AirPower wireless charging mat apparently set to launch before the end of the month

Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes said Tuesday that Apple is about to launch its multi-device Qi wireless charger, called AirPower, before the end of March.

“With Apple set to launch its in-house designed wireless charging pad AirPower by the end of March, Taiwan suppliers of glass passivated package bridge rectifiers needed to support the device expect their shipments to double in the first quarter of 2018 from a quarter earlier and rise further in the second quarter,” reads the report.

This corroborates both an earlier report by the reliable Japanese blog Mac Otakara suggesting AirPower would launch sometime in March of 2018 and an unnamed tipster from Best Buy.

AirPower was designed to wirelessly charge up to three new-generation Apple devices at once, such as your iPhone 8/8 Plus/X, Apple Watch Series 3 and AirPods. Apple will also release a Qi-enabled case for AirPods at some point.

According to the rumor-mill, the accessory may be priced at $199 in the US.

Here’s our hands-on with a cheaper Plux alternative.

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According to my plugged-in sources from the accessories industry, AirPower is going to use a very tight frequency that should be adopted as a new Qi standard as to not interfere with the many other radios and electronics in iPhone.

The charging mat will allegedly sport a maximum (probably combined) charging performance of up to 29W, but the single device charging rate will almost certainly be a lower figure.

By comparison, most other brands of wireless charging pads are usually suitable for only one device at a time and sport a maximum charging performance of up to 7.5W.

Are you interested in AirPower? Do you plan on buying one?

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