You might have heard that Starbucks back in 2014 partnered with PMA which saw the integration of Duracell’s Powermats at Starbucks outlets. This allowed Starbucks’ patrons to charge their mobile devices wirelessly if they have a charging accessory that supports the PMA standard, or they could always borrow an adapter from the outlet.Well it looks like McDonald’s over in the UK will be getting wireless charging of their own too as it has been announced that the fast food giant will be implementing Aircharge charging spots at their outlets. The agreement between McDonald’s and Aircharge will see about 600 wireless charging spots rolled out across the country.
However the Aircharge chargers are of the Qi standard, meaning that if you have a PMA device, you won’t be able to use their chargers. According to Qi, “The Aircharge charging spots were specially designed to be water resistant and easy to wipe clean – perfect for a public environment like a restaurant. And because they’re using Qi, many consumers already have devices that are ready to charge. There are already more than 70 Qi-enable smartphones on the market.”
If anything, this serves to highlight the fragmentation of the wireless charging industry at the moment. However PMA and A4WP are hoping to change that by merging into a single entity, but in the meantime customers will just have to deal with the different standards the best they can.
Filed in . Read more about Mcdonalds, Qi and Wireless Charging.