Tag Archives: charging

These Terrazzo Wireless Chargers look like artisanal decorative coasters that can charge your phone!

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I guess these Terrazzo Wireless Chargers from Bentu Design put the tech in archi’tech’ture! Designed as a neat fusion of consumer tech and home-decor, Bentu Design’s W10 charger comes with an exterior made from Terrazzo, a unique composite of concrete with marble/ceramic/stone chips suspended within. The terrazzo exterior gives the W10 almost a coaster-like appearance, allowing it to wirelessly charge your phone while acting as a nifty little decorative element on your tabletop.

The W10 charger’s terrazzo exterior uses concrete mixed along with recycled ceramic particles, cement construction waste, quartz fragments, and other crushed stones, most of which are virtually useless. By binding these waste particles into concrete, China-based Bentu Design has perfected the art of repurposing trash and making well-designed products out of terrazzo. Bentu noticed that globalization, and an increased demand for ceramic pieces, had driven a wave of new factories in Chaozhou… creating jobs, but also dramatically increasing the amount of ceramic waste produced. The name ‘Bentu’ translates to ‘native’, as the studio focuses on understanding and using raw materials that are local.

The terrazzo W10 chargers come in 4 colors – white, green, blue, or orange, with ceramic and quartz particles randomly suspended in the concrete. The natural beauty of this randomness makes each X10 unique and one-of-a-kind. Under its bespoke speckled exterior, sits a Qi-compatible charging coil, available in 5, 7.5, and even 10W outputs, and the coil connects to a power source via a discreet USB-C plug located in the charger’s side. Each W10 measures 10mm in thickness, and weighs a mere 210 grams. It’s pretty enough to be mistaken for a coaster, although I’d probably ask you to caution your guests against placing any hot cups filled with coffee/tea on them. There’s no clarity on whether the X10 is waterproof, although I kind of hope it is!

Not only is the X10 made from recycled ceramic/stone scrap, it’s also designed to be repurposed/recycled too. After the wireless charger’s service life is over, the internal circuit board and electronic components can be extracted by gently breaking apart the terrazzo shell. The shell itself can be smashed into chunks and reused in another terrazzo piece, giving it a fresh life altogether. Moreover, to reinforce the X10’s sustainable approach, the wireless charger even comes in fully recycled all-paper packaging.

Designer: Bentu Design

These iPhone wallpapers automatically change to reflect your phone’s battery level!

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Using a clever technique hidden within Apple Shortcuts, Ben Vessey’s dynamic wallpapers for the Apple iPhone have the quirky ability to reflect your phone’s battery level. For now, the wallpapers have three stages – Full Battery, Low Battery, and Charging.

You may remember Vessey’s work from a while ago when he debuted the retro iOS icon collection that turned your state-of-the-art smartphone into the ultimate Apple throwback machine. Having worked with Shortcuts before, Vessey’s latest experiment turns your wallpaper into a massive battery indicator. With beautifully designed artworks, these wallpapers alter as the battery level changes, telling you when it’s time to juice up.

The Dynamo packs (which are available on Vessey’s website for £3.99) come in two styles with 3 wallpapers each – one containing Apple-inspired artwork, and another with quirky cartoon faces. You can easily install them using Apple Shortcuts (no jailbreak required) on iPhones 6S and beyond. Once installed, the dynamic wallpapers aren’t just about being a quirky little easter-egg… they even help you know when to plug your charger in and when not to. The low-battery wallpaper kicks in when your battery’s at 20%, reminding you that it’s a good time to charge. Now if only there was a dynamic wallpaper that helped me know whether I’m connected to a WiFi network or whether my phone’s running on carrier data!

Designer: Ben Vessey

Click Here to Buy Now – £3.99 ($5.54)

Click Here to Buy Now – £3.99 ($5.54)

EVgo will support Tesla cars at over 600 fast charging stations

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EVgo is still determined to be the glue that connects electric car drivers regardless of their preferences. The public EV power network is expanding access to Tesla connectors at its fast charging stations across the US. Over 400 of those are destine...

Kensington’s iPad dock turns your tablet into an iMac (and wirelessly charges your iPhone too!)

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The iPad was practically designed to be the spiritual successor to the computer and Kensington’s StudioDock, unveiled at the virtual CES 2021, fulfills that prophecy.

Designed to easily snap your iPad Pro onto it (thanks to the magnets built into the tablet), the StudioDock gives you a miniature desktop experience, complete with a whole variety of ports as well as charging stations for your iPhone and AirPods. The slick-looking StudioDock comes with a machined aluminum body, allowing your tablet to righteously look like an iMac. Aside from the StudioDock’s USB-C power input, extra ports on the back let you connect an ethernet cable, accessories like mice and keyboards, as well as an external monitor to your iPad, while a neat 3.5mm port on the side lets you hook up headphones (that’s unless you choose to use AirPods), and an SD Card Reader to pull photo and video dumps from your DSLR or drone. In addition to rapid charging your iPad (USB-C at 37.5W – that’s 108% faster than Apple’s own charger), the StudioDock even sports Qi wireless charging surfaces on its base for your iPhone and AirPods and a dedicated dock on the side for your Apple Watch. It also keeps the iPad’s upper edge exposed, so you can snap your Pencil on too.

The StudioDock is designed to let you independently use your iPad as a desktop, or even as a secondary monitor for your current desktop. The even dock comes with a swiveling base so you can shift your iPad from landscape to portrait whenever you like, something Apple’s own levitating stand cannot do. Moreover, it really gives you the freedom to use your iPad however you see fit – as a monitor, a charging station, a makeshift desktop with ports, or even as a tablet PC that you can use independently. The dock is compatible with all iPad Pro models and even the 2020 iPad Air and comes with a 3-year warranty.

Designer: Kensington

VW shows its mobile EV charging robot in action

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It’s now clearer how VW’s prototype EV charging robot will work in practice. VW has offered its first real-world glimpse of the mobile charger bot in action. It’s not just helpful for charging EVs away from dedicated spaces, it’s cute — the prototype...

Electrify America rolls out a ‘plug and pay’ charging system

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Electrify America is looking to simplify the payment process at its charging stations. The company has rolled out a system called Plug & Charge, which can automatically take care of payment when you connect a compatible electric vehicle. Electrif...

Oppo’s 65W AirVOOC takes just 30 minutes to wirelessly charge a phone

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It’s only been three months since Oppo started offering its 40W “AirVOOC” wireless charging tech on its Reno Ace 2, but today, the company is already teasing a faster, more powerful 65W upgrade. With the same 4,000mAh dual-cell battery, Oppo claims t...