Years ago, when Nokia introduced our little world to the magic of wireless charging with the first ever Qi enabled Nokia Lumia 920, we could not fathom what the technology would evolve to. We remembered being excited about wireless charging when they introduced the technology with the Samsung Galaxy Note4. We personally experienced wireless charging first on the Samsung Galaxy Note5.

At the time, wireless charging is not just a luxury. It was a novelty that sort of works. No, it does work, just not all the time. The technology was finnicky at best and wireless chargers do not typically last you for long. Some of them will work for a few months to a year and they become even more finnicky than a broken cable.

The attraction to wireless charging though is massive. Wireless charging opens up a lot of possibilities for users and manufacturers. It opens up your table too, with more manageable cabling. You do not need a flailing cable for your smartphone, at the very least. There is always a designated spot for charging, amazing.

With the dawn of fast charging technology, we see the likes of Xiaomi and OnePlus taking the lead in pushing wireless charging technology as far as possible. We see Xiaomi taking the plunge with their 40W wireless charger back in 2020, and later pushing the envelope to 50W wireless charging. OnePlus brought their 55W charging into the fray too.

But we never thought that it was possible to push wireless charging further. Until Xiaomi pulled the veils on their new Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro and Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra. We are not talking about the device thought, we are talking about the accessories they come with. We are talking about the 80W wireless charger and the charging pad.

80W Wireless Charging Stand

Xiaomi’s big number that accompanies this new charger is 19 minutes to 100%. The wireless charger is capable is filling up a typical smartphone battery at 4,000mAh from empty to 100%. Of course, the said battery also must be able to be charging at 80W.

The thing is no devices in the current market supports 80W charging just yet. That also means that you are not going to obtain this piece of kit for just current devices. You are future proofing yourself for future generations of device that supports up to 80W wireless charging.

Xiaomi Wireless Charging Pad

Then there is this new familiar looking piece of kit. We saw it when Apple revealed their wireless charging pad called the AirPower. It was meant to be the base of Apple’s wireless charging devices. But Apple’s vision of a wireless charging pad never came to fruition.

Xiaomi beat them to it with a wireless charging pad that features 19 charging coils that allows you to simply place your wireless charging capable devices on the pad and start charging. There are no orientation requirements at all with the pad, which is its beauty. The charging pad also has enough juice to charge up to 3 devices at the same time at 20W.

Price and Availability

The Xiaomi 80W wireless charging stand will cost CN¥ 499, which is about US$ 76. It comes with a 120W power brick that could easily charge any other smartphones and even low-powered notebooks. If you get the Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro, it is a CN¥ 199 addition. The charging pad will set users in China back CN¥ 599 which is about US$ 91. That is the catch with these charging docks, however. These accessories are only available in China for now. There are no mentions yet on its global availability too.