Third-party chargers will charge using 5W instead of 10W

Oct 23, 2018 16:00 GMT  ·  By

Google locked the fast Qi wireless charging for their Pixel 3 smartphone to the Pixel Stand, their hardware solution for fast wireless charging, forcing all third-party Qi wireless chargers to use the much slower 5W charging mode.

As reported by Android Police, one of their readers accidentally found out using the Ampere app that a 10W Anker wireless charger wasn't able to fast charge his Pixel 3 but, instead, it would provide at most 500mA.

Things get even worse since the Pixel 3 was actually reporting that fast wireless charging feature was used, with a "Charging rapidly" messages being displayed on the device's screen.

A Google spokesperson told Android Police that the company's Pixel 3 smartphone was designed to be fast charged only when the user would use a Pixel Stand because of a built-in "secure handshake" feature.

Furthermore, because third-party chargers are not able to perform a "secure handshake" before starting the fast wireless charging process, they are all limited to a 5W rate.

The Pixel 3 and the Pixel 3 XL can be fast charged wirelessly only when using Google's Pixel Stand

Anker, the manufacturer of the third party wireless charger that led to this discovery, stated that they learned "that Google's official wireless charger can provide 10W for the newly-released Pixel 3 and Pixel XL 3, however, according to our quality engineer, Pixel sets a limitation for a third-party charging accessories and we are afraid that even our fast wireless charger can only provide 5W for these 2x devices."

Seeing that Google's Pixel Stand comes with a price tag of $79 and a third party Qi wireless charger can cost up to $30 depending on the brand, it's quite understandable why Google would want to keep Pixel 3 users coming back to their own Qi charger.

Despite that, saying that this move by Google is disappointing would be an understatement especially given the fact that the Pixel 3 has a price of $799 and the Pixel 3 XL is priced at $899.

For that amount of money, Google should allow their users to choose the accessories they want to keep their smartphones charged.