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Help Recommendations For Wireless Chargers?

C

Chillione

Lurker
Hi,
Am new to the forums so sorry if in wrong area.

Am looking into inductive wireless chargers for my Galaxy S4. Don't know too much about these so would appreciate recommendations on which are good units to go for from people who have used similar things.

Thanks
 
One other option:

If you register your phone on samsung's site, they should send you an Email with a 50% off coupon (for products that cost $50 or less). They sell the Samsung wireless charging cover for $19.99 (after 50% off). It adds a little more thickness to the phone (approx 1mm from what I could tell).

The link from halon in the previous post leads to cheaper alternatives on eBay ($12 or so) - and they ship from China. Not sure about warranty etc - but those should work with the regular phone back cover.

It is a Qi receiver, so should work with any Qi charger.
 
I had inductive charging on my last phone (Droid 3). I really did like it a lot, and one reason I went with the S4 was because of the promise of Qi compatibility.

Right now, I have mixed feelings about what I want to do in that regard. The difference in thickness is not great, but it winds up having all sorts of implications for the sorts of cases you can use. Your phone will not fit some of nicer options out there, as a result.

My S4 is also a bit more efficient with regard to battery power than my D3. So, I don't feel that constant need to continually recharge.

I have a Qi pad already, and I also have the 50% coupon mentioned above. So, I may get the back. But, I'm really unsure.

Another option for a really fun charger for the S4 is andru. I have one of those as well, and think it is a really cute gizmo.
 
OstrichSaK said:
If I buy that OEM backplate from Samsung will a Seidio Surface case fit and will it charge through that case? I'm guessing my answer to both is probably no but like the idea.
Click to expand...
How thick is the case?

I saw the post above from Seidio saying it wouldn't work (which is very honest of them) but I wouldn't have thought a thin case would stop it working completely unless it is made of certain metals.

The magnetic field is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the charging coils so the effectiveness of charging would decrease very quickly the further the coil is away from the pad but I know others here have found that a thin plastic case didn't stop wireless charging from working although it would slow it down.
 
lotus49 said:
How thick is the case?

I saw the post above from Seidio saying it wouldn't work (which is very honest of them) but I wouldn't have thought a thin case would stop it working completely unless it is made of certain metals.

The magnetic field is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the charging coils so the effectiveness of charging would decrease very quickly the further the coil is away from the pad but I know others here have found that a thin plastic case didn't stop wireless charging from working although it would slow it down.
Click to expand...

The problem is not that the case is to thick for charging. It is that the backplate makes the phone to thick to fit.
 
That's the problem with the Samsung OEM wireless charging rear cover. It's thicker then the stock battery cover, while it isn't a ton thicker it is thick enough where most cases won't fit anymore.

I have the Spigen Slim Armor, and after I got the Samsung OEM wireless charging cover, I tried to put the Slim Armor case back on and it wouldn't fit. The wireless charging cover was too thick for the case to fit now.

From what I've read, this is a common problem if you decide to go with the Samsung OEM wireless charging cover. There are 3rd party wireless charging receivers (such as the one from Fonesalesman on Amazon via link below) that others have reported working with the stock battery cover, and also work with most cases. However with 3rd party, specific things you need to be concerned about are potentially charging warm, needs to be positioned on pad very specifically, may interfere with NFC, etc.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D3K7UZW/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A31SMNUPEI8HOF

And all this sucks because I didn't know about it until after I already bought my Samsung OEM wireless charging cover and pad. At least I got them both at 50% off and can resell them as they've never been used. But still an added hassle I wasn't anticipating having to deal with.

I don't understand why Samsung couldn't have either made the stock battery door thicker to match the wireless charging cover, so cases designed for stock GS4 would still fit? Or why Samsung couldn't have simply made the wireless charging cover the same width as the stock cover??
 
bobby2478 said:
I don't understand why Samsung couldn't have either made the stock battery door thicker to match the wireless charging cover, so cases designed for stock GS4 would still fit?
Click to expand...

Because making the phone thinner is an important to the tech press. :rolleyes:
 
Goodspike said:
Because making the phone thinner is an important to the tech press. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Right. Because having a thin phone is the only thing that matters. Pissing their customers off because their cases no longer fit with the wireless charging cover, which they had to buy months after the fact because it wasn't available on launch, naturally wouldn't be a concern would it?

It would have been VERY easy for them to accommodate up front in the design process by having the overall dimensions of the phone be the SAME regardless of whether they were using a "wireless charging" version of the phone or not. But that would be too simple.

You hit the nail on the head. When rushing to get the GS4 out the door with wireless charging still not finalized yet, they made it as thin as they could without taking into consideration how wireless charging might change those dimensions, and thus what impact it might have on customers who bought cases for their phone only to find out they are worthless with wireless charging.
 
Purchased a Qi wireless charger & receiver module together off of Ebay for $41 (shipping included). There is just a very slight bulge after installing the module on the back-plate, but all cases fit perfectly fine. The charger works great, but it does take longer than with an AC adapter, but faster than via USB.

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Oops... wrong thread. Sure would be nice if the admins of this forum didn't treat us all like children and allow us the ability to delete our own posts. :rolleyes:
 
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