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Home / News / Duracell Powermat WiCC could bring wireless charging to all smartphones

Duracell Powermat WiCC could bring wireless charging to all smartphones

Duracell has a solution for bringing wireless power to mobile devices and it's wafer-thin and credit card-shaped

Wireless charging has been a recurrent theme in the tech world for quite some time – and while we’ve seen wireless charging solutions from the likes of Powermat and Case-mate, the wireless charging revolution has failed to take off and go truly mainstream. Duracell may have hit the nail on the head, though, with its Powermat WiCC charging card.

Spotted by Engadget, the Powermat WiCC – which stands for Wireless Charging Card – is a wafer-thin slice of charging tech that slips in between your phone’s battery and back panel. Assuming you can get at the battery (sorry, iPhone users), the WiCC will play nice with Duracell’s Powermat charging mats for a wire-free charging experience.

As it stands, wireless charging usually comes by way of an ugly charging pad, complete with an ugly case. In this instance, Duracell’s wireless charging solution is neat and compact and virtually intrusion-free.

This development in wireless power tech suggests the days of fumbling for power adaptors and tripping over tangled leads could soon be numbered. But there are a few hurdles to overcome before we’re all charging our mobiles with Duracell’s nifty wireless solution.

Its future is contingent on cooperation from smartphone manufacturers, so in order for the tech to be fully implemented into our mobile experience, devices are going to need to have six electrical connectors added to their battery compartments – two for power, two for data and two for NFC, as the WiCC also doubles up as an NFC antenna.

It’s this reliance on the cooperation of other manufacturers that could put a spanner in the works for Duracell’s answer to wireless charging.

We’re all for a future where portable gadgets are recharged wirelessly, desk space is freed up and we no longer have to grapple with tangled, rage-inducing wires. And while the Powermat WiCC is a step in the right direction towards making inductive wireless charging more mainstream, we won’t be getting our hopes up about this revolutionary tech just yet.

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Profile image of Dan Grabham Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home