As more and more devices incorporate Qi wireless charging capabilities these days, some questions naturally arise about the practice. Perhaps one of the things people wonder about the most is whether the phone’s overall functionality and battery life are in any way affected by wireless charging.

Before we delve into that, we should perhaps take a few moments to acknowledge how quickly the technology has evolved and how widespread it is at this point in time. It seems that it was just a few years ago that the first wireless chargers were released, and despite the many flaws that those first models had, these chargers have come quite a long way since.

Another thing people usually want to find out is iflong range wireless charging has a direct effect on a phone’s capacity to fully recharge. This is because there is an underlying understanding that wireless charging is somewhat less effective when compared to wired chargers, which isn’t that far off from the truth.

Now, even though the overall charging speed is reduced for a wireless charger, this has a minimal impact on the intensity of its output. So if a wireless charger delivers a 12.5 Wh charge, it does so without affecting the phone’s capacity for recharge. If anything, it actually reduces the risks of heating up the phone’s battery.

Heat and battery life

Some of you may have noticed over the years that when your phone heats up, its functionality decreases considerably. What some of you might not know, however, is that this doesn’t apply just to the phone’s CPU and memory, but it also affects the phone’s battery cycles. More to the point, it seriously impacts how long the battery lasts between recharges.

You should know that the batteries of most mobile phones are designed to work properly at temperatures o between 10 and 30 degrees celsius. Any oscillation in temperature that exceeds those parameters is sure to affect the battery’s overall efficiency. This doesn’t only happen because of physical impediments, but also because most batteries are engineered this way.

To be more precise, batteries are built so that they automatically conserve their charge when the temperature shifts too much between two specific temperature points. To do so, the battery begins to shut down upon reaching a certain temperature, a protective function that leads many people to believe that their phone’s battery is dying.

This also happens when people charge their phones, be it with a traditional charger or with a Qi wireless charger. Whatever the case, the results are the same – the battery heats up when charging, and thus it affects the phone’s short-term performance. 

Now, if people paid attention, they would notice that the phone’s performance reverts to normal parameters just a few minutes after the charging process is complete.

In the case of wireless chargers,the process of long range wireless charging is almost certain to maintain a steady battery temperature, well within acceptable parameters. This is because wireless chargers deliver a much-reduced wattage during the charging process, causing the battery to heat up slower as a result.

If, however, your phone’s battery does heat up when charging it wirelessly, you might want to make a habit out of recharging it before it drops below 15%. It has been reported that with some devices, Qi charging may cause the batteries to heat up considerably when connected for longer than 40 minutes.

Longevity by means of consistency

Interestingly enough, the slower charge that wireless chargers deliver not only reduces the probability that your device will overheat when charging, but it also improves battery life to some extent. Because of the many protective systems modern batteries incorporate, a slower charge allows the battery to fully stack its cells in a controlled and steady fashion.

As newer wireless chargers are released, their range and potency increase considerably. This results in a more consistent output overall, thus increasing the battery’s capacity to process wireless waves in a more efficient manner. While the wattage may differ from one charger to another, the phone’s capacity to process the charge is sure to become more accommodating over time.

Seeing how most wireless chargers nowadays have a relatively short operational distance, you can expect newly released Qi-ready devices to only respond well to short-range charging. 

Unfortunately,it seems that long range wireless charging isn’t that viable given the technological limitations of our times, but this is guaranteed to change going forward.

To be more precise, newer semiconductors can transform weaker induction waves into a suitable electric charge, but only within specific parameters. As more and more devices incorporate these highly efficient semiconductors, the range of most wireless chargers is sure to increase as well.

The correlation between battery life and charging speed

Seeing how most chargers have an overall output of between 10 to 20 watts in the low-end range of the spectrum, you can expect most devices to fully charge in about 40 to 60 minutes under normal circumstances. During this time, the battery may heat up considerably, thus causing it to sustain a fair amount of erosion and depletion.

With faster chargers, the output can sometimes exceed 40 watts or so, which reduces the time that a battery has to stay connected to the charger. In time, this allows the battery to regenerate faster and also to maintain a consistent depletion speed. As you can imagine, this will greatly improve the battery’s performance the more you recharge it at high speed.

So in other words, the faster a charger is, the less damage it causes to a modern battery as long as the wattage doesn’t oscillate too much. The key requirement here is that the battery should always be charged using the same charger, preferably one that was designed to be paired with that specific device.

All things considered, wireless chargers have come a long way over these past few years and we can expect them to improve even further in the future. Only time will tell in what way this will affect newer batteries or if it will have any impact whatsoever.