Connector wear and obstruction is real and can make charging or wired interaction extremely hard or even impossible. Connectors also have a lifetime.
For example, my phone's (Samsung Galaxy S6) port has dirt in it that I can't get out, some micro USB connectors wont fit and all of them don't stick in and readily fall out. This is one of the reasons I absolutely loathe and hate micro USB. It's just an extremely bad connector.
Compare this with my Surface Pro 3 (or the magnetic Mac chargers): the magnetic charger is wonderful and Just Works.
Wireless charging is the next step. Sure, you need the pad and it's not as readily movable but damn it's effortless.
Personally I'd prefer magnetic connectors, though.
It really is a matter of convenience. Micro-USB is so annoying because of the dexterity needed to plug it in, lightning and USB C are much better because you don’t have to think about the orientation, wireless is better than that because you don’t have to attach any wires.
That mechanical connection is definitely prone to failure. I've had phones where the charging port was physically worn enough that I could plug them in and charge them OK but bump it just a bit and it would disconnect. Wireless charging isn't quite there yet but I'd be happy to get rid of all cables.
While it's obviously impractical for cars, my experience using a wireless charger with my phone is that despite being a seemingly minor change, it makes quite a bit of difference for me in practice.
Plugging in a micro USB cable is often quite fiddly, and sometimes the cable can fall behind the table and require crawling around on the floor. Not to mention the cables and ports can be quite fragile and end up breaking or becoming loose. Also if I want to use my phone occasionally while I'm sitting at my desk, I either have to have an awkward cable hanging off it, or plug and unplug it repeatedly.
For these reasons, I found I'd occasionally leave my phone unplugged by mistake and have low charge in the morning. Since I got a wireless charger that never happens.
That said, most of these advantages would come equally well from a docking station, the only problem being there's no standardisation for that.
Because, at least when there are magnets involved for alignment, it's easier. I've never ripped a charger out of the wall by picking up my phone in the middle of the night and forgetting I had a short cable attached to my phone.
Kind of like saying you don't understand why we ever had early keyfobs when you still had to carry a key to start the car. It's not about it being superior in every aspect, it's about ease of use.
Breaking USB ports is exactly why I buy phones with wireless charging whenever possible. Mini-usb was pretty durable, never lost a cable, device, or phone. Micro-usb, despite the marketing, seems radically less durable. I've lost many chargers, cables, and phones. It's just not up to the task of daily use.
I had to give up on a replaceable battery (I normally end up using a phone well after the first battery dies), but I was able to put a wireless charging pad inside the case of my Pixel Xl. So now my usb port is mostly unused and will hopefully last longer than the rest of the phone.
If governments wants to decrease waste the should require replaceable batteries. Sad that just as decent quality materials are becoming quite common and CPU/ram are not limiting factors that devices could last 5-10 years... if not for the epoxied batteries.
Before wireless charging/data xfer/debugging one had to physically plug the phones in for development in addition to wear and tear from charging so I’ve worn out the micro usb ports on many android devices.
The port wears out over time. I'd rather use the less efficient wireless charging rather than have to replace a port on a device at some point in its life.
Have you ever tried fumbling with cables in the dark when going to bed? It’s not a huge thing, but wireless charging is a nice quality of life improvement. Try using it for a couple weeks and it will be hard to go back.
The other small benefit is less wear on the charge port. It’s not such an issue for usb-c or lightning ports, but micro usb ports have terrible reliability in my experience. All my android devices developed a broken micro usb port after a year or two of plugging it in over and over.
Solid state devices can still fail from mechanical stress. Heat cycling and strong magnetic fields could be a problem for wireless charging even if they don’t need to be. The core issue is generally trying to use the cheapest solution, not just mechanical stress.
Ethernet connectors are probably the best example of this, for servers that might be moved every few years their cheap and maintain a solid connection. It’s really desktops and especially laptops where they become such a major issue.
My experiences differ. I've had plenty of USB-C devices of which the port becomes very loose after a while of normal use. I'm glad my current phone has wireless charging, not because of its convenience but because that way I don't wear out the USB-C port.
USB-A is so simple, two holes and some leaf springs make for a satisfying clunk that doesn't wear out so quickly.
Similarly, I prefer wireless charging on my phone and other portable devices. No worry about wear and tear. For about a year I used a tablet with a broken microUSB port that I used a wireless charger for.
I get that wired is less convenient (I'm not going to argue the semantics of "most"), but until we can transmit power wirelessly from a distance for consumers, everyone is still dealing with wires to charge their devices. (Even if you have wireless charging, it's still not at a distance and you have to get it just right on the charging pad.)
Trying to convince everyone else that something as simple as plugging a wire in, is horribly onerous, when they do it every day or so, is probably going to be an uphill battle, especially if it's for something people want. Where jamming with friends over the Internet ranks in your list of desires, vs never ever having to do this horrible act of plugging in a wire, is on you.
I don't think wireless charging is the end-all solution. But I find it quite nice in many situations.
For example having it at my desk is great. My phone just sits there for hours at a time and having a slow charge is great. It doesn't matter that I have to put my phone down because I am at the computer, I'm not using my phone anyways (other than maybe to take a quick photo, but a 30s break in charging isn't a problem for me).
> I'd rather have a cable and a port that's easier to put in and more resistant to wear/breakage/clogging.
I don't see how a connector and cable will be more resistant to wear/breakage/clogging than two flat surfaces.
I agree it sounds like your desk has a poor implementation. I definitely wouldn't want it raised. But I don't think that makes the technology bad in general.
At the end of the day I think it comes down to slightly easier to use in tradeoff for a slower charge and maybe easier to accidentally disconnect. However for me that is actually a favourable tradeoff for almost all of my charging.
Even a docking station would suffer from the same problem because people would just put the mouse onto the dock every time they were done using it. Also, I don't think contact charging is as fast as cable charging. The point is to only charge it when you absolutely need to.
As soon as I started using wireless charging I stopped caring about USB/Lightning, whatever. Since what you need 99% of the time is power only, if the data connector isn't the most convenient thing in the world, I don't really care. No connector can beat just dropping my phone down on a pad.
I bought a wireless charging pad when I got my phone. Haven't used it once after trying for a few days.
1. I can't use the phone while it's charging. Sometimes I want to do that. Even in bed. Even after I've laid my head down.
2. I have to put the phone on there just so for the coils to align. (Magsafe looks awesome in this regard, but I have a XR, so I'm out of luck)
3. It's slower than the plugin charger.
4. Half the time I want to charge my phone, I'm in the car, or at my desk, or somewhere else where my wireless charging pad isn't. If a phone was exclusively wireless charging, then I'd have to buy several doohickeys.
Wireless stuff is neat I guess… but it takes up much more space and is much less efficient. The power loss alone seems like a big deal that we don’t really consider. Not to mention that it’s not really any more convenient than say MagSafe is. I find my phone uncharged in the morning far more often because I didn’t align it properly with the pad, than because my cable is going bad.
I will say, it’s nice letting my phone stand also charge it… so I’m also kinda a fan.
For example, my phone's (Samsung Galaxy S6) port has dirt in it that I can't get out, some micro USB connectors wont fit and all of them don't stick in and readily fall out. This is one of the reasons I absolutely loathe and hate micro USB. It's just an extremely bad connector.
Compare this with my Surface Pro 3 (or the magnetic Mac chargers): the magnetic charger is wonderful and Just Works.
Wireless charging is the next step. Sure, you need the pad and it's not as readily movable but damn it's effortless.
Personally I'd prefer magnetic connectors, though.
reply