Tired of stringing up with sockets and switches just to charge your phone, redemption is here! Furniture giant Ikea has just unveiled a range of furniture fitted with wireless charging spots for mobile devices. Calling it the Home Smart range, the Swedish company has fixed wireless charging pots into a new range of products which includes lamps, bedside and coffee tables, as well as charging pads for any surface.
Who needs all those long things they call chargers?
Ikea said in a statement that “By adding wireless charging to home and office furniture, we minimise the amount of separate chargers needed.” its wireless charging products are “easy to fraction at end of life”. The company used the wireless charging standard QI, which is also supported by Samsung in its latest handset, the S6. According to QI’s backers the
Wireless Power Consortium, an industry body whose members includes Belkin, Motorola, Panasonic and Sony, there are currently more than 80 QI-compatible handsets and 15 QI-enabled cars on the market. Ikea says it will sell .Wireless charging is currently one of the hottest things on tech, as well as on phones; some existing users have complained that their devices get hot while charging wirelessly.
The charge pads are designed for use on any surface
“The wireless charging standards are evolving,” Ian Fogg, an IHS analyst, told the BBC. “The industry has no incentive to allow devices to go hot because it means the charging isn’t as efficient as it might be. “If a device gets hot, power is being lost through heat rather than being efficiently added to the battery.”
Africa will have to wait
Sadly the Ikea furnitures are not coming to Africa yet, it will only go on sale in the UK and North America in April 2015, the firm said. With the product still testing the market, it will only be a little while before the swedish company brings some down here; after all, no one can neglect Africa for so long.