- Smartphone wireless charging speeds go up to 80W, thanks to the advancements made by Chinese handset maker Xiaomi.
- A typical smartphone battery of 4,000 mAh can be fully recharged in under 20 minutes with the 80W wireless charger from Xiaomi.
- The previous record belonged to Oppo’s 65W wireless charger, also launched this year. Apple’s MagSafe charger for the iPhone 12 supports speeds of up to 15W.
Apple brought back from the dead the MagSafe brand last week, but this time around, it’s all about the iPhone. All iPhone 12 models feature magnetic wireless charging, which is supposed to be more efficient. The MagSafe charger sticks to the back of the iPhone and charging speeds go up to 15W, which is double than the 7.5W maximum attained by regular chargers. Still, that wireless charging speed upgrade fades compared to the 80W wireless charger that was just announced, which needs less than 20 minutes to recharge a typical smartphone battery fully.
Smartphone vendors have steadily increased battery capacity in recent years, including on Android flagships. You can expect 4,000 mAh to 5,000 mAh batteries on some of the best phones that you can buy, and most of them support fast wired charging and wireless charging.
Xiaomi announced that its new wireless charging speed technology allows it to offer buyers speed of up to 80W, which is significantly better than previous standards for wireless charging. It’s also much better than competing offers for wired charging. The iPhone 12 supports 20W wired charging, while the new OnePlus 8T goes up to 65W.
Xiaomi explains that the 80W Mi Wireless Charging Technology will fully charge a 4,000 mAh battery in 19 minutes. You get a 10% charge after just 1 minute and 50% in 8 minutes.
The video above shows the tech in action on a Mi 10 Pro smartphone. However, there’s no telling when Xiaomi will ship phones that support the new 80W wireless charging speeds. Current phones will not support the new speeds, even if the same charger is used. And buyers will probably need to purchase the 80W wireless charger separately for those devices that support the new standard.
Xiaomi launched fast wireless chargers in the recent past, including 30W, 40W, and 50W models, but the 80W is a new record for the industry. A different Chinese handset maker had the previous record at 65W. That’s Oppo, which also developed the 65W wired charging tech that’s probably used inside the OnePlus 8T.
As with fast wired charging, fast wireless charging might impact the lifetime of batteries. That’s the huge downside of having a battery charge as fast as possible. The battery pack is expected to degrade faster than batteries that charge at inferior speeds and will need sooner replacing. It will ultimately be up to smartphone owners to mitigate this unwanted side effect of fast wired or wireless charging, especially in a world where buyers hold onto their devices for well over two years.
