Ikea's $40 wireless charger mounts underneath your desk or table

[Shawn Knight]

In brief: The Sjömärke is a wireless charger designed to be mounted underneath your desk or table, rather than sitting conspicuously right on the surface. The charger itself measures 7” (L) x 3” (W) x 1” (H) and comes with a six-foot-long cable. Ikea also includes double-sided adhesive tape for mounting the wireless Qi charger, although you can optionally attach the charger using screws (not included).

You even get a set of stickers that help you know exactly where to place your phone on the top of the table, but IMO, that’d only reduce the aesthetics of the stealth installation.

The Swedish furniture and home accessories maker says the charger works optimally through all materials that are 3/8” to 7/8” thick, with the exception of metals. Notably, you’ll want to have some sort of material between your phone and the charger, as Ikea advises not to place handsets directly in contact with the charger.

The charger features temperature and power monitoring for improved safety, and there’s also an LED status indicator, although that seems a bit useless if this is to be mounted under a desk.

Consumer wireless charging has been around for years, but it still hasn't quite delivered on the promise of true untethered charging. While today's solutions do free us from having to physically plug in a charging cable, devices still need to be within close proximity of a charging pad. The hope is that one day, we'll be able to wirelessly charge our mobile devices from anywhere inside our homes and beyond.

Ikea’s Sjömärke wireless charger goes on sale in stores and online next month priced at $39.99.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/91332-ikea-40-wireless-charger-mounts-underneath-desk-or.html

 

[madboyv1]

*checks desk* 30mm, rip me unless I want to break out the router and cut a notch on the underside. I've seen these before but either they were significantly more expensive and/or required specialized installation, or were about the same or cheaper but poorly received, often due to abysmal charging times. This one from Ikea, looks easy enough, but nowhere on the site does it mention expected power levels.

 

[bviktor]

That's one way to waste energy I guess.

 

[rrwards]

*checks desk* 30mm, rip me unless I want to break out the router and cut a notch on the underside. I've seen these before but either they were significantly more expensive and/or required specialized installation, or were about the same or cheaper but poorly received, often due to abysmal charging times. This one from Ikea, looks easy enough, but nowhere on the site does it mention expected power levels.

The Verge reported 5W charging only. So pretty much your bog-standard slow wireless charging.

That's one way to waste energy I guess.

If 5-10W an hour is a huge waste to you, I've got bad news about the rest of the tech in your house.

 

[madboyv1]

The Verge reported 5W charging only. So pretty much your bog-standard slow wireless charging.

That's painful, but I mean they're advertising that this'll work at about 6-8 times the distance/obstruction my 10W charging stand can manage (about 3-4mm) so I suppose I should temper my expectations.