Ikea’s adding wireless charging to furniture

Tired of rummaging around on the floor all the time for your phone’s charging cable, or worse – realising that you left it at work? Ikea feels your pain. They’ve just announced a new range of furniture that’ll charge your mobile (or tablet, or other device) with no cables needed.

It includes bedside tables, lamps, and desks, all powered by Qi – the leading global wireless charging standard, which is compatible with over 80 smartphones. Bjorn Block, Ikea’s Range Manager for Lighting and Wireless Charging, says, ‘Our belief is that mobile phones are vital parts to people’s lives at home and their desire to stay connected, and Qi addresses an unmet need to keep devices powered.’

Which all sounds great, although the furniture itself could be a little more stylish – it all features a large ‘X’ where you need to place your device for charging, which doesn’t look the most attractive when it’s not firing up a phone. Perhaps their next gen of charging furniture will be a little more subtle about marking its charging area, but either way, it’s still a welcome advance.

According to the Wireless Power Consortium, which developed Qi, we can expect to see these products in Ikea stores in April in Europe and the U.S, and in the rest of the world soon after.