Claudia Bacco, Managing Director – EMEA for RCR Wireless News, has spent her entire career the telecom, IT and security. Having experience at an operator, software and hardware vendors and as a well-known industry analyst, she has many opinions on the market. She’ll be sharing those opinions along with ongoing trend analysis for RCR Wireless News.
“Why aren’t more people trying to solve this issue,” is something I hear regularly. Everyone talks about this as such a big problem, yet Apple doesn’t seem resolved to do anything. And for all the press about the products that enable wireless charging, their usage doesn’t seem to be that widespread. Just walk around and look for one, it really seems to be a business traveler solution at this point and not for the common consumer. And even within the business traveler group, not that pervasive.
Some thoughts on this topic.
Kickstarter campaigns
I did an iPhone wireless charging specific search and came up with one solution that wasn’t just a basic charging plate idea.
Cabin: Why do they say they are different? Magnetic connection between case and phone. Smaller form factor and a sleek looking case. More than twice the normal battery life of the phone. Magnetic connection of lightning cable to case. But it does look cool. Funding to date: $160.000. Funding target: $50,000. Twenty-four days left for the campaign.
IndieGoGo campaigns
They all seem to be here. There are cases, keychain fobs, charging plates, USB solutions, etc. The majority are not/did not do well with their funding. There are two notable ones, one I will cover below as it is now available and the other I will mention here as their campaign is still ongoing.
SmartCard: Wallet-sized iPhone and Android charger. A small device that can fit in your wallet and charge your phone. Also allows for data sync and storage and doesn’t require a bulky case. Funding to date: $45,000. Funding target: $15,000. Days left for the campaign: 10.
Phone cases
Many of you have heard of the Mophie case. This is one of the more popular charging and additional memory cases on the market. It’s also a smaller form factor then some of the previous models. Duracell offers a similar solution under the PowerMat name. 
Another new market entrant with a great looking form factor is from Pond. They offer a charging plate, phone case and pebble remote charging device. They support Windows, Android and iPhone products and are Qi approved.
Just in case you are not familiar with Qi, it is a wireless power consortium focused on interoperability for wireless charging. Any Qi approved device will work with any Qi approved charger. They currently count more than 200 members in the program.
Other options
Slimo has introduced a patch that goes on the back of the phone in order to enable charging. No case or cable is required and it works on many types of mobile devices including the iPhone.
IQi has what looks to me like the most innovative solution. Unfortunately, according to the TechCrunch reviewer, it did not work reliably and you have to use a soft case to keep the charging card contained properly. 
But, I hope they keep at it as this solution looks to hold a great deal of promise from a form factor and ease of use perspective. Small, sexy and simple. Especially if someday it can work without the plug.
The Powermat Alliance is also working with a cross-industry consortium to embed wireless charging devices into handsets. They can already claim marquee members such as General Motors, AT&T and Starbucks, along with device vendors BlackBerry, Huawei, HTC and Kyocera.
Nokia and Google have announced they are already working on adding this functionality to their products so where is Apple? My overview of this space has me believing it is quickly becoming crowded with a lot of moving parts that will be confusing to consumers. The large device vendors are starting to dip their toe into the pool to create an answer to this problem and there are at least two consortiums in play. Is there room for all these small players once the larger ones jump in?
If I were Apple I think I’d wait for the dust to settle and then adopt an interoperable solution that works with all charging options. Everyone complains about the battery problem, I know, I have an iPhone too. But we all continue to buy them, so I’m not sure I’m convinced it’s such a deal breaker as some industry pundits would like to say it is.
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