For those who have a Samsung Galaxy S4, have you ever wondered what those two pairs of metal prongs are at the back, close to the SIM card? Samsung has officially released their native inductive charging kit, which comes with a charging pad and a special back cover which utilizes the four prongs for charging your battery for wireless inductive charging. The charging kit is available from online shops such as "shopandroid.com," at current discount prices of $89.99.
Wireless inductive charging has become more readily available for advanced consumer electronics (we say advanced, as it's been in your electric toothbrush for decades), and it is becoming more popular due to its ease of use. The theory behind the technology involves having a coil of wire in each device, where one can induce a voltage across the other due to electromagnetic coupling, even through some solid objects. This is due to a collapsing and growing electromagnetic field produced by the alternating current in the charging pad, which then induces eddy currents in the other coil (similar to a voltage transformer). While the advantages are near-zero risk of shock, convenience and less broken cables/docks, unfortunately, the charging is slow because larger amounts of power are very inefficient, and you cannot move your phone about while charging.
The charger kit is compatible with all other QI charging devices but has a limit of 500 mA which, while it is faster than a USB port of your computer, it has four times less power than the cable can get from a wall socket (nearly 2 A). Apart from the lower power, there has been much uproar concerning the price of the kit. Because the kit only includes the charging pad and a slightly different rear cover for the phone, consumers have been scratching their heads as to the $90 price. While we expect the price to come down over time, the wireless charging solution from Samsung is much easier to implement than trying to place a kit in an HTC One or similar. So, would you consider buying a wireless inductive charging kit for your phone, and are your reasons purely based on finances or also practicality? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
