In the future, all of our devices will be charged wirelessly. We saw the early stages of the future of wireless charging technology unveiled earlier this year at CES 2015 when a company called Energous showed off tech that can charge gadgets from across the room. And the best part of the company’s solution is that it only requires one tiny chip about the size of a microSD card in the target device, so it’s absolutely feasible for ultra-thin smartphones, tablets, laptops and other devices.
But sadly, we still have quite some time to wait before the wireless future is realized. In the meantime, however, you’ll be surprised at just how easy and inexpensive it is to add modern wireless charging support to an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus.
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Back in December of last year, we wrote about a simple method to add wireless charging to your iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus. It won’t charge your phone from across the room, of course, since currently available wireless charging technology requires target devices to be within a few millimeters of the charging pad.
Even still, wireless charging is a bit more convenient than having to plug your phone in every time it needs to be charged, so I decided to give it a shot.
First, I purchased a Qi-compatible wireless charging receiver card on eBay, just like this one. It cost me about $10, though it’s now available for even less than that.
Then, I bought a cheap Qi-compatible wireless charging pad like this one for about $7. Both items shipped from China and arrived fairly quickly.
Putting everything together took about 10 seconds. As can be seen in the photo at the top of this post, the receiver card plugs into the Lightning port on your iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus and then folds over to the back of the phone. The card is loose in the image above, but it has some adhesive on the back that holds it in place.
That is literally the only step.
Placing my iPhone 6 with the receiver card on the wireless charging pad begins charging it instantly and reliably. It’s also reasonably fast, though not quite as quick as the iPad charger I normally use.
The biggest problem, of course, is that it’s horribly ugly.
As it turns out though, the wireless charging works well through a thin case like the Alto case pictured above.
Here’s another shot that will show you what it looks like from the front:
As you can also see, the thin plastic strip began peeling off the cable just a few minutes after I attached the receiver card to the phone. That plastic can be cut off, however, and it really doesn’t look bad at all as long as you have a case on to cover it.
Of course it’s important to note that if anything goes wrong, you may void your iPhone warranty by using unauthorized accessories. If you really want to add wireless charging to your iPhone though, this is definitely the fastest, cheapest and easiest way to do it.
