE:* It seems that if you use wireless Android Auto or Apple Carplay, your phone will get hot and wireless charging just exasperates the thermals further. My dad always complains about his phone getting hot when wireless charging in his car and no matter how centered I align his phone, it'll always gets hot and his phone will stop charging to control the thermals. But this video and illustration of Tesla solution of slapping so many coils might be the problem but my dad resorted to wired charging in his car anyway.
@@bjorncallewaert5841 i tried so many cars, even expensive ones (i use a lot of car sharing so i drive a lot of different cars over a week) the only car charger that doesnt cook my 12 pro is the cheap 10€ one off ebay i put in my 30 year old shitbox miata. Hilarious.
Jokes aside - Next time when you complain about this, just tell him the truth that Every One of us Without Exception will Die! Thats it. And see his reaction! 😉
At 2:43, the wired connection is represented by a dashed line, the wireless connection is represented by a solid line... an interesting subversion of expectations.
@@DaMu24 wired charging should be the solid lines, like a charging cable is a solid line, and wireless charging should be the broken lines. Reading the chart with them reversed made it more confusing to my tired brain at the time.
@@DaMu24 an universally accepted and logical thing, not only in technical drawings, but on maps, and in general illustration is that solid lines represent solid, visible objects or features. A dashed line represent invisible, imaginary or theoretical objects or features.
Appreciate you for sharing your conclusions at the *start* of the video, and making the video only as long as it needed to be to illustrate your conclusions (unlike most youtubers who intentionally breadcrumb the conclusions to force you to watch through their drawn out videos). Liked and subscribed!
Most phones have a feature to disable fast wireless charging which significantly decreases heat and also slows down battery charging overnight to about 3 hours which can actually help reduce wear
Charging batteries for long starches of time degrades health faster... charge in steps.. or "fractions" 30% add another 30% take a break.. rinse repeat
1:56 Correction please. The efficiency problem is not in generating the electrical field. The underlying principle here is the transformer, and transformers can be extremely efficient. The problem is the poor magnetic coupling between the primary winding in the charger and the secondary winding in the phone. This could be _improved_ by ensuring correct mechanical alignment, and _not_ as per the Tesla solution of more coils. You could even let the magnetism do the alignment for you. Still won't be as good as a wire though.
In some systems more current is fed to the transformer coil to support the charging speed if the magnetic coupling is poor. There are impedance losses in the coils.
I have to say that I always thought that wireless charging was pretty worthless until I damaged my charging port out of warranty. I keep my phone for at least 3 years before upgrading and wireless charging has saved me from an early upgrade. With that being said I would still give it up in a heartbeat for a rear mounted fingerprint scanner.
@@SirKrumpleOWrapperbruh, which service did you tap in? I replace my charging port for 20 dollar or less. At least way better with degraded battery, which I did that too and it is 200+. Aside what is with the notion of old phone repair isn't worth it? 5 years old or less phones is totally serviceable, while new phone cost upto 2k (5k if you count them shinny folded), nvm the environment, save your own wallet.
Appreciate the testing. I was hoping there was more tests about how much batteries degrade with higher temperatures, but that would take a huge amount of work and data.
Even then you would need a water sample size, probably for it to be meaningful data. If you're just testing one version of a few different brands over time, I don't know how much we would learn. Probably why there's not a lot of studies on Long-Term battery degradation and phone habits and charging habits etc...
@@michael_c2 Yep there is a fair amount of variation between battery capacity from the factory and so many other factors. Wired is better but I will say over the past 28 months I've had my current phone, I've just thrown it on a 15W wireless charging stand 9/10 nights and according to accubattery, which I installed on day 1, it still has 91% capacity. I've charged it 912 battery cycle equivalents/ 88,032% so I feel like it's doing pretty well. Unless you are keeping a phone for like 5 years or something it's kind of a non issue in my experience but fun to learn about.
@@1ssac1 maybe I'm more careful with my stuff, but I've only had to replace a phone do to a bad charge port once, and that was Motorola Moto G3 that used crappy Micro B USB, and it really was not the port itself but a faulty charge controller chip that caused the port to get hot enough to start smoking.
I've been slow wireless charging my iPhone for 3 years, the battery health is 92%. And the battery life is still excellent like day 1. Maybe slow wireless charging doesn't degrade it too quickly since heat is low.
@@shashankmlrj bro my iphone7 is 79% and I have left it at 0% for months at a time which is extremely bad for the battery so either my iphone 7 is wrong or you are the battery destroyer. The iphone 7 battery lasts like an hour btw.
I like to use USB-C magnetic adapters as an alternative. You get the benefits of not having to be accurate with plugging in (plus you don't wear out the USB port), but retain the benefits of wired charging. Such functionality should really be added to the USB spec.
Magnetic USB adapters are generally not recommended because they're not guaranteed to connect ground first, unlike every USB connector. And since they're not part of the spec, there's no way to verify that they're complying with USB-IF. Also, if there's a data connection in the adapter (required for PD), you could get some weird or damaging behavior if the connector is popped loose and reconnected. However, if it works for you for over a year, it's probably fine, most phones have pretty good protection circuitry. Maybe they'll come up with a type D (or M for magnetic?) connector that uses pogo pins and magnets? They'll cost more than type C, unfortunately...
@@kalafalas246problem with MagSafe is that (again) it is proprietary. My MacBook came with one but I always take a USB-C cable with me instead, because I can use that cable for all my devices: Laptop, earbuds, phone, camera, power bank etc.
@@inconsistencyon Sure, but the further you go, the more energy is wasted. You can also go sort of far with QI charging, it's just not enough energy to charge a phone anymore. WiFi needs a lot less energy to arrive than QI
@@anianii Wi-Fi is _practically_ wireless, though, as you can move 10+ meters and still get a reliable connection. "Wireless" charging is pure marketing; it should've been marketed as "tap charging" or "near field charging", e.g., you have a few millimeters before the connection is dead. See NFC / tap to pay /etc.
@@ikjadoon The connection is not "dead" after a few millimeters. It just turns itself off because it gets too inefficient to make sense. Which, by the way, is also what cell towers do. Your phone might actually be able to connect to a cell tower, but if its configuration says not to connect if the signal strength is lower than some value, your phone would show no signal instead. With QI, that threshold is simply much lower due to the high efficiency being necessary for charging to happen at a reasonable rate. If you're 500 meters away from a cell tower, you won't get the best connection either, but in that context it's good enough to work. But I have to agree that calling it wireless is mostly marketing. Inductive charging would be more clear.
Budget phone usually skips multiple PMCs to alternate the amount of power feeding to the battery base on its temp, that's why they tend to get significantly hotter esp at low battery
It's all about compromises. The ease of being able to pick up the device and put it back to charge in a second is handy for example when you're doing many short trips in a car, and would rather not break the charge port. There's no point in choosing wireless over wired when the device is charging overnight.
@@a1white Nothing is difficult per sé, but forget disconnecting it once while exiting the car, and you can forget about using your usb port ever again. They break easily. A magnetic cable/connector combo is a good compromise, but in my experience, the two parts often stick to eachother a bit too well and i've lost many such connectors. Wireless charging was not the ideal, but still the better solution for me in that case.
Good Video, loved the facts! One thing I would mention as a benefit of wireless charging though is that you will have way less trouble with loose connection plugs. I keep phones for 4 years on average, and when only using cables, I often have quite loose connections in the end which sometimes start bugging around.
Great to see some solid numbers on charging efficiency and thermals. I’ve heard claims about wireless charging degrading battery life for as long as I’ve seen wireless chargers. But I’ve never seen people get into details and produce numbers. Are the temperature tolerances on lithium ion batteries that low? 35 degrees Celsius is stuff I see often on holidays and are quite common in some parts.
Great video! Thank you for sharing good info with tests and data to back it up! I appreciate the effort that you guys put into teaching things that benefit us users! Keep up the good fight!
Finally someone say something about this, been feeling disturbed for a long time with people glorifying wireless charging over fast charging. Thanks iFixit for mentioning this!
Something that should be mentioned in defense of wireless charging is that wireless charging prevents wear and tear on the charging port; which (unfortunately) for many phone models is not as easily replaced as the battery, if it's even replaceable at all. I've had to replace several otherwise working phones in my life due to the charging port being worn out to the point it would not consistently charge.
Exactly. This is why I use a slow wireless charger, limit my battery charge to 85% with the Samsung setting, and use a Wi-Fi Android Auto dongle. I've reduced by total plug/unplug cycles by around 95%.
This has been my problem as well. USB C just doesn't seem to be robust enough for this purpose. The ideal solution would be magnetic plug in the phone but wireless slow charging overnight works as well without destroying the battery.
Finally someone speaks about this, thank you! I am not using wireless charging exactly for these reasons for a few years already. When I tried it, I did not find it any more convenient than plugging the phone in.
Yeah it shouldn't be your primary charging method, however keep in mind it allows you to keep using the phone when its wired port is worn out. Additionally in some parks and in restaurants there are some wireless chargers which are super convenient.
Yes, I’m noticing faster battery degradation every summer, even though I live in Norway, where temperatures can reach over 25°C. When using my phone in full sun with maximum brightness, the battery is under constant stress. Playing Pokémon Go also causes the phone to get very hot, which accelerates this process. Warm climate is battery’s worst enemy.
Great video! I always knew Wireless charging was not great due to heat I tried it for a few months but switched back to wired. My trick is to have a small plastic bracket like a U shape upside down screwed in to my desk, that is smaller than the cable, it is set near the rear of the desk, so I pull the cable from this U bracket and plug in to charge my phone, then when it is done, I unplug and let go, the cable will be pulled by gravity and get stuck in the U bracket and just wait there until I need it again.
This video seems to exaggerate the negatives of wireless charging. While it may produce some heat and potentially cause minor battery degradation, if it were truly detrimental, it wouldn't be a feature in modern smartphones. Consider the scenario of using wireless charging to incrementally charge the battery throughout the day. I maintain my battery between 20-80% and avoid leaving my phone on the charger overnight. Having used wireless charging since the early 2010s, I've observed no significant impact on my phone's longevity. It's worth noting that older Samsung wireless chargers included a built-in fan to mitigate overheating. I still use the older version, I think it was a 2018 or 2019 model.
Sony Xperia 3 actually had a magnetic interface on its side that allowed for the convenience of "wireless" charging with the advantage of actual electric contact that avoided the loss of wireless charging. If only we can establish a standard interface using this concept for phones.
I agree, never understood the "inconvenience" of plugging in a wire or why phone stands stopped being a thing. The loss of energy and wearing out of materials are a shame. It is true though that the lack of securing mechanism on USB-C causes the wire to fall out more than it should.
USB C is the most fragile part of the phone which breaks first. Well at least if you don't drop it and shatter your screen. But wear and tear on the charging port will eventually destroy the phone.
What environmental impact? If you are talking about the damaged batteries makes sense but the wasted watts don’t matter. Even in the worst case scenario where you are wasting 12 watts per full charge that ends up being like a dollar per 5 years of average phone use, or 1000 full charges from 0 to 100%. You could probably increase your air conditioning temperature 1 degree lower for a day and save a phone’s lifetime of wasted power.
This may sound like something with hindsight. I felt increased battery degradation when using wireless charging pad after I got my iPhone 11 in 201. The battery degradation went crazy. I initially guessed Apple may somehow use batteries of lower quality for iPhone 11 series but I was not sure. Happy that IFixit has cleared it out.
Something you completely ignore is the super cheap and flimsy USB C ports on most phones and yes even the flagships. If you plug in a charger everyday most ports won't last a year before they are sloppy loose.
Yeah, mine is several years old and I can feel it getting loose, which is one reason I've started looking into wireless charging and getting magsafe on my android. I know it is slower but I was curious about how it was on the battery. Mine gets hot wired but luckily it will slow down or stop if it gets too hot, so I'm not too super concerned with that, and it tends to only happen in the car when it is warm while I am charging and using the phone for navigation and stuff... so I'm kinda pushing it, lol.
I’m using baseus magsafe stand to charge my iPhone. Yes it gets longer to charge but it doesn’t get that hot as charging by wire. In my opinion mag safe magnets are the best way to perfectly align your phone to wireless charger.
Apple Magsafe kinda nailed it. Get the right magsafe stand and you really don't worry about charging. Even when I'm drunk I can wave my phone over my charging stand and it'll grab my phone outta my hand.
I'm not posing this is a naysayer opinion, but this video is a bit misleading and it introduces the differences between the two methods but doesn't quite present the whole picture. I'm not an expert by any means, but just based on my experience - there are wired chargers (think quick or fast charging, high watt output) that contribute to higher battery temps during charging, and there are wireless chargers (slower, low watt) that don't contribute to high battery temps. and when we consider the energy loss, I would estimate in practical terms, it would amount to...a difference of less than $1 USD over the course of a year? yes, the amount of energy required to charge phones is that low. if folks wanted to adopt wired charging to go green, the difference would ultimately be a rounding error when examining total energy consumption. I think the major drawbacks and comparisons demonstrated in the video are valid for the specific products shown, but there are a lot of options in this space that weren't mentioned. so I wouldn't necessarily agree with the blanket comment that wired is always better than wireless, it depends on the situation. I would personally vouch for slow charging on low watt wireless for overnight charging, and wired (not fast charging) throughout the normal course of the day if needed.
I use wireless charging out of convenience since I'll need to plug and unplug frequently. I always place it under a small desk fan pointed at the phone. It keeps it nice and cool even after charging for over an hour - I imagine the battery temperature is kept a bit cooler from this. For overnight charging it's a 5 W charger to minimize heat. No need to charge from 20% to 80% in 30 minutes when it's going to be plugged in for 7 more hours anyway.
They make wireless chargers with fans built in. I have 3 of them and my phones never even get remotely warm when using them. I also have some without built in fans and phones DO get fairly warm on them
@@Zatchillac I was going to say the same. The ESR Magsafe certified chargers I use in our cars include a fan. Even with my Belkin chargers at home, I don't perceive my phones getting to 30C
@@BlueBillionPoundBottleJobs The reason for this is I charge while I'm frequently using the phone. I simply disconnect from the charge, do what I'm going to do, then put it back on to charge. Otherwise I would just plug it in.
Wireless chagers degrading battery feels kinda strange because I remember when they just appeared around 10 years ago, it was said that they are better for the battery because they are slower.
Having used a 5w Anker wireless charging pad for many years, it never manages to create enough power to make my iPhone get even barely warm 😂 Wired charging still seems to make the phone get noticeably warm, though I can’t decide if the slower wireless charging is overall better for the battery or not. Based on my son using my old 12 Pro Max which is still on mid 80’s for battery health, I’m inclined to think slow wireless charging is no concern beyond energy waste….possibly balanced by a phone which still has great battery health and life.
I noticed the same. The faster, mag safe wireless chargers make the phone uncomfortably hot, they will definitely degrade the battery over time. The little cheap, low-wattage Anker pads trickle charge the phone overnight and generate essentially no heat unless you seriously mis-align the phone on the pad. Yes, they do waste energy, but the amount is trivial in relation to the typical person's overall electrical use in a day. If I need a fast charge, I plug in. But for overnight charging, the low wattage pad is very convenient.
There is a power rectifier in your USB charger plug to convert 230V/120V AC to 5-20V DC, a power inverter to convert it back to AC in the wireless charger, and the induction coils in both the phone and the charger which only take and give AC current, while your phone needs DC, which means another rectifier. All of those components have a loss factor, especially the induction coils, which wastes power into the ether due to impedance or resistance.
Thank you so much for making this video. I have been arguing for yeas about how bad wireless charging is from an efficiency and battery perspective. It's slower than wired when you need speed, it's less efficient when you wanna save energy, and it will degrade your battery faster. Yet people still see is as an essential feature, for some reason...
Agreed, I use a wired 1amp Apple plug from like 7 years ago, and only charge to 80%. Battery is at 98% life after a year of being drained almost daily. My previous phone was at almost 87% at this point with wireless charging every night and 100% charge.
I’ven been a big fan of magsafe charger. Been using almost exclusively on my 13 pro max since its launch and I do not see any extreme battery wear, even with the frequency I charge my phone due to how much i use it. Must add that i live in a pretty cold region, with summer with >25° temperatures only lasting for a couple of weeks. When its hot i definitely feel my phone getting toasty no matter how I charge it. One solution I used last year was to put the phone in a thin plastic container, add a thin layer of water and then connect the magsafe under the container.
I never understood the point of "wireless" charging. You still have a wire that goes all the way to the phone PLUS a big puck underneath it PLUS it's less efficient PLUS before mag-safe you couldn't use your phone while charging it wirelessly since it had to be on the pad. The only time I've ever used wireless charging was when I wrecked the ports on some older phones--it's great to have as a second option, but not as a first.
@@Rickyp0123 does it actually matter for you? I mean, if they're selling, there's someone buying. I do use one in my office's computer and works pretty well for me for example... Even with a lot of cons.
@@pandazpaa no of course not! I just see zero upsides (except as a backup option) so I was wondering what I could be missing. I’m happy to hear about use cases I hadn’t considered.
@@Rickyp0123 understood. I personally don't think that you're exactly wrong in your initial thoughts (since those are valid points). They can sell wireless charger because some weird use cases (like myself), which a person kinda uses a worse technology because "personal reasons" I guess.
It’s hard to say whether the extra energy used for wireless charging (and possible device longevity impact) is worth the savings of cables & effort. Surely having a wireless charger saves on cables, right? That’s less materials & less shipping, but how many in-bought cables make up for 1 charger, and how could one possibly weigh that against the extra energy for wireless?
Thank you iFixit! Just a small geeky fix: it’s degree Celsius, not centigrade. This is not the same scale and I think you are using Celsius thermometers.
@@feynstein1004 They are different by around 0.025 degrees at 100 centigrade. In celsius, that would be 99,985 celsius (rounded). Sure it's very much minimal, but it is, by definition, not the same scale and the ISO norm is the celsius scale, not the centigrade.
I'm glad to see someone calling this out. I wish this were more widely known so people could make informed choices to not purchase or use wireless charging.
Of the last three devices I've had fail on me, two (iPod touch 4th gen, Kobo Glo e-reader) it was the charging port connector that failed. (The 3rd was a flip-phone that broke in half when I dropped it.) So now, with my iPhone SE 2nd gen, I'm using the wireless charging whenever possible. It doesn't have magnets, but he charging disc sits in a DIY cardboard cradle that keeps it aligned with the phone.
I really love wireless charging for slow charge overnight - I even connected my charger to slow power adapter on purpose - to not allow it to fast charge. What i really like os that I don't have to plug in a cable, not only does it look nice, but also does not wear the USB-C port. So you just have to use it in a smart way.
can you do a video on best ways to charge phones? you guys seem like the best experts to do this as everyone else varies on their advice! (which is Otten wrong!)
I have a Galaxy S22U and wireless charge with a 5W charger. The battery does not get anywhere near 30C. It's even recommended to use wireless charging at 5W at night when the phone is of. Your phone being off is what helps prevent it from getting hot, and battery degradation.
It's the slow 5W charge that is helping the battery, not the wireless charger. You would see arguably better battery longevity and a dollar per month come back on your electric bill by using a 5W wired cable instead.
@@NotCaptainToad Yes, but an USB port likely soldered to the motherboard (it's so on the S10, dunno the S22), that ain't getting any younger. In my case I went wireless slow charge as the lesser of the two evils. I would rather replace a battery sooner than a connector later, since I do intend to keep the phone for many years. Sure USB-C helps, but if there's also another option, may as well.
@unliving_ball_of_gas there's benefits of both wireless charging and 5W. The benefits of wireless is you are allowing less damage to the USBC port. This reduces the risk of needing to replace the port. T
I used wireless charging twice when I got an iPhone 12 several years ago. Haven’t touched it since. I already was aware of the lower efficiency and power loss from charging over a distance in general but was extremely unimpressed at how hot my phone became compared to how long it took to charge. And on top of that you scale it across several billion units, it uses a lot more of the precious copper to do the same exact thing but worse.
I've actuually arrived to the same conclusion couple of years ago so switched to magnetic charger cables, the phone or devices have a small magnetic plug which attaches to a magnetic cable similar to apple laptop chargers but the contact pads are recessed to it won't burn out the charger as it's difficult to accidentally short circuit with nearby metal objects. For USB-C Elough was the company who started selling these but nowdays a lot of other companies are selling the exact same solution like Ugreen. Also these cables and adapters became dirt cheap. Additionally there are 60-100W variants aswell available now.
I always use wireless charging when charging my phone during the night, it's waaay to convenient not to, and cable if I need to top it up during the day - Could be worth pointing out the wear and tear on the USB-port by constant having to plug it in, one of the reasons I prefer wireless charging for my phones, an S23 Ultra as of now.
It's worth mentioning the one advantage of wireless charging - a lack of an opening or port that can become damaged or broken from prolonged use or exposure to foreign material. Though I still only bother with using it as a backup because it's so slow. I tapped directly into the USB-C port for my car's built in wireless charger and it went from a 4 hour trickle charge to a 40 minute rapid charge.
The biggest issue with wireless charging is that the charging pad itself requires a cable, and it's so close to the phone that you might as well just plug that cable into the phone anyways.
Wireless charging is for different purpose, I have one at my bedside table and leave the phone there overnight. I'm sure you have a place for your phone as well, why not make it charge it meanwhile you sleep.
Try the magnetic cable chargers that come with usb-c adapters. They have the added benefit of not wearing out the port since you don't plug in and out every time
The actual watts is super insignificant 5 watt hours per charge is nothing after 1000 full charges you use waste 30-50 cents of power. You could probably set your AC 1 degree warmer for a day and save a lifetime of phone charge power.
Awesome video :D I am wondering and often thinking about if it is true that chargers communicate via the cable with the attached devices. Like "Hey device XY, I can charge you with 30 Watt, N Ampere and K Volt. What do you accept? Do you also happen to be an Apple-Device?" or that there are mechanisms that ensure a safe charging, like protection against overheating or pumping out a to high / low current. Do you maybe already have a video about this topic?
I've charged my Sony Xperia 1 IV wirelessly for almost two years now without issue BUT that being said I've only charged at 5w max to keep temperatures down. If i charge at 15w the phone becomes quite toasty (battery temps close to 40C). Wired 30w charging pretty much never exceed 30C but wireless charging at 5w is only a degree or two above room temperature. It's nice to just drop the phone on a pad after work and if I need faster charging wired is always an option.
This explains why my magnetic Anker warmed up my iPhone that I didn't like, but it still was better than the 5 euro Hama without magnet that actually makes the phone hot to touch.
Yet for some reason, it was a deal breaker for people trying to buy phones like the OnePlus open from last year. I argued for days and they didn't see reason
Nice, though more info in video on why the battery gets so hot would be nice. If I remember it is mostly because the battery is right on top of the receiver coil that is getting hot (inefficient) than the battery somehow heating itself by lower/inconsistent amperage, and -- at least the battery heating -- could be mitigated with in creased distance from battery to coil... of course, not much space in a phone, and long cables to heavy batteries segregated to one end of the car is a new set of challenges.
It's not even convenient bro, I can still use the phone while charging with cable and it just sits there on the pad unusable. The wireless chargers are utterly useless. Unless your cable port doesn't work I don't see one case use for wireless chargers
I love my Qi2 magsafe charger. It sticks to the back of your phone and you can use your phone without a cable protruding from the port unlike wired. Also, USB C does not last that long, so I want to only reserve the port for only data transfers.
@@Ardeact i beg to differ, my 12 pro's port got completely damaged in 2 years and i have not dropped the phone nor dipped it in water. and even battery health is just 79% in 2.5 yrs. i hate lightning
@@shashankmlrj Battery health isn't a factor in what port is better, heat management and charging habits are. My experience with USB C consists of 4 new cables and 2 port changes. The reason why C is so flimsy is because USB C terminals are very small and any sort of deformation on the port misaligns them.
Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like you did not mention **why** the battery gets warm. It can't be the current because wireless charging typically charges slower than wired charging. It can only be the charger itself, the coils or the charging circuitry inside the phone.
@@Leooo969 Yes but it was not mentioned *where* those losses are and what the battery has to do with it. It's not the battery that does the wireless charging, it's a coil connected to some charging circuitry which then charges the battery, but this last step is the same no matter what the energy source is.
I use a wireless charging stand for iPhone and apple watch. They are always on it. I never have to bother about checking battery and charging before going out. When I take my phone, it’s always full. The same goes for the watch. I will change my phone faster than the battery dying.
same, and mines vertical, and my phone never gets hot or even warm when on it. Been using it for well over a year and no battery degradation issues, though to be fair i barely use my phone so it just sits there on the pad 24/7 in "idle" mode (charger light turns red showing its fully charged but keeps it trickle topped up while the phone sleeps)
It's all about heat management. I've switched back to a low-wattage charger for overnight use and I'm utilizing the 80% charge option, since I can essentially charge my phone throughout the day at work. Occasionally, I switch to auto mode if I'm on a hiking trip or engaged in similar activities. My 14 Pro Max still retains 100% battery health. I'm somehow addicted to hold my batterylife at a constant level. It feels like an achivement :D
I think this is an example where the inefficiencies and battery degradation are absolutely worth it. Especially if you use Magsafe or Qi2 chargers, and actively cooled ones when possible. The convenience of Magsafe/Qi2 especially is incredible for phone mounts on desks and in cars to keep you topped up throughout the day and keep your phone easily accessible. Also, every phone I've ever used has had charging issues eventually before wireless charging (even my first USB-C phone). With my last phone, I used wireless charging almost exclusively and saved my USB-C port from the same fate. Videos like this are great to inform consumers about these trade-offs and what to look for to avoid the worst cases, but I definitely think this video is a bit overly critical of the technology.
I've always hated wireless charging for these reasons, but when I eventually had no choice but to get a phone that had wireless charging and lacked a headphone jack I had to switch to using a wireless charger at night while I plug my headphones in via USBC. I got a case that has mag-loc or whatever tf its called, got a cheap wireless charger that has the same, and set my phone to charge slowly overnight. Honestly, so far it has been a pretty decent setup
wireless charging is like freezing some water , then bringing that forzen ice above your head , heat it using a lighter , and then drinking the melted waterdrops. i honestly never understood the point behind wireless chargers.
Regarding power loss, whether you use a case, the material, and how thick it is will all further contribute to slower charging and a hotter phone. Most tests remove the case to eliminate it as a variable so your results will likely be a lot worse.
I just like wireless charging because it's easy. I just set my phone down on the pad and it recharges. And I have CPU-Z on my phone to check the health and temperature of the battery. It doesn't get above 26 or 27 C.
One of the main attractions of wireless is avoiding the connector damage that always seemed to eventually occur. I don't understand why the battery gets hotter with wireless? Also in an array of coils such as the Tesla platform -- why doesn't it detect and use only the one coil that is best aligned?
Never had a phone with wireless charging and never needed it. Seeing people mark down phones for not having it, especially budget phones, makes my eyes roll.
It’s not wasted though is it, that’s the point. All energy has to be converting into another form in this case heat which is degrading your battery a lot quicker
I keep my devices for as long as practically possible. I use a non-fast charging pad overnight to keep my phone charging slow, generally better for the battery. It's never more than slightly warm. Also, there's zero stress on the USB C connector, which failed on a previous phone from all the connecting & disconnecting.
I've exclusively been using magsafe since inception. One mounted permanently in my office and one mounted in the car. Both have cheap copper ssd heatsinks adhered to the back to reduce throttling of any kind(probably not even necessary tbh). It quiet is the perfect charging solution. Haven't used a wire in almost two years.
Could you test the MagSafe duo? Specifically I’m interested in knowing what battery temps and energy efficiency are like when a phone and watch are dropped on it
What I find most frustrating is that if you're going to go as far as using magnets to ensure "perfect" alignment for the coils, you might as well use them to align metal contacts. Same convenience as "wireless" charging, but with the efficiency of wired charging.
Most folks have cases on their devices and as such metal contacts probably won’t work particularly well.
That wouldn't work well due to cases and camera bumps. Do keep in mind that many wireless chargers are integrated into flat surfaces like you'd find in cars, they don't all just flop around with a wire.
Not a bad thought. Could work with a special case
@@iyad8644 no problem. apple could make special magsafeish cases and sell for 100$
invented the iPad smart connector award
Glad to see this video. I worked in a phone store, where I would continuously correct everyone I worked with including my manager, that no, wireless chargers were not in fact better for your battery longevity and to stop telling that to the customers that weren't knowledgeable enough to know otherwise, so they had to trust our experience and advice.
I quickly realized that they either didn't choose to believe me or do any research themselves before making recommendations, or didn't care because selling an additional $40-$70 charger as essential for phone health was part of their commissions. I remember them saying they "trickle charge" like it was some feature of the wireless chargers when it's just something most modern phones do.
Mind you I still sold a decent amount of them being completely honest with people, as there are still use cases even without a claim of better battery longevity. Convenience, an alternative if your port fails, to name a few.
This is one of the many reasons I chose to move into the electronic repair business instead, a lot more honesty there compared to retail phone sales.
It really irritates me when people blindly trust employees at a phone store
It's frustrating to me when I see anyone put their full trust in an "expert." It's so easy to be deceived either intentionally or by the negligence of said "expert." That's why I try to do my own research before buying anything.
people like you make the world a better place for everyone, thanks.
@@larrylarrington9229 i agree i think it becaue they the type that trust local people over some one line
It really infuriates me when the seller tries to sell items beyond their expertise with half-assed sales pitch.
Went to buy laptop, seller doesn't know what type of CPU it has. He just says intel i5 or i7 or Ryzen 5. [CPU have H,P,U,G,E etc lineups that indicates how intense it can perform & how power effecient it is. As well as the generation of the cpu.]
I didn't realize the power loss or temps were so high. I'm going back to the ol' wire.
Much appreciate the video.
I'm surprised its between 50% and 100%, I excepted wireless charging to be 300% extra energy wasted
@@monad_tcp In ideal scenarios transferring energy through magnets is close to 100%. Many/most transformers use some variation of this, and reach efficiencies exceeding 95%, and many over 99%. This includes the power from the grid to 120/240/110v or from 120v to 12v in your desktop computer.
The issue is that the formulas are extremely well known, documented, and explored. Power is directly proportional to the distance squared. You can't really get closer than what we are doing now. If the coils were essentially touching we would see even higher efficiencies, but that's unreasonable for a multitude of reasons.
Another important note is how much of our power really is lost this way? Charging a phone, even at 25% efficiency takes 50 wh. Assuming you charge your phone about 1 time per day, this amounts to a very small overall amount of energy still. This energy is comparable to using a kettle, running a dishwasher for 2 minutes, or watching 30 minutes of TV. Personally I'm not convinced that the difference in energy from wireless to wired charging is really worth the inconvenience given that the difference in energy is pretty insignificant compared to so many other daily human activities.
@@arcmchair_roboticist if you look at it yearly it becomes more obvious how much power it is. Suddenly you're looking at enough power to run a kettle for over 7 hours. Multiply that by millions of users and suddenly we're looking at enough power waste to run cities and a major carbon impact too.
@@MichaelLargent yeah and the electricity consumption of producing a single hamburger is in the tens of kwh, will this change the consumption habits of people? Saving a couple of kwh a year per person is not worth much.
This is exactly why Apple never released AirPower, even Apple realized so many coils in a wireless charger is too much heat to manage properly. Honestly it’s good they pivoted to MagSafe and the Qi 2 standard adopted the same tech.
I don’t know if it is necessary heat from too many coils:
-The biggest problem is many coils and even if intelligently managed,
there is still a. high chance of bad alignment.
That bad alignment is then creating more heat during charging, then it otherwise would.
Bullshit. I'm pretty sure they knew that before showcasing it on stage
@@asifabdullahzamee7476Yeah they most likely assumed that another billion in r&d would fix it but it obviously didn’t, so it was cancelled.
@@sippingthe right. also we are sending rockets in to deep interstellar space, to Mars so wireless charging tech is actually piece of cake and it should be. But apple actually underestimated the tech. Or else airpower actually could have been a great product in my opinion.
@@asifabdullahzamee7476 the problem with airpower isn’t just the heat, but also the fact that it had different 2 coils stack top of each other. the ordinary Qi coil and the apple watch magnetic coil.
Living in a subtropical country, 30°C temperature feels almost like late fall or early spring. It's usually 40-42°C during summer and 35-38°C most of the year. So our phone batteries are constantly getting degraded even without charging.
its the rapid charge and discharge that will definitely wear the battery faster as long as battery temp is within 45C you dont need to worry i have my iphone for 4 years with 83%capacity left and the climate is usually as tropical as yours is
I'm told in extreme cold conditions the battery will also have a lot less charge capacity. There's always a temperature rating with batteries, and at either extreme of the operating range they are much less efficient.
@@MMuraseofSandvichdownright nonfunctioning, in my experience. I used to work in a warehouse where we couldn't take our phones, so I would leave it in my car turned off. In the winter when temps got below freezing, when I got off work, I couldn't turn it back on until I warmed it up with the car heater.
unless you keep you A/C running forever to drop to 25c. >30c is unbearable
Lithium batteries have a narrower charging temperature range than operating (non-charging/discharging) range. For instance, a typical LiPo may only be recommended to charge between 5-45C (closer to room temp is still better because less heat related wear). Whereas typical LiPos are recommended to be discharged between -20C and +60C.
So there's still some heat related wear on batteries discharging in a hotter climate but its not as bad as charging in a hotter climate.
*UPDATE:* It seems that if you use wireless Android Auto or Apple Carplay, your phone will get hot and wireless charging just exasperates the thermals further.
My dad always complains about his phone getting hot when wireless charging in his car and no matter how centered I align his phone, it'll always gets hot and his phone will stop charging to control the thermals. But this video and illustration of Tesla solution of slapping so many coils might be the problem but my dad resorted to wired charging in his car anyway.
Does your dad drive a VW by any chance?
@@RootBert397 Nah, he drives a 23' Acura
I have the same issue with my 13 pro in my 2024 Polestar 2
@@bjorncallewaert5841 i tried so many cars, even expensive ones (i use a lot of car sharing so i drive a lot of different cars over a week) the only car charger that doesnt cook my 12 pro is the cheap 10€ one off ebay i put in my 30 year old shitbox miata. Hilarious.
Jokes aside - Next time when you complain about this, just tell him the truth that Every One of us Without Exception will Die! Thats it. And see his reaction! 😉
At 2:43, the wired connection is represented by a dashed line, the wireless connection is represented by a solid line... an interesting subversion of expectations.
Not sure what you mean
@@DaMu24 wired charging should be the solid lines, like a charging cable is a solid line, and wireless charging should be the broken lines. Reading the chart with them reversed made it more confusing to my tired brain at the time.
@@coder543 I felt the same, and I needed to pause the video to invert the idea in my mind! :D
@@DaMu24 an universally accepted and logical thing, not only in technical drawings, but on maps, and in general illustration is that solid lines represent solid, visible objects or features. A dashed line represent invisible, imaginary or theoretical objects or features.
This bothered me so much! 😅
Appreciate you for sharing your conclusions at the *start* of the video, and making the video only as long as it needed to be to illustrate your conclusions (unlike most youtubers who intentionally breadcrumb the conclusions to force you to watch through their drawn out videos). Liked and subscribed!
Most phones have a feature to disable fast wireless charging which significantly decreases heat and also slows down battery charging overnight to about 3 hours which can actually help reduce wear
or you can just... plug it in
These aren't the directional MicroUSB days anymore
That's what I do. I have my phone scheduled to disable fast charging everyday from 11pm - 6am. Working well so far
My pixel also does that when charging wired
Charging batteries for long starches of time degrades health faster... charge in steps.. or "fractions" 30% add another 30% take a break.. rinse repeat
Yep, it's disabled and will only charge to 80%.
1:56 Correction please. The efficiency problem is not in generating the electrical field. The underlying principle here is the transformer, and transformers can be extremely efficient. The problem is the poor magnetic coupling between the primary winding in the charger and the secondary winding in the phone. This could be _improved_ by ensuring correct mechanical alignment, and _not_ as per the Tesla solution of more coils. You could even let the magnetism do the alignment for you. Still won't be as good as a wire though.
In some systems more current is fed to the transformer coil to support the charging speed if the magnetic coupling is poor. There are impedance losses in the coils.
Without a core it wont be efficient and on top we are adding the loss that happens in core, that is just not a problem in wired one
I have to say that I always thought that wireless charging was pretty worthless until I damaged my charging port out of warranty. I keep my phone for at least 3 years before upgrading and wireless charging has saved me from an early upgrade. With that being said I would still give it up in a heartbeat for a rear mounted fingerprint scanner.
Why is that such a problem, i replaced charging port myself on my phone. Its not diy for anyone but any phone service should be able to do it
same here.
@@Boz1211111Yes I know but it's not cheap and for an old phone it probably isn't worth it
@@SirKrumpleOWrapperbruh, which service did you tap in? I replace my charging port for 20 dollar or less. At least way better with degraded battery, which I did that too and it is 200+. Aside what is with the notion of old phone repair isn't worth it? 5 years old or less phones is totally serviceable, while new phone cost upto 2k (5k if you count them shinny folded), nvm the environment, save your own wallet.
@@hongkyang7107 USD? Not really.
Appreciate the testing.
I was hoping there was more tests about how much batteries degrade with higher temperatures, but that would take a huge amount of work and data.
Even then you would need a water sample size, probably for it to be meaningful data. If you're just testing one version of a few different brands over time, I don't know how much we would learn. Probably why there's not a lot of studies on Long-Term battery degradation and phone habits and charging habits etc...
@@michael_c2 Yep there is a fair amount of variation between battery capacity from the factory and so many other factors. Wired is better but I will say over the past 28 months I've had my current phone, I've just thrown it on a 15W wireless charging stand 9/10 nights and according to accubattery, which I installed on day 1, it still has 91% capacity. I've charged it 912 battery cycle equivalents/ 88,032% so I feel like it's doing pretty well. Unless you are keeping a phone for like 5 years or something it's kind of a non issue in my experience but fun to learn about.
I work in a phone store and always recommend wires over wireless charging. It's so much better
hidden cost of cable is the repair of broken charging port. How many users will buy a new phone i/o paying hefty repair ?
@@1ssac1 maybe I'm more careful with my stuff, but I've only had to replace a phone do to a bad charge port once, and that was Motorola Moto G3 that used crappy Micro B USB, and it really was not the port itself but a faulty charge controller chip that caused the port to get hot enough to start smoking.
Its more efficient but its not better. Imo the convenience makes wireless so much better
Yeah but I bet your boss wants you to sell more wireless chargers.
@@1ssac1Oh right, US peeps spend an arm and a leg for something as rudimentary as a port repair
I've been slow wireless charging my iPhone for 3 years, the battery health is 92%. And the battery life is still excellent like day 1. Maybe slow wireless charging doesn't degrade it too quickly since heat is low.
Exactly
3 years and 92%?…crazy good. My 12 pro battery health is 79% in 3 years
@@shashankmlrj bro my iphone7 is 79% and I have left it at 0% for months at a time which is extremely bad for the battery so either my iphone 7 is wrong or you are the battery destroyer. The iphone 7 battery lasts like an hour btw.
I like to use USB-C magnetic adapters as an alternative. You get the benefits of not having to be accurate with plugging in (plus you don't wear out the USB port), but retain the benefits of wired charging. Such functionality should really be added to the USB spec.
MagSafe 3 on iPhones and iPads please! Such a better solution than the pad junk
Magnetic USB adapters are generally not recommended because they're not guaranteed to connect ground first, unlike every USB connector. And since they're not part of the spec, there's no way to verify that they're complying with USB-IF. Also, if there's a data connection in the adapter (required for PD), you could get some weird or damaging behavior if the connector is popped loose and reconnected. However, if it works for you for over a year, it's probably fine, most phones have pretty good protection circuitry.
Maybe they'll come up with a type D (or M for magnetic?) connector that uses pogo pins and magnets? They'll cost more than type C, unfortunately...
@@kalafalas246problem with MagSafe is that (again) it is proprietary. My MacBook came with one but I always take a USB-C cable with me instead, because I can use that cable for all my devices: Laptop, earbuds, phone, camera, power bank etc.
@@rolf-smitthe MagSafe demonstrated in this video helped drive the Qi2 spec. So now Androids and all other Qi devices can have MagSafe alignment too!
pogo pins just aren’t rated for that kind of current
Side note: Thank you for all your videos, they’ve helped me pay the bills fixing people’s stuff for many many years now ❤
They called it wireless but i can still see the wires
With that argument, WiFi isn't wireless either because there is an Ethernet cable going to the Access Point
except that with wifi, you could go anywhere in your house...?
@@inconsistencyon Sure, but the further you go, the more energy is wasted. You can also go sort of far with QI charging, it's just not enough energy to charge a phone anymore. WiFi needs a lot less energy to arrive than QI
@@anianii Wi-Fi is _practically_ wireless, though, as you can move 10+ meters and still get a reliable connection. "Wireless" charging is pure marketing; it should've been marketed as "tap charging" or "near field charging", e.g., you have a few millimeters before the connection is dead. See NFC / tap to pay /etc.
@@ikjadoon The connection is not "dead" after a few millimeters. It just turns itself off because it gets too inefficient to make sense. Which, by the way, is also what cell towers do. Your phone might actually be able to connect to a cell tower, but if its configuration says not to connect if the signal strength is lower than some value, your phone would show no signal instead. With QI, that threshold is simply much lower due to the high efficiency being necessary for charging to happen at a reasonable rate. If you're 500 meters away from a cell tower, you won't get the best connection either, but in that context it's good enough to work.
But I have to agree that calling it wireless is mostly marketing. Inductive charging would be more clear.
Finally someone competent pointing out this waste. Thank you!!
No
i love it in my car, but always use a wire at home
Happy to see more people talking about this!
0:27 - me living in an area which hits 40C everyday
summer Kyrgyzstan🎉
Me with 45⁰C
And feels like 50⁰C
1:06 try it with budget phones. i have seen like 40-50c on cheaper phones.
of course. and they did say that they were going for a best case scenario, hence the more expensive phone
Budget phone usually skips multiple PMCs to alternate the amount of power feeding to the battery base on its temp, that's why they tend to get significantly hotter esp at low battery
Budget phones have wireless charging? None of mine do.
It's all about compromises. The ease of being able to pick up the device and put it back to charge in a second is handy for example when you're doing many short trips in a car, and would rather not break the charge port. There's no point in choosing wireless over wired when the device is charging overnight.
How difficult is it to spend 10 secconds more plugging in a phone?
@@a1white Nothing is difficult per sé, but forget disconnecting it once while exiting the car, and you can forget about using your usb port ever again. They break easily.
A magnetic cable/connector combo is a good compromise, but in my experience, the two parts often stick to eachother a bit too well and i've lost many such connectors.
Wireless charging was not the ideal, but still the better solution for me in that case.
@@a1whiteIt’s less wear and tear on the charging port. I’ve had 3 phones where the charging port broke, I don’t plan on that happening again.
@@a1whitequite difficult actually when you deliver for Amazon and have to get into and out of the van approx 130 times a day.
After my daughter (11) damaged three phones by always forcing in charger, we promptly got her a wireless charger. No issues since
commenting to support these findings and data. love your work.
Good Video, loved the facts!
One thing I would mention as a benefit of wireless charging though is that you will have way less trouble with loose connection plugs. I keep phones for 4 years on average, and when only using cables, I often have quite loose connections in the end which sometimes start bugging around.
I had a feeling that was the case. Thanks for the testing.
Great to see some solid numbers on charging efficiency and thermals. I’ve heard claims about wireless charging degrading battery life for as long as I’ve seen wireless chargers. But I’ve never seen people get into details and produce numbers.
Are the temperature tolerances on lithium ion batteries that low? 35 degrees Celsius is stuff I see often on holidays and are quite common in some parts.
Great video! Thank you for sharing good info with tests and data to back it up! I appreciate the effort that you guys put into teaching things that benefit us users! Keep up the good fight!
I've been waiting for someone to make this video for years!
Finally someone say something about this, been feeling disturbed for a long time with people glorifying wireless charging over fast charging. Thanks iFixit for mentioning this!
You need to go outside
@@teh_hunterernone of us are going outside, especially you.
Loved the video. Would like to see how it compares with wireless charging stations that have fans
Lol
very nice video, quick and compact from the start on
I almost always use wired, however it is useful to have a MagSafe cable around for when water gets in the charging port
Something that should be mentioned in defense of wireless charging is that wireless charging prevents wear and tear on the charging port; which (unfortunately) for many phone models is not as easily replaced as the battery, if it's even replaceable at all. I've had to replace several otherwise working phones in my life due to the charging port being worn out to the point it would not consistently charge.
Exactly. This is why I use a slow wireless charger, limit my battery charge to 85% with the Samsung setting, and use a Wi-Fi Android Auto dongle. I've reduced by total plug/unplug cycles by around 95%.
This has been my problem as well. USB C just doesn't seem to be robust enough for this purpose. The ideal solution would be magnetic plug in the phone but wireless slow charging overnight works as well without destroying the battery.
Finally someone speaks about this, thank you! I am not using wireless charging exactly for these reasons for a few years already. When I tried it, I did not find it any more convenient than plugging the phone in.
Yeah it shouldn't be your primary charging method, however keep in mind it allows you to keep using the phone when its wired port is worn out.
Additionally in some parks and in restaurants there are some wireless chargers which are super convenient.
0:27 I’m confused: if you live near the equator, where it basically always is above 30c, your battery degrades faster?
Yes, I’m noticing faster battery degradation every summer, even though I live in Norway, where temperatures can reach over 25°C. When using my phone in full sun with maximum brightness, the battery is under constant stress. Playing Pokémon Go also causes the phone to get very hot, which accelerates this process. Warm climate is battery’s worst enemy.
Yeah generally my phone battery dies faster during summer or generally whenever the phone is hot
Yes.
Great video! I always knew Wireless charging was not great due to heat I tried it for a few months but switched back to wired. My trick is to have a small plastic bracket like a U shape upside down screwed in to my desk, that is smaller than the cable, it is set near the rear of the desk, so I pull the cable from this U bracket and plug in to charge my phone, then when it is done, I unplug and let go, the cable will be pulled by gravity and get stuck in the U bracket and just wait there until I need it again.
This video seems to exaggerate the negatives of wireless charging. While it may produce some heat and potentially cause minor battery degradation, if it were truly detrimental, it wouldn't be a feature in modern smartphones. Consider the scenario of using wireless charging to incrementally charge the battery throughout the day. I maintain my battery between 20-80% and avoid leaving my phone on the charger overnight. Having used wireless charging since the early 2010s, I've observed no significant impact on my phone's longevity. It's worth noting that older Samsung wireless chargers included a built-in fan to mitigate overheating. I still use the older version, I think it was a 2018 or 2019 model.
Sony Xperia 3 actually had a magnetic interface on its side that allowed for the convenience of "wireless" charging with the advantage of actual electric contact that avoided the loss of wireless charging. If only we can establish a standard interface using this concept for phones.
I agree, never understood the "inconvenience" of plugging in a wire or why phone stands stopped being a thing. The loss of energy and wearing out of materials are a shame. It is true though that the lack of securing mechanism on USB-C causes the wire to fall out more than it should.
USB C is the most fragile part of the phone which breaks first. Well at least if you don't drop it and shatter your screen. But wear and tear on the charging port will eventually destroy the phone.
I was already concerned about this that’s why I stopped charging my phone wirelessly, but now I’ve clear idea, thanks for this video 🙌🏻
Brilliant!
We definitely need more educating videos like those! People need to learn best practices to avoid environmental impact.
What environmental impact? If you are talking about the damaged batteries makes sense but the wasted watts don’t matter. Even in the worst case scenario where you are wasting 12 watts per full charge that ends up being like a dollar per 5 years of average phone use, or 1000 full charges from 0 to 100%. You could probably increase your air conditioning temperature 1 degree lower for a day and save a phone’s lifetime of wasted power.
This may sound like something with hindsight. I felt increased battery degradation when using wireless charging pad after I got my iPhone 11 in 201. The battery degradation went crazy. I initially guessed Apple may somehow use batteries of lower quality for iPhone 11 series but I was not sure. Happy that IFixit has cleared it out.
“Regularly exceeds 30 degrees centigrade” my brother in Christ Australia exists
Thank you for this info! Keep it up!
Something you completely ignore is the super cheap and flimsy USB C ports on most phones and yes even the flagships. If you plug in a charger everyday most ports won't last a year before they are sloppy loose.
Yeah, mine is several years old and I can feel it getting loose, which is one reason I've started looking into wireless charging and getting magsafe on my android. I know it is slower but I was curious about how it was on the battery. Mine gets hot wired but luckily it will slow down or stop if it gets too hot, so I'm not too super concerned with that, and it tends to only happen in the car when it is warm while I am charging and using the phone for navigation and stuff... so I'm kinda pushing it, lol.
I’m using baseus magsafe stand to charge my iPhone. Yes it gets longer to charge but it doesn’t get that hot as charging by wire. In my opinion mag safe magnets are the best way to perfectly align your phone to wireless charger.
Apple Magsafe kinda nailed it. Get the right magsafe stand and you really don't worry about charging. Even when I'm drunk I can wave my phone over my charging stand and it'll grab my phone outta my hand.
This right here is one of the maky reasons for wireless charging
Lol at the mental image drunken wave of the phone x)
I'm not posing this is a naysayer opinion, but this video is a bit misleading and it introduces the differences between the two methods but doesn't quite present the whole picture.
I'm not an expert by any means, but just based on my experience - there are wired chargers (think quick or fast charging, high watt output) that contribute to higher battery temps during charging, and there are wireless chargers (slower, low watt) that don't contribute to high battery temps.
and when we consider the energy loss, I would estimate in practical terms, it would amount to...a difference of less than $1 USD over the course of a year? yes, the amount of energy required to charge phones is that low. if folks wanted to adopt wired charging to go green, the difference would ultimately be a rounding error when examining total energy consumption.
I think the major drawbacks and comparisons demonstrated in the video are valid for the specific products shown, but there are a lot of options in this space that weren't mentioned. so I wouldn't necessarily agree with the blanket comment that wired is always better than wireless, it depends on the situation.
I would personally vouch for slow charging on low watt wireless for overnight charging, and wired (not fast charging) throughout the normal course of the day if needed.
I use wireless charging out of convenience since I'll need to plug and unplug frequently. I always place it under a small desk fan pointed at the phone. It keeps it nice and cool even after charging for over an hour - I imagine the battery temperature is kept a bit cooler from this.
For overnight charging it's a 5 W charger to minimize heat. No need to charge from 20% to 80% in 30 minutes when it's going to be plugged in for 7 more hours anyway.
They make wireless chargers with fans built in. I have 3 of them and my phones never even get remotely warm when using them. I also have some without built in fans and phones DO get fairly warm on them
@@Zatchillac I was going to say the same. The ESR Magsafe certified chargers I use in our cars include a fan.
Even with my Belkin chargers at home, I don't perceive my phones getting to 30C
Wow, you need to point a fan at your phone to charge it at a slower speed with less efficiency, sounds real awesome
@@BlueBillionPoundBottleJobs The reason for this is I charge while I'm frequently using the phone. I simply disconnect from the charge, do what I'm going to do, then put it back on to charge. Otherwise I would just plug it in.
sounds like skill issue lil bro
Wireless chagers degrading battery feels kinda strange because I remember when they just appeared around 10 years ago, it was said that they are better for the battery because they are slower.
Having used a 5w Anker wireless charging pad for many years, it never manages to create enough power to make my iPhone get even barely warm 😂
Wired charging still seems to make the phone get noticeably warm, though I can’t decide if the slower wireless charging is overall better for the battery or not. Based on my son using my old 12 Pro Max which is still on mid 80’s for battery health, I’m inclined to think slow wireless charging is no concern beyond energy waste….possibly balanced by a phone which still has great battery health and life.
I noticed the same. The faster, mag safe wireless chargers make the phone uncomfortably hot, they will definitely degrade the battery over time. The little cheap, low-wattage Anker pads trickle charge the phone overnight and generate essentially no heat unless you seriously mis-align the phone on the pad. Yes, they do waste energy, but the amount is trivial in relation to the typical person's overall electrical use in a day. If I need a fast charge, I plug in. But for overnight charging, the low wattage pad is very convenient.
My experience as well. Fast charging makes the phone noticeably warm, while slow wireless does not. I think this video misses the point entirely.
There is a power rectifier in your USB charger plug to convert 230V/120V AC to 5-20V DC, a power inverter to convert it back to AC in the wireless charger, and the induction coils in both the phone and the charger which only take and give AC current, while your phone needs DC, which means another rectifier. All of those components have a loss factor, especially the induction coils, which wastes power into the ether due to impedance or resistance.
1:19 That's why the recommended power for wireless charging is at 5 watt, leave them charging wirelessly during your bed time.
Charging overnight is bad in itself
@@FakeMichau not in modern phones except you're still in that one with micro usb or very thick chin and forehead
Thank you so much for making this video. I have been arguing for yeas about how bad wireless charging is from an efficiency and battery perspective. It's slower than wired when you need speed, it's less efficient when you wanna save energy, and it will degrade your battery faster.
Yet people still see is as an essential feature, for some reason...
I’ve gone back to wired
Why? Cause of this video? I've been wirelessly charging my lg for 5 years now and the battery is just fine
@@varunaXit's still inefficient
Good thinking buddy boy
Agreed, I use a wired 1amp Apple plug from like 7 years ago, and only charge to 80%. Battery is at 98% life after a year of being drained almost daily. My previous phone was at almost 87% at this point with wireless charging every night and 100% charge.
@@zUltra3Dwho needs efficiency? Charge your phone at night and youll be aii
I’ven been a big fan of magsafe charger. Been using almost exclusively on my 13 pro max since its launch and I do not see any extreme battery wear, even with the frequency I charge my phone due to how much i use it.
Must add that i live in a pretty cold region, with summer with >25° temperatures only lasting for a couple of weeks. When its hot i definitely feel my phone getting toasty no matter how I charge it. One solution I used last year was to put the phone in a thin plastic container, add a thin layer of water and then connect the magsafe under the container.
I never understood the point of "wireless" charging. You still have a wire that goes all the way to the phone PLUS a big puck underneath it PLUS it's less efficient PLUS before mag-safe you couldn't use your phone while charging it wirelessly since it had to be on the pad. The only time I've ever used wireless charging was when I wrecked the ports on some older phones--it's great to have as a second option, but not as a first.
Then, it's not for you... Simply as that.
@@pandazpaa so, who is it for?
@@Rickyp0123 does it actually matter for you? I mean, if they're selling, there's someone buying. I do use one in my office's computer and works pretty well for me for example... Even with a lot of cons.
@@pandazpaa no of course not! I just see zero upsides (except as a backup option) so I was wondering what I could be missing. I’m happy to hear about use cases I hadn’t considered.
@@Rickyp0123 understood. I personally don't think that you're exactly wrong in your initial thoughts (since those are valid points). They can sell wireless charger because some weird use cases (like myself), which a person kinda uses a worse technology because "personal reasons" I guess.
It’s hard to say whether the extra energy used for wireless charging (and possible device longevity impact) is worth the savings of cables & effort. Surely having a wireless charger saves on cables, right? That’s less materials & less shipping, but how many in-bought cables make up for 1 charger, and how could one possibly weigh that against the extra energy for wireless?
Thank you iFixit!
Just a small geeky fix: it’s degree Celsius, not centigrade. This is not the same scale and I think you are using Celsius thermometers.
It looks like "centigrade" is just outdated name for "Celsius".
@@sdjhgfkshfswdfhskljh3360 We could think so but this is not the same scale. It’s close, but not the same.
@@KofieBluejay I've never heard that before. How exactly are they different?
@@KofieBluejay there are only 3 measures of temperature, farenheit, celsius, and kelvin. anything else is a word for one of those
@@feynstein1004 They are different by around 0.025 degrees at 100 centigrade. In celsius, that would be 99,985 celsius (rounded). Sure it's very much minimal, but it is, by definition, not the same scale and the ISO norm is the celsius scale, not the centigrade.
Great info! Thank you! 👍
I'm glad to see someone calling this out. I wish this were more widely known so people could make informed choices to not purchase or use wireless charging.
Doesn’t everyone know this? Magnetic charging is convenient, not good.
How it’s convenient? It’s really that hard to plug a cable?
Of the last three devices I've had fail on me, two (iPod touch 4th gen, Kobo Glo e-reader) it was the charging port connector that failed. (The 3rd was a flip-phone that broke in half when I dropped it.)
So now, with my iPhone SE 2nd gen, I'm using the wireless charging whenever possible. It doesn't have magnets, but he charging disc sits in a DIY cardboard cradle that keeps it aligned with the phone.
i only ever use wireless charging overnight with a 5w outlet so im sure it charges very slow and doesnt let it get that hot
Every video should have their main points at the start, like this one.
I really love wireless charging for slow charge overnight - I even connected my charger to slow power adapter on purpose - to not allow it to fast charge. What i really like os that I don't have to plug in a cable, not only does it look nice, but also does not wear the USB-C port. So you just have to use it in a smart way.
can you do a video on best ways to charge phones? you guys seem like the best experts to do this as everyone else varies on their advice! (which is Otten wrong!)
I have a Galaxy S22U and wireless charge with a 5W charger. The battery does not get anywhere near 30C. It's even recommended to use wireless charging at 5W at night when the phone is of. Your phone being off is what helps prevent it from getting hot, and battery degradation.
Makes sense. For overnight change 5W is adequate and the charging loss is a lot lower than at 15W fast wireless charge
Why not use a 5W wired charger. Benefits of slow charging + wired.
It's the slow 5W charge that is helping the battery, not the wireless charger.
You would see arguably better battery longevity and a dollar per month come back on your electric bill by using a 5W wired cable instead.
@@NotCaptainToad Yes, but an USB port likely soldered to the motherboard (it's so on the S10, dunno the S22), that ain't getting any younger. In my case I went wireless slow charge as the lesser of the two evils. I would rather replace a battery sooner than a connector later, since I do intend to keep the phone for many years. Sure USB-C helps, but if there's also another option, may as well.
@unliving_ball_of_gas there's benefits of both wireless charging and 5W. The benefits of wireless is you are allowing less damage to the USBC port. This reduces the risk of needing to replace the port. T
I used wireless charging twice when I got an iPhone 12 several years ago. Haven’t touched it since. I already was aware of the lower efficiency and power loss from charging over a distance in general but was extremely unimpressed at how hot my phone became compared to how long it took to charge. And on top of that you scale it across several billion units, it uses a lot more of the precious copper to do the same exact thing but worse.
@2:45 use large bold font for your labels and axis numbering, even at 2160p we have to squint to see this.
I've actuually arrived to the same conclusion couple of years ago so switched to magnetic charger cables, the phone or devices have a small magnetic plug which attaches to a magnetic cable similar to apple laptop chargers but the contact pads are recessed to it won't burn out the charger as it's difficult to accidentally short circuit with nearby metal objects. For USB-C Elough was the company who started selling these but nowdays a lot of other companies are selling the exact same solution like Ugreen. Also these cables and adapters became dirt cheap. Additionally there are 60-100W variants aswell available now.
I always use wireless charging when charging my phone during the night, it's waaay to convenient not to, and cable if I need to top it up during the day - Could be worth pointing out the wear and tear on the USB-port by constant having to plug it in, one of the reasons I prefer wireless charging for my phones, an S23 Ultra as of now.
We really live in a world where spending 5 seconds to plug a cable in is not convenient. Good lord
@@TheVision2It’s fine. He pays for his complete laziness by shortening his battery life.
It's worth mentioning the one advantage of wireless charging - a lack of an opening or port that can become damaged or broken from prolonged use or exposure to foreign material. Though I still only bother with using it as a backup because it's so slow. I tapped directly into the USB-C port for my car's built in wireless charger and it went from a 4 hour trickle charge to a 40 minute rapid charge.
Did you have a stroke?
The biggest issue with wireless charging is that the charging pad itself requires a cable, and it's so close to the phone that you might as well just plug that cable into the phone anyways.
@@xetsuma exactly. functionally, it’s not much different from a wired connection. it’s just tech for tech’s sake.
Wireless charging is for different purpose, I have one at my bedside table and leave the phone there overnight. I'm sure you have a place for your phone as well, why not make it charge it meanwhile you sleep.
@@GreySectoid You don't need wireless charging to do that.
Try the magnetic cable chargers that come with usb-c adapters. They have the added benefit of not wearing out the port since you don't plug in and out every time
I honestly don't care about the waste energy, we waste so much useless stuff already, i'm more worried about my phone's battery life
The actual watts is super insignificant 5 watt hours per charge is nothing after 1000 full charges you use waste 30-50 cents of power. You could probably set your AC 1 degree warmer for a day and save a lifetime of phone charge power.
Awesome video :D
I am wondering and often thinking about if it is true that chargers communicate via the cable with the attached devices.
Like "Hey device XY, I can charge you with 30 Watt, N Ampere and K Volt. What do you accept? Do you also happen to be an Apple-Device?" or that there are mechanisms that ensure a safe charging, like protection against overheating or pumping out a to high / low current.
Do you maybe already have a video about this topic?
I've charged my Sony Xperia 1 IV wirelessly for almost two years now without issue BUT that being said I've only charged at 5w max to keep temperatures down. If i charge at 15w the phone becomes quite toasty (battery temps close to 40C). Wired 30w charging pretty much never exceed 30C but wireless charging at 5w is only a degree or two above room temperature. It's nice to just drop the phone on a pad after work and if I need faster charging wired is always an option.
This explains why my magnetic Anker warmed up my iPhone that I didn't like, but it still was better than the 5 euro Hama without magnet that actually makes the phone hot to touch.
this is why I do not care if phone have a wireless coil, I never used it anyway
Yet for some reason, it was a deal breaker for people trying to buy phones like the OnePlus open from last year. I argued for days and they didn't see reason
I’m not using the wireless coil in mine again now!
Nice, though more info in video on why the battery gets so hot would be nice.
If I remember it is mostly because the battery is right on top of the receiver coil that is getting hot (inefficient) than the battery somehow heating itself by lower/inconsistent amperage, and -- at least the battery heating -- could be mitigated with in creased distance from battery to coil... of course, not much space in a phone, and long cables to heavy batteries segregated to one end of the car is a new set of challenges.
It's not even convenient bro, I can still use the phone while charging with cable and it just sits there on the pad unusable. The wireless chargers are utterly useless. Unless your cable port doesn't work I don't see one case use for wireless chargers
I love my Qi2 magsafe charger. It sticks to the back of your phone and you can use your phone without a cable protruding from the port unlike wired. Also, USB C does not last that long, so I want to only reserve the port for only data transfers.
@@Ardeactlightning port is even worse
@@shashankmlrj Empirically I think the lightening port is pretty solid. Never had it fail.
@@Ardeact i beg to differ, my 12 pro's port got completely damaged in 2 years and i have not dropped the phone nor dipped it in water. and even battery health is just 79% in 2.5 yrs. i hate lightning
@@shashankmlrj Battery health isn't a factor in what port is better, heat management and charging habits are. My experience with USB C consists of 4 new cables and 2 port changes. The reason why C is so flimsy is because USB C terminals are very small and any sort of deformation on the port misaligns them.
Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like you did not mention **why** the battery gets warm. It can't be the current because wireless charging typically charges slower than wired charging. It can only be the charger itself, the coils or the charging circuitry inside the phone.
It because of high losses in wireless charging, it gets converted to heat
@@Leooo969 Yes but it was not mentioned *where* those losses are and what the battery has to do with it. It's not the battery that does the wireless charging, it's a coil connected to some charging circuitry which then charges the battery, but this last step is the same no matter what the energy source is.
I use a wireless charging stand for iPhone and apple watch. They are always on it. I never have to bother about checking battery and charging before going out. When I take my phone, it’s always full. The same goes for the watch. I will change my phone faster than the battery dying.
same, and mines vertical, and my phone never gets hot or even warm when on it. Been using it for well over a year and no battery degradation issues, though to be fair i barely use my phone so it just sits there on the pad 24/7 in "idle" mode (charger light turns red showing its fully charged but keeps it trickle topped up while the phone sleeps)
It's all about heat management. I've switched back to a low-wattage charger for overnight use and I'm utilizing the 80% charge option, since I can essentially charge my phone throughout the day at work. Occasionally, I switch to auto mode if I'm on a hiking trip or engaged in similar activities. My 14 Pro Max still retains 100% battery health. I'm somehow addicted to hold my batterylife at a constant level. It feels like an achivement :D
Can we stop calling it wireless charging and just call it induction charging?
When real wireless charging arrives, what will that be called?
Long range wireless charging
ULTRA PRO WIRELESS SUPER CHARGING 3.0
Obviously.
"True wireless charging"
Hm let's think.
It's charging, but not with a wire.
WireLESS?
WIRELESS!
IT MAKES SENSE NOW
@coldbrew6104 You lie. I can see the wire.
Thanks for the awesome info.
I think this is an example where the inefficiencies and battery degradation are absolutely worth it. Especially if you use Magsafe or Qi2 chargers, and actively cooled ones when possible.
The convenience of Magsafe/Qi2 especially is incredible for phone mounts on desks and in cars to keep you topped up throughout the day and keep your phone easily accessible.
Also, every phone I've ever used has had charging issues eventually before wireless charging (even my first USB-C phone). With my last phone, I used wireless charging almost exclusively and saved my USB-C port from the same fate.
Videos like this are great to inform consumers about these trade-offs and what to look for to avoid the worst cases, but I definitely think this video is a bit overly critical of the technology.
I've always hated wireless charging for these reasons, but when I eventually had no choice but to get a phone that had wireless charging and lacked a headphone jack I had to switch to using a wireless charger at night while I plug my headphones in via USBC.
I got a case that has mag-loc or whatever tf its called, got a cheap wireless charger that has the same, and set my phone to charge slowly overnight. Honestly, so far it has been a pretty decent setup
wireless charging is like freezing some water , then bringing that forzen ice above your head , heat it using a lighter , and then drinking the melted waterdrops. i honestly never understood the point behind wireless chargers.
You really dont understand why someone would use a wireless charger instead of plugging it in? Convenience, design, and overall tidiness.
@@CallMeRabbitzUSVI He's dense, don't bother. Let him live in ignorance.
Regarding power loss, whether you use a case, the material, and how thick it is will all further contribute to slower charging and a hotter phone. Most tests remove the case to eliminate it as a variable so your results will likely be a lot worse.
I just like wireless charging because it's easy. I just set my phone down on the pad and it recharges. And I have CPU-Z on my phone to check the health and temperature of the battery. It doesn't get above 26 or 27 C.
One of the main attractions of wireless is avoiding the connector damage that always seemed to eventually occur. I don't understand why the battery gets hotter with wireless? Also in an array of coils such as the Tesla platform -- why doesn't it detect and use only the one coil that is best aligned?
Never had a phone with wireless charging and never needed it. Seeing people mark down phones for not having it, especially budget phones, makes my eyes roll.
Im charging wirelessly since iPhone 11 and I’m using MagSafe with iPhone 15 pro max now and i love it.
The energy wasted over a lifetime of wireless charging is still less that used in a single car ride. Perspective is important here.
It’s not wasted though is it, that’s the point. All energy has to be converting into another form in this case heat which is degrading your battery a lot quicker
@@a1whitecars are wildly inefficient.
@@mastercng Compared to what, walking?
I keep my devices for as long as practically possible. I use a non-fast charging pad overnight to keep my phone charging slow, generally better for the battery. It's never more than slightly warm. Also, there's zero stress on the USB C connector, which failed on a previous phone from all the connecting & disconnecting.
And still Apple is heavily pushing for wireless charging while saying they removed the changer brick because they are a 'green' company
Yea always bugged me and they made this announcement at the same time
I've exclusively been using magsafe since inception. One mounted permanently in my office and one mounted in the car. Both have cheap copper ssd heatsinks adhered to the back to reduce throttling of any kind(probably not even necessary tbh). It quiet is the perfect charging solution. Haven't used a wire in almost two years.
Prevents loss of cables from damage, screw the energy losses.
Could you test the MagSafe duo? Specifically I’m interested in knowing what battery temps and energy efficiency are like when a phone and watch are dropped on it