By Andrew Liszewski
Now that there’s a unified standard, induction charging is going to start working its way into more and more devices as a built-in feature. But it’s not going to happen overnight, and there’s limited options when it comes to upgrading current technology to take advantage of wireless charging. One of the more common solutions, and the approach that The Joy Factory’s new Zip charging station take, is to serve as a sort of streamlined power bar. In that you still have to connect your devices with a cable, but the actual power connection is done via magnets and induction, instead of a pronged plug.
The Zip multi-charging station uses short ‘ZipTail’ cables that connect to the ports on a wide variety of devices, from smartphones to eReaders, and then easily connect to a charging pad. While the pad appears to have 16 available dimples for charging a multitude of devices, it in fact can only charge about 3 cellphones at once, give or take, depending on their power needs. So I guess the large assortment of dimples gives you flexibility on where to ‘plug’ each device in. For $79.95 you get the charging pad, a miniUSB cable and 2 x microUSB cables. Other cables, designed for devices with proprietary connectors, are also available but sold separately.
I’m not sure this is really inductive charging. It looks like the power is conducted through the magnetic contacts. The magnets simply hold the charging cable to the base. It’s not actually inductive, but conductive charging.