The wireless charging standard groups A4WP and PMA have consummated their merger into the far friendlier-sounding AirFuel Alliance. It competes with the Wireless Power Consortium, which promotes the popular Qi standard, used by (among others) the current Samsung Galaxy and Note product lines, as well as IKEA’s charging pad.
AirFuel and WPC are not compatible, even though both support both inductive and resonant charging. AirFuel claims 195 members; WPC claims 224. Tom’s Hardware has a pretty good explainer, although we’re not sure we agree with the author’s conclusions.
We’ll be sitting down with representatives of both organizations later this week at the Wireless Power Summit (disclaimer: we’re a media sponsor of the conference) and hope to report on what all this means for consumers and the industry. At a minimum, it means one less standards organization, and one more easily recognizable name.