Most of the talk about charging our phones is about speed and convenience. Everyone wants one of the best wireless chargers for their phone. Efficiency is still important, even though it doesn't get much attention.
It's important that efficiency is important because it determines how hot our batteries get and how much power is wasted. We know what happens when batteries get too hot, but nobody seems concerned with the latter. Even the most inefficient phone charging method uses less electricity than keeping your microwave oven or television plugged in all the time. I think it is still worth exploring.
Charging your phone does waste electricity, but it is getting more efficient every year.
The explanation is that the most efficient way to charge your phone is by plugging a short and stout cable directly into it. It is a method that most people will never use because it is super slow and convenient.
The good news is that Fast Charging, whether it be a proprietary solution from companies like Qualcomm or OnePlus, or a more open method like what the USB Consortium offers through USB standards like Power Delivery, is getting a lot more efficient. This isn't an accident, and all companies involved are working on ways to charge your phone faster than ever.
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When dealing with electricity, you have to cut down on energy wasted as heat. Electricity, magnetism and light make up heat. Electricity can do as much as we can see or feel with those three things. When you want to move more electrons from point A to point B, you need to address the heat factor and make things more energy efficient.
Software can do more than hardware when it comes to efficient charging.
Software makes most of the improvements in this area. GaN (Gallium Nitride) chargers are a big breakthrough because they are simple to build and deliver more wattage. Knowing when to drive things at a higher wattage and when to scale them back is the most important factor.
Your phone is wired to know exactly how much power is coming into the charging port, how much power the battery can safely hold, and the temperatures of all the circuitry involved. When a phone can communicate with the charger, it can be controlled to deliver what the device wants. The main goal of this smart communication is safety, but a byproduct is efficiency because less heat means less power is being wasted.
It is much harder to tame wireless charging. You might not know, but a wired and a wireless charger are the same thing. The air gap between the two coils is the biggest difference. The number of windings of a copper wire determines the change of the voltage, and if you place two wound coils very close to each other, you can transform AC power.
Wireless charging uses electricity generated between two coils in close proximity to each other. It's safer but more wasteful.
A wireless charger uses two coils to transfer power. magnetism will cause the output coil in the phone to oscillate if power is applied to the input. You can generate electricity when you oscillate a copper wound coil. It is easy to understand if you are not an engineer.
The larger the air gap, the less energy can be transferred. Without doing a lot of math and listing a lot of insignificant exceptions, a set of coils is 70% more efficient than a wired circuit. 30% more power is wasted when you put your phone in a wireless charging station.
All charging methods depend on what happens inside the phone when it transfers power from the charging port to the battery. Companies that make phones are working on ways to move power into the battery. It can be mitigated a bit. The use of charge pumps has made a big improvement in this space. It is now possible to fast charge at speeds that do not add much heat.
When all is said and done, you are not wasting a lot of energy with phone charging methods. Some methods are more efficient than others, and phone manufacturers are working on ways to make the more convenient methods even less wasteful.
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