Once you move past the hyperbolic headline and get to the meat of the matter you’ll see just how inefficient wireless charging really is. Every time you set your phone or something like a pair of wireless earbuds on a charging pad, you’re using about 50% more energy to charge them compared to using a cable. Part of the reason is that it can be tough to align electromagnetic coils properly to transfer the full amount of energy they are capable of, but part of it is simply because wireless charging just uses more power.
We may see more devices with wireless charging and people seem to think its useful. Fairphone explicitly noted; “we made the conscious choice not to implement wireless charging in Fairphone 4, as it is still very inefficient & wastes a lot of energy”. And it makes sense, not every innovation is an improvement. Multiply the loss of energy with the inefficient charging of the billions of mobile devices in the world and it should become clear we’re not making our lives easier. Wireless charging also heats up your device more, which shortens the battery lifespan, adding more waste to the pile since most devices do not have replaceable batteries.