When we talk about wireless charging, our thoughts immediately go to the consolidated standard Qi, present in most current smart devices. However, there are many small electronic devices where Qi has no place, mainly due to lack of internal space for a suitable coil. That's where the NFC wireless charging spec that will be introduced in Android 15 comes into play.
How WLC technology works
Launched in May 2020, the tech WLC (i.e. charging via NFC) uses much smaller antennas than Qi, measuring less than 1cm. These antennas, in addition to being flexible and adaptable, can be easily integrated into small devices such as earphones, stylus, SmartWatch e tag tracking. The unique antenna used for WLC allows not only charging but also NFC data transfer, thus optimizing internal space.
Android 15 will introduce NFC charging
Despite its unveiling nearly four years ago, WLC technology has yet to see widespread adoption in commercial products, perhaps due to limited support from major operating systems such as Android. With the'update to Android 15, however, adoption of charging of this kind is expected. With the release of the Android 15 beta last week, Google introduced significant changes to the system's NFC manager, including a new class called NfcCharging, which manages starting and stopping NFC charging, as well as reading the transmitted charging information. Although this is the first implementation in the Android system, these changes open up interesting future developments.
One of the most promising applications of NFC charging involves location tags. These devices, often too small to integrate a Qi charging coil, can benefit greatly from WLC. These tags, which can send information already using NFC chips for functions like Find my device of Android, could significantly reduce maintenance costs and simplify the charging process thanks to WLC support in Android 15.
