Android 15 Could Bring NFC Wireless Charging Support, Which Is Slower Than The Qi Standard, But The Required Hardware Is Much Smaller

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The Qi standard is typically employed when giving a smartphone the ability to top up the battery wirelessly. However, there might be a different way of wirelessly charging future devices that can run Android 15, and that is NFC Wireless Charging support. According to the latest findings, Google is figuring out a way to bring this technology to supported models, bringing in some level of convenience, regardless of whether this approach is inferior to the Qi standard.

NFC Wireless Charging requires smaller hardware to work, making it ideal for compact smartphones

With Qi-enabled devices sporting bigger wireless charging coils, NFC Wireless Charging may solve this conundrum through the same technology that fuels contactless payments. Even though the NFC Wireless Charging (WLC) specification was announced back in May 2020, it is yet to be widely adopted, possibly because its charging speeds are significantly inferior to the Qi standard. The charging antennas can be shrunk to a size of 1cm while making them highly bendable so they can easily be accommodated into small devices such as smartwatches, Bluetooth trackers, wireless earbuds, and others.

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With Android 15 expected to launch later this year, we could see support for NFC Wireless Charging and a wave of WLC-enabled accessories entering the market. According to Android Authority’s Mishaal Rahman, the Android 15 beta 1 includes WLC-related additions to the operating system’s NFC APIs. The report mentions that Google attempted to bring WLC support in late 2021, which is nearly a year and a half after the specification was first released, but canceled all progress later on.

No explanation was given as to why Google would resurrect its abandoned project, but it is not just compact smartphones that could benefit from this addition, but other products such as Bluetooth trackers, which can later be paired with an Android handset. By