The Belkin Qi2 accessory: charging your phone from your car with a USB-C 12V adapter? The irony of Apple’s MagSafe announcement
It’s called Qi2, and yes, it effectively means that MagSafe is coming to Android, for better or for worse. Samsung and Apple are both expected to put Qi2-certified products on the market, Wireless Power Consortium spokesperson Paul Golden tells The Verge, and he says there’s no reason to think future Qi2-certified chargers wouldn’t work with both.
Unlike that model, Belkins new accessory includes a built in cable that allows you to power up your phone from your car. I was going to be mad about that, because most cars modern enough to have USB-C ports will probably come with CarPlay (though there are notable exceptions), making this accessory far less necessary. Thankfully, Belkin also includes a 12V car charger adapter for people whose cars come with USB-A ports or no phone charging capabilities to speak of. That seems sensible enough, and I can’t think of any situations where that would be a problem, though I might’ve preferred a removable cable on a product that’ll probably be constantly exposed to sunlight.
As I said before, this is a pretty obvious use for Apple’s MagSafe tech. That’s why it was so surprising when Belkin basically announced this exact thing the day after the iPhone 12 introduced MagSafe — except it cost $40 and it bafflingly left off the ability to actually charge your phone. You know, the main thing you’d want it to do if you were trying to use a power-hungry navigation app.
The mount can also swivel your phone from portrait to landscape, for however you like to see your directions. For the most part it, seems like a perfectly competent accessory —except that, again, it costs $99.95.
MagSafe accessories don’t come cheap, but I think most people will consider other, less expensive options. Spigen makes a $21 version of this that acts as a receptacle for a $39 MagSafe puck. Even if you splurge for a fancy $20 dual USB-C 12V adapter (because it doesn’t come with one), you’d still be saving a decent chunk of change. Spigen has a version in black which will stand out against the rest of the dashboards, while Belkin only has a version in white.
There are a couple of caveats I want to immediately mention. Only a small number of phones, most of which are from the likes of Google and Apple, have MagSafe-like magnetic cases. My favorite, which I’ll go into more depth soon, is Peak Design’s Everyday Case. However, Moment also has magnetic Samsung and Pixel cases, and you’ll find the same at Mous too.
One other issue is that even if you do have the right device, like the Pixel 7 with Peak Design’s Everyday Case, there’s no guarantee it will work with every MagSafe product. This is more specific to wireless chargers—in my testing, not every MagSafe wireless charger will perfectly recharge an Android phone, as the magnets in the case may not be perfectly aligned around the wireless charging system on the device itself. I’ve had good luck with most, but your mileage will vary.
With that said, let me introduce you to the beauty of Peak Design’s Everyday Case. It works as a case itself. The buttons are responsive, and the fabric texture on the back feels nice. I don’t care about a bigger lip around the edges to protect the screen, and the company could offer a few more color options, but it’s not available for the Samsung and Google cases.
Whether you choose the case for Samsung’s Galaxy S22 or S21 lineup or the Pixel 6 or 7 series, you’re treated to magnets in the rear. Peak Design’s SlimLink mounting system has a square indent in the center. It increases the amount of security for certain accessories so that it doesn’t rely on magnets alone, and the phone won’t fly off when you go over a small bumps on the road.
I test a lot of electric kick scooters and folding ebikes, and the Universal Bar Mount has been my favorite accessory for this reason alone. It’s easy to install on any handlebar, and I don’t need to fuss at all to mount my device. After almost a year of using my phone, I have never had it fall off, even with the Everyday Case on the two new phones, as well as the Universal accessory I attached to the Pixel 5A last year. It is easy to release a phone from the mount simply by pushing a button at the top or bottom.
How much do you really need to charge a smart phone? An analysis of the wireless charging standard released at the WPC’s press release
I wouldn’t have considered dropping $300 for a wireless charging pad anyways. I just don’t have enough devices to need something like that, and even if I did I feel like the charger’s dimensions would be limiting. If you want to fit three devices onto it, they’re going to be pretty packed together, making the ability to put those devices anywhere less handy. And if I’m just charging a device or two, this type of charger pretty overkill. I have a cablemunching gremlin in my house that makes an integrated USB-C power cable on such an expensive device a dealbreaker.
It’s not clear if that last point is important. With the ability to pump out up to 15W to all three devices with a 65W power conversion, doesTesla need to improve their efficiency similar to what Apple planned to do in 2018? I don’t think that is a make or break feature for me, since the whole point of a product like this is to have a place to charge all your devices, and this cannot do that for many people. (I suspect there are more wearable owners than people who have to charge two phones on the regular, but I could be wrong.)
He said they know that they will be fully on board with Qi2 and they don’t have to give us information about what MagSafe products are currently in the market. Would Apple abandon its MagSafe products in exchange for a better version, or is there other plans?
And while I say “for better or for worse,” it mostly sounds better! Golden says the aim is to make it clear if the phone and the charging port are compatible, and to make sure the coil is properly aligned in order to charge at the full speed of the phone.
And after that, there’s the possibility of charging devices like smartwatches that don’t necessarily have flat charging coils. According to the WPC’s press release, the launch of the wireless charging standard will further expand the market by opening the market to new accessories that aren’t charging using current flat surface toflat surface devices. Victoria, my colleague, has to wait.
Third, I’m sorry to say that the WPC’s Qi2 certification won’t ensure that magnets are strong enough to stick and stay without sliding. The strength and size of the magnet is a design issue. Product design issues are determined by the product manufacturers,” says Golden. I was really hoping that particular element of the MagSafe-compatible wild west might get resolved here.