Metal phones can be attractive, but one downside to them is that they doesn’t play nicely with wireless chargers. To get around this, you could add a wireless charging receiver and cover that with a case, but that’s not quite as elegant as having the feature built in. Qualcomm’s new tech could change that need for a workaround.
Qualcomm says that it’s figured out a way to wirelessly charge phones made of metal. The feature uses WiPower tech, and while Qualcomm isn’t going into detail on how exactly the whole thing works, it has posted a video showing a Galaxy S4 that’s been wrapped in metal being charged wirelessly using WiPower.
Wireless charging still hasn’t totally taken off with mainstream consumers, but it — and quick charging with it — appear to be slowly gaining steam by appearing in more and more phones. This new metal-friendly wireless charging tech means that even more devices can charge without plugging their phone in, which could help its adoption. Of course, manufacturers will have to choose Qualcomm’s WiPower tech over the other competing wireless standards in order to have their metal phone be capable of built-in wireless charging.