I lost my non-wireless one so just bought a new 10,000 Anker one with wireless charging.
I was expecting that to keep my phone going for a few days easily but it was dead after 1 and a half wireless charges.
Is this just the inefficiency of wireless or am I doing something wrong?
Is this what MagSafe is trying to make better? Better alignment = less wasted energy?
Battery voltage to charging voltage is a step.
Charging method (wireless) adds a step.
Input voltage to battery voltage is a step.
Plus you have the extra circuitry of Wireless to power.
Nothing runs straight off 5v of USB or 3.7v (nominal) of LiPo. There's little converters for everything, every step of the way.
This is why you'll never see a 3.7-4.2v battery pack delivering 1:1 charge to a smartphone over 5v USB. I did the math a long time ago and the capacity conversion is around 74% to 84%. So if you have a 10,000 mAh battery, expect it to charge about ~8000mAh worth of your phone.
For wireless, it's even worse.
I should get at about 2.16 charges then (based on 8000) got only 1.5 which seems pretty dire! I’ll take a cable next time!
The other thing I found was I couldn’t use the phone while changing. That seems to be a weird oversight for wireless/MagSafe charging in general.