Wireless chargers have quickly become a trend with new smartphones. Simple and practical, you just have to put your phone on it for it to charge. So you don’t even need to bother to plug in your smartphone anymore.
But beware, so-called induction wireless chargers are very energy-hungry. According to a study conducted by iFixit and published by the american site OneZero, they consume much more than conventional chargers.
An induction charger consumes on average 47% more energy. To reach this conclusion the phones were charged from 0 to 100%. Wired chargers consume on average 14.26 watts per hour while wireless chargers require 21.01 watts per hour.
To this, we must also add the consumption apart from charging the phone, when the device is in standby so. The induction charger consumes 0.25 watts every hour when not in use, either 6 watts more per day.
So, provided the phone is charged at least once a day, the amount ofelectric energy consumed rises at 27 watts per hour in total. This figure corresponds to double the consumption of a wired charger.
This difference looks nothing like it, but if induction chargers continue to become popular they might have a major impact on global consumption. As a reminder, there is 3.5 billion smartphones in the world so just as many potential wireless chargers.
