Qi2

The whole appeal of the Qi2 standard is that magnets can be added to a device in order to improve charger alignment, speeds, and open the door to a ton of additional accessories. But “Qi2 Ready” is now coming, and it may end up throwing a wrench in that.

At CES 2025, two years after the standard was first announced, it’s been revealed that Qi2 is officially coming to Samsung Galaxy devices this year, and Google is leading development on faster charging speeds as well.

The Qi2 standard is slowly coming, and the big appeal has always been that is brings magnets that work the same as Apple’s MagSafe to other products, including Android phones. And yes, magnets are indeed required to have something say that is has “Qi2.”

The Qi2 standard has seen hardly any adoption across Android, but has been rumored to be coming in the Galaxy S25 series. As it turns out, that’s probably not happening, but Samsung may be bringing better wireless charging.

Samsung is rumored to be finally adopting the Qi2 standard in its upcoming Galaxy S25 series, but a new leak revealing a “magnet case” from Samsung is causing some to believe it might not happen. Let’s talk about it.

It’s been almost two years since Qi2 was announced, but only a single Android phone has used it thus far. Apparently, though, the Galaxy S25 series may end up supporting Qi2.

The OnePlus 13 is geared up for a global release in the near future and, ahead of its debut, the device has been officially confirmed to lack Qi2 charging, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to use MagSafe accessories.

The Qi2 standard was announced the better part of two years ago and, until now, we’ve yet to see a single Android phone with the standard. But, now, that’s finally changing.

Samsung’s new Galaxy S24 series skipped support for the new Qi2 standard, and it seems you might run into issues using MagSafe-style cases on the Galaxy S24 Ultra as well, at least at launch.

Qi2 was announced over a year ago now as the next big thing in wireless charging, bringing the same array of magnets used for Apple’s wildly popular MagSafe to any other device as an industry standard. But we haven’t see it debut in any hardware yet, and Samsung’s new Galaxy S24 series isn’t changing that as all three devices lack support for Qi2.

Qi2 is going to bring MagSafe-style accessories to Android phones in the years to come, but we haven’t heard much about what Android phones will be adopting it. The Galaxy S24 series comes out soon, and it seems like it probably won’t have the feature, despite some speculating it will based on a recent Samsung video.

As CES 2024 kicks off this week, we’re reminded of one of last year’s biggest announcements. The new Qi2 standard was announced last January with support for MagSafe as a universal standard, but we haven’t heard much about support for Qi2 in new Android phones. What will be the first one?

Qi2 was announced in early 2023 as the next generation of the wireless charging standard that many devices use, but only now are the first Qi2 devices actually coming. Plus, it’s looking like Google is preparing Qi2 for the next Pixel release.

IFA 2023 last week saw a bunch of new announcements, including the arrival of the Qi2 standard in actual products. The new wireless charging standard and its MagSafe support are genuinely exciting, but the biggest question about Qi2 so far is where all of the phones are.

Months ahead of its expected release date, the Google “Pixel 8” has been officially certified for Qi wireless charging, confirming no speed improvement over last year.

Wireless charging has agreed upon the Qi standard for several years now as the technology has become more and more widely used in smartphones, but there’s still room for differentiation in the standard. One of the biggest upgrades to Qi came from Apple’s MagSafe, and that’s now coming to other devices with “Qi2.”