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>Can we please standardize charging stations to not require a person to manually establish a connection? It seems that it would pose such an awkward and unneces
by jdietrich 9y ago
>Can we please standardize charging stations to not require a person to manually establish a connection? It seems that it would pose such an awkward and unnecessary hurdle.
It's a total non-issue in practice. Inductive charging has barely made an impact for mobile phones, because plugging in a cable just isn't a big chore. It very quickly becomes an automatic habit that requires no conscious effort.
- freehunter 9y agoMan on my old HP Touchpad, the charger dock was the best feature ever. Just set it down in the stand you were going to set it in anyway, and the whole time it's sitting there it's charging. Never have to plug it in, just set it on the stand and forget about it. Wireless charging of phones might not be all that extra convenient because they're either in our hands or in our pockets, but at least in my house tablets spend a lot of time playing Netflix or showing a recipe or the news or a book on the counter in a tablet stand. Might as well be charging too.
- chewyland 9y agoMy wife still uses her TouchPad every day. WebOS is a gem.
- aninhumer 9y agoWhile 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.
- justicezyx 9y agoNitpicking can reveal a lot of issues. The argument has to be generalized to a significant fraction of the total user base to be a convincing argument. In the spirit of nitpicking, all you have said does not bother me at all.
- aninhumer 9y agoWhat am I supposed to be convincing you of by generalising my argument? I was responding to a comment that said it was a "total non-issue", and I pointed out various reasons it was an issue for me.
- munchbunny 9y agoWhile I mostly agree, my experience with wireless charging in general (with the Qi) has been finicky - if you're off my more than about 2-3mm, your phone won't charge. The Nexus 5 charger had a small addition that more or less addressed the problem entirely: it added magnets at the corners of the chargers that would align with something (probably other magnets?) inside the phone, so you would know where the sweet spot was because it would pull your phone and hand into it. But with generic Qi chargers, I would have to fiddle around and check the charge symbol.
- aninhumer 9y agoI'm using a generic charger, and while you do have to position it correctly, I find it fairly forgiving. Basically as long as I vaguely line it up with the pad surface it works fine, and there's an LED that turns green to let me know it's correct. I didn't know the official Nexus 5 charger used magnets though. I passed on it because IIRC it was a weird cylinder stand that looked less stable than the generic flat pad I bought. (That and it was a good bit more expensive.) EDIT: I just played around with mine now, and the margin for error is at least a couple of cm. I think my sense of neatness objects to the offset before the charger does.
- WorldMaker 9y agoIndeed, just today I was late to work because my phone was just a few millimeters off from the correct charging position (on a Qi charger) and I failed to triple check the charging indicators and LED lights before I went to bed and I slept through my non-phone alarms. Inductive charging is handy, but it is its own nuisance.
- chewyland 9y agoUh, I must politely disagree. The wireless charging on my beloved Nexus 7 was a technological marvel. I dropped it and bought a Tab S2 that I now have to plug in like a pleb.
- gambiting 9y agoYMMV. I personally don't know anyone who uses wireless charging for anything, and I work in IT.
- roel_v 9y ago"and I work in IT." Yeah that's probably the problem. I mean, fuck dropbox, because ftp mount filesystem and use svn/git, right? Wireless charging is a great improvement over fiddling with cables several times a day. Anyone who's gotten used to it doesn't want to go back.
- dayjah 9y agoPart of the appeal of automobile revolution is how it'll empower folks with motor control issues to become a bigger part of society versus being home bound; so I think this request has merit.