No Stupid Questions

Don't want to bother with a cable at night.

The battery packs that are wireless enabled were the thing for me.

I can recharge my phone in my pocket, while walking around the city, without a rats nest of wires popping out of my pants.

I travel on the go often, wireless charging is too inefficient for me. I'd rather charge with my PD battery pack.

Another point, I use my PD pack to charge everything from my phone, drone, camera, to my laptop, ear buds.

Most of those don't have a wireless charger so I just stick to wired PD charging.

Maybe a bit of an edge case but I use a wallet case and I still carry a credit card. Wireless chargers have cooked my credit card a few times.. and nfc Google pay doesn't always work.

I just like being able to walk by the nightstand and have the phone "lock" to the charging pad when I lay it down.

In my car it is a lot more convenient than a charging cradle for being able to use turn by turn while driving.

It's very useful in sealed devices (smart watches, ear phones). Much better than pogo pins on your skin; whatever metal they pick, someone is going to be allergic. Things like active pencils (Apple Pencil, but als the Windows open standard ones) also make a lot of sense to charge like that.

I also use a wireless charging stand for my phone. Most phone stands have an opening for a cable, but for some reason that opening is always at just the wrong space, or not right for the cable. K They're also useful when using your phone for navigation in your car. I find a cable sticking from the bottom of my phone quite a handful to manage, especially as the USB ports are all so close to my gear shifter.

For those still sporting lightning iPhones, it also provides a universal charging option.

Oh, and then there's the edge case of "I want to plug something into my phone and also charge it". Tiny flash drives, 3.5mm converters, you name it. Most phones only have one USB port, so using it for anything but charging usually means not being able to charge unless you go wireless.

Still, wired is the way to to moet of the times. Wireless is just a nice backup, and maybe a fun gimmick in certain furniture.

When my mom finally ditched her land line and ported the number to a smart phone, getting a wireless charger that propped the phone up was a nice way to set up a sort of designated place to keep the phone (where the landline phone had been) so that there's less chance she misplaces the phone or forgets to charge it.

On my S5, there's a little flap that you had to open and close to maintain the IP67 rating. Constantly opening and closing it was a recipe to breaking it off, where wireless didn't put that kind of wear in.

With my newer phone, it's easier to keep the cable with a battery pack to charge when out and about, and charge wirelessly at home, since I generally don't need it done with any great speed, and it saves having to buy/replace another cable, or forgetting to unpack and take it with me.

Qi charging is also pretty standard, which is also good if I have a few devices with different cable needs, but mutually support the same wireless charging standard, since I can put an iPhone and an android on the same pad, without having to swap cables back and forth.

I bought a wireless magnetic battery recently, and what quickly turned me off was that it charges at ~2/3rd efficiency (so effectively I have only 2/3rds of my powerbank capacity) and speed compared to its wired mode, even though it's fast wireless and a solid brand and build. Also heats up my phone battery way more, so I just snap it to my phone and use the short and unobtrusive usb-c cable to charge it instead.

Now, if I was changing phones every year or two and I didn't care about keeping its battery life - sure, I'd use the wireless charging without worries, although it will still be slightly slower than wired (but still fast charging anyway).