Starbucks is going to offer wireless charging in London

Following on from McDonalds’ recent announcement that it will be offering wireless charging, Starbucks has announced that will be offering the same service in its UK branches– starting in London.

10 London branches of Starbucks will be fitted with Powermat’s PMA wireless charging points, following on from a similar partnership that saw wireless charging brought to more than 2,000 Starbucks branches in the USA.

It all sounds great, but there is a problem. PMA wireless charging is a lot less popular than its competitor Qi, and this means that even if your phone does have wireless charging built in it might not be compatible with Starbucks’ plates.

To compensate for that Starbucks will be lending customers dongles that will make phones compatible, or you can purchase one for yourself for £10. You better hope people don’t take advantage and keep the loaned dongles for themselves, otherwise everyone else might end up having to pay for them.

Wireless charging will be available at the Princes Street, Kingsway, Wardour Street, Pentonville Road, Harewood Place, Berkeley Street, Great Portland Street, Moorgate, Fleet Street, and Euston Tower branches of Starbucks.

It’s currently unclear if a wider rollout is planned, with some news outlets reporting that it is, and others reporting that it isn’t. Whatever the plans for the future are, if you are near any of these stores and you need a bit of extra juice you know where to go.