This is way cooler than inductive for this application I think, but for a lot of other things inductive is pretty nice.

It's great to have a backup to the USB port so the device doesn't become useless if anything happens to it.

The annoying thing is the stuff that really would benefit most from wireless is lower power, less often used stuff, which never actually has it...

A Qi charging flashlight would be pretty nice. But almost nobody does them.

> The annoying thing is the stuff that really would benefit most from wireless is lower power, less often used stuff, which never actually has it... A Qi charging flashlight would be pretty nice. But almost nobody does them.

I've thought about trying my hand at circuit design by making a Qi charging beard trimmer with a supercap "battery", but I suspect that might be jumping into the deep end.

“Yak” shaving of a sort!

Wireless charging can be surprisingly efficient. You should check out this video where wireless charging beats wired charging in end to end efficiency: https://youtu.be/AE1gaNO9nj0?si=E3y_y28lpCXU_WLt

In that case it’s probably more due to a particularly inefficient DC fast charger. (It’s been a long time since I watched it so I might not remember the details right.)

In the end it doesn’t have to be exactly as efficient as wired charging, and probably never will be for a good implementation of a wired charger. It only has to be so close that you don’t care about the difference.

I don’t think the inverse square law is very relevant on these scales. Electromagnetic radiation can be focused.

My thought exactly. “in-pavement electric car charging system” reminds me of those back of magazine ads selling “solar powered clothes dryer” only for it be a simple clothesline.

Actually, I clicked because I was thinking about actual in-pavement charging solution like this https://easelink.com/ and not just a slit in the sidewalk for the cable.

The solution from the article seems more of a meme and then I saw it's an actual product from Dragon's Den which explains everything.