Here's how you can wirelessly charge your iPhone 4S without employing a special charging case.
Charging a phone wirelessly? Doesn't the technology already exist?
Well, yes. But options like the Powermat involve charging your phone wirelessly with a jacket. However, Tanveer, a doctor who moonlights as a modder, has come up with an iPhone mod to allow you to charge your phone without having to cover it up in a jacket.
Do note that if you try this mod yourself, you will revoke the warranty on your iPhone.
Before you begin, the mod requires a prebuilt wireless charger such as the Powermat, basic soldering skills, a spare charger port assembly, a thin wire gauge, and an iPhone 4S.
The process involves soldering wires from the charging port to specific pins (which he details in the video) on the spare charger port assembly. The wires then need to connect to the USB points on the wireless receiver. The wireless charging circuit apparently adds, according to his video, an extra millimeter of thickness to your iPhone. In order to make extra room, you'll have to remove a metal plate from the back glass of the 4S original cover.
After you reattach the cover, you're all set. You should be able to charge simply by putting your iPhone 4S down to charge. Twirl it all about… it'll keep charging.
It's quite obviously not something for the average user. I doubt that the average Droid/WP/whatever user could do something like this either.
I'm still waiting for someone to invent a way to turn all the flat surfaces in my house (or at least all the counters etc) into inductive chargers able to automatically charge everything at the appropriate voltage/rate.
True fact. But it's definitely something neat for mod enthusiasts to check out!
- Catherine Cai
but you will loose too much power they are just like electric transformers used in PSUs and stuff, you'd be happy to get 50-60% efficiency or less as the distance will be larger and there would be less permeability, PSU makers actually are happy to get their PSUs cretified for 80% efficiency, the rest would be transformed to heat which is bad too, so the whole idea won't really succeed.
BTW thanks school
Is there a wire between the pad and the phone? No? Then it's wireless. It's not long range wireless, but it is wireless.
Also, to madooo12, I don't see the connection between inductive charging and switching power supplies. You are indeed correct that older devices using induction were not examples of high efficiency. Heat was also often produced with increasing current transfer. The newest induction charging tech is 80-85% efficient thanks to ultra thin coils and higher frequencies. This also means it more easily fits into smaller handheld electronics (ie: power mat charging system). The increased efficiency also makes excess heat production less of a problem as more of the power makes it to the receiving coil.
Considering the basic iPhone charger has an output of only 1 amp @ 5v, it's not going to be a big deal to consume 15-20% more power on the charger supply side. The convenience of wireless charging and also not having to worry about the charging cables breaking is definitely going to be worth it to some of us more tech savvy. Plus I almost want to try this mod out just for the fun of it.
Looking forward to seeing Open webOS at the end of the year, a OS that is ahead of most but so far have been kept down by bad decisions happening around it.