A new leak points to 100W wireless charging by several brands in 2021
We’ve seen major strides in fast charging in the last two years, as smartphone manufacturers like Huawei, BBK, and Xiaomi upped the ante for both wired and wireless charging. We’ve previously seen wired charging top out at ~120W in recent months, but wireless charging solutions aren’t far behind, either.
Now, frequent leaker Digital Chat Station has claimed that several manufacturers are targeting 100W wireless charging for phones launching in 2021. Check out the post below.
Well, I watched the progress of the plans of several manufacturers’ laboratories. The target power of wireless fast charging for new phones next year is one hundred watts.
— Digital Chat Station (@StationChat) October 12, 2020
This would be a major leap over current wireless charging standards. We’ve seen 40W wireless charging in the likes of the Oppo Ace 2 and Huawei P40 Pro Plus respectively. Oppo has also announced 65W wireless charging technology earlier this year, although we haven’t seen it on a commercial device just yet.
Nevertheless, we do wonder about heat and battery degradation with a move to 100W wireless charging. Oppo in particular stated that its 125W wired charging solution degraded the battery to 80% capacity after 800 charging cycles, compared to its 65W wired solution dropping down to 90% capacity after 800 cycles. So hopefully brands address this challenge adequately with 100W wireless charging.
Another concern with this tech is compatibility with other Qi charging devices. Oppo’s 65W wireless charging solution defaults to significantly slower 10W or even 5W topups for other Qi-compatible phones.