Invisible wireless charger

By Dmitry Kann 2 min read
This post  in Russian

When it comes to interior design, I’m a big fan of minimalism — which one can notice from the photo of my workplace (and that’s how it looks in real life and not only on the photo).

Long time I wished to build a wireless Qi phone charger right into my desk so that I could charge my mobile by simply laying it down onto the desktop.

There was an issue though. My desktop is a sheet of 10 mm-thick hardened glass, and common wireless chargers only support charging over a distance up to 8 mm.

Recently I have been able to find a solution to this and make it exactly the way I wanted.

The solution

The solution came from AliExpress in the form of a long-distance Qi charger, priced at about € 14 including shipping:

Long-distance Qi charger.
Long-distance Qi charger.

The seller claims the charger is able to function over distances of up to 20 mm, and that indeed seems plausible.

The rest was a matter of implementation. I removed the desktop and placed the wireless transmitter under it, using a couple of rubber pads so that it would gently press against the downside of the desktop:

The Qi charger at its permanent place.
The Qi charger at its permanent place.

The charger is then connected to a regular USB adapter:

The Qi charger with the desktop removed.
The Qi charger with the desktop removed.

The next step was to replace the desktop and mark the spot where the mobile was to be put, since there was no clue as to where exactly the charger was beneath it.

I used a silver metallic marker to draw two concentric circles right above the central point of the transmitter. Such a mark is both visually pleasing and wipe-resistant:

The phone’s landing spot.
The phone’s landing spot.

And voilà: once you put the phone down on the mark the charging starts. Magic!

The magical wireless charger.
The magical wireless charger.

The charger proved to work perfectly, it always recognises the phone and charges it fully in a couple of hours. The current drawn from the USB adapter is about 1.5 А.

Where to buy

I bought it from this seller on AliExpress. ■

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