NFC-based wireless charging will make its way to future smartphones

Even though wireless charging tech has been around for a few years, we're only just beginning to see some significant improvements in it. OEMs such as Oppo, Vivo, and Huawei have been at the forefront of bringing it on par with cable-based charging. Phone makers have also made it possible for their users to power up other appliances with their smartphones. That, however, requires a wireless charger to be built into the device in question, further driving up manufacturing costs. It will soon be possible to eliminate that and charge accessories such as smartwatches and wireless earbuds via NFC.

NFC has a wide range of applications and can be used for everything ranging from data transfer to pairing hardware. The Global NFC Forum just approved a wireless charging specification that will allow users to charge their devices via NFC. For now, the maximum allowed wattage is capped out at 1W, but we can expect to see that number get higher as the tech matures. It will use 13.56 MHz base frequency and will allow for simultaneous charging and data transfer operations between the two devices.

It will be a while before we see the tech in action, though. Some new hardware will be in order, and a lot of kinks will need to be ironed out before it can make its way to commercial devices. Despite its 1W limitation, an NFC-based charging solution will allow a lot of companies to offer a functionality that was previously reserved only for high-end smartphones.