Qi charger EasyCHEE T200

With heavy usage smartphones often don't last a full day so what to do about that?
Well, charging seems to be the only real answer to this problem especially as most smartphones don't have exchangeable batteries anymore :-( . But to plug and unplug a micro USB cable to the smartphone over and over again, every time you leave or come back to your workplace seemed a bit unpleasant to me.
The solution, at least for me, was a Qi charger.

What is a Qi charger?

Qi describes a standard to transfer energy without a physical connection. In detail it works by induction so the charger and the device to be charged needs to be in some close relation but they don't need to be connected, especially there is no need to connect a cable directly.
Of course, the charger and the device to be charged needs to stay in close relation while the charging process. Also there is a loss in energy because of the conversion so charging by cable is a bit more efficient.

Qi charger next to my smartphone.

Requirements for Qi charging

On one side a charger is required, of course. On the other side a compatible device is required as well.
My Nexus 5 is compatible to the Qi charging standard by default, same as the Nexus 4 or the Nexus 7 (2013). There are many more devices available that come with this charging technology right away like the LG G3 for example.
Other devices like the Samsung Galaxy S4 or S5 or Apples iPhones do not support the Qi charging by default but there are extension kits available to update or extend them with this kind of functionality either by placing a little "receiver" in the device or by placing the whole device into a case that comes with this function.

The LED at this charger turns blue while charging.

The EsayCHEE T200 charger

There are many Qi compatible chargers available by now and they drop in price more and more as well. In fact, you can easy get a Qi charger for about 15 €, maybe even less.

In my case I came to the decision to spend a little bit more (about 25 €) because of one thing most cheaper chargers do, they create an annoying peep when you plug on the device onto the charger.

The EsayCHEE T200 itself does not do that, only the smartphone plays a little sound once it is placed on the charger and starts charging.

The charger comes with two micro USB cables in different lengths for power supply but no other power jack so if you don't want to connect it with a PC for charging you might have to get a USB power jack separately.

Before I ordered my first Qi charger I was a bit worried if it would work with my phone surrounded by a bumper case but with both bumpers I have tested so far it was absolutely no problem to charge my phone without removing the bumper. I could imagine, cases made out of metal could be problematic, but I can't tell for sure.

The status LED is green while no device is being charged.

My usage

So, I got two of this chargers by now, one at work and one at home. Both are placed next to my PC screen so when I come to one of this places I can simply drop my smartphone on the charger and take it with me when I leave the place without fiddling around with a cable or anything like that. This way the phone will always be charged and I can see notifications or access my music player easy as well at the same time.

The charging status is displayed on my lockscreen.

Conclusion

As the battery life of a smartphone nowadays is not enough for a high usage to last for a day or just barely the Qi charging technique is a easy way to compensate this issue a bit. I got really used to it and I don't want to miss it anymore, at least until the batteries in our smartphones will last a lot longer ;-)