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Comment by PostThisTooFast | Hacker News Reader

Wireless charging is a dumb gimmick. You still have to put the device on the charger, so what's the point? They could just as well have put flat contacts on the back of the phone and dispensed with the inefficient induction parts that are wasting space, time, and energy.

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Flat contacts would eventually get dirty and you’d have to line them up properly. Also, they wouldn’t work through a case. Maybe wireless charging is slightly less efficient, but I don’t really care when I just set my phone on the charger overnight.

The reasons I like wireless charging are that it keeps things neat, and I don’t have to fish around for the cable—I always know exactly where to set my phone down to charge.

I also appreciate the wireless charging mount on my motorcycle, I suppose for similar reasons.

It’s not a necessity, but I appreciate having it.

Edit: As an aside, I vouched for this comment. Looking over your comment history and seeing that almost every single one of your comments is dead, you may want to consider your tone.

I prefer wireless charging myself, though I don’t know how much it affects the overall battery lifespan of my phone, but it’s a lot more convenient for me, especially with the introduction of magsafe on the iPhone. I 3D printed a stand for both the phone and my watch and I just put them there to charge for the night, I find it less annoying than to keep plugging in cables and potentially find a dead phone in the morning because the cable broke and I didn’t notice. Mind you, you could say that Apple should just make better cables, but I honestly prefer the larger “connection” surface of a wireless charger and I don’t scratch the area around the connector while fiddling with the plug.

In the car it’s insanely convenient to have a phone holder that charges your phone also while combined with magsafe.

But of course Ymmv

The automobile is a dumb gimmick. You still have put yourself in a carriage, what’s the point? They could just as well have bred better horses on the front of the carriage and dispensed with the unreliable internal combustion engines that are ruining farms, roads, and the air.

The phone gets hotter more easily so you get a slower charging time compared to just plugging the cable in.

I like wireless charging because it enables cross-compatibility, I can use it when my phone port is wet, and it mitigates some of the cable clutter on my desk. Flat contacts would be nice, too, but exposed contacts have their own drawbacks as well.

I like it because it causes no wear on the charging port. I’ve had problems in the past where the cable no longer fits tightly or contacts properly. I keep my phones for a long enough time (5 years or so) that this is important to me.

Wireless charging 2.0 doesn't look so dumb:

https://www.energous.com/

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