Be warned: some Qi2 devices don't have magnets and it can be hard to tell

You know how Qi2 was touted as “MagSafe for Android”? Well, it turns out that is not the case. Qi2 (it’s pronounced “chee”) is split into two profiles and only one of them uses magnets.

The Magnetic Power Profile (MPP) was contributed by Apple and is essentially MagSafe without the Apple trademark name. There is also Extended Power Profile (EPP), which is an improvement over the original Qi, but does not include magnets.

There are ways to tell which devices support MPP and which do not, but it’s not easy. Early guidelines suggested that the Qi2 logo should be inside a circle if the device has magnets. No magnets, no circle. However, it appears that the WPC changed its mind on that one and not without causing confusion.

The HMD Skyline became the first Android to support Qi2 and it does have magnets built in, so it supports MPP charging. The logo on its box doesn’t have a circle. What gives?

Other guidelines say that products without magnets should be using the original Qi logo instead of the Qi2 logo, so that’s what HMD did. WPC’s press release from November suggests doing just that, but the ChargeWithQi.com page still shows the circle logo.

Do you know what would have been the best way to avoid all this confusion? Making magnets mandatory on Qi2 devices. Oh well.

Note: the TA-1600 and TA-1688 are just variants of the Skyline.

Interestingly, the case of the Samsung Galaxy Ring also supports Qi2 (here is its entry in the WPC database), but it doesn’t have magnets. And funnily enough, Xiaomi makes a magnetic Qi2 power bank, even though it doesn’t have any phone that can use it properly – but some iPhone user out there might buy a Xiaomi battery.

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