[Fuse]chicken Gravity Lift wireless charger – yup they are at it again!!
A few months ago Jon Fawcett, the CEO of Fuse Chicken sent me and Ben an email asking us if we wanted to review their new wireless chargers. Ben, who all the sudden broke out in the happy dance, said of course! And I, while much more restrained, gladly accepted the opportunity to test another fine product from the Chicken that isn’t used to keep the electrical currents from getting to excited in a circuit.
While it should only take a day to be able to review a wireless charger, Ben and I, like we always do, take our time and put it through some real life stuff. That’s why we never pop an article out 1 day after getting a review item. #JustSaying #YouHearMe #BenIsABetterWritterSoImJustAddingMoreStuffSoISoundBetter!
Go read Ben’s review of the [Fuse] Chicken Gravity Touch!
So I’ll break this review down into several sections.
- Overview
- Technical information
- Review
- Conclusion
So you know what to do. Get you a drink, of some sort, sit back and relax, because you know how I roll on reviews!
Overview
If you have ever looked at wireless chargers in the past then you know that they are pretty simple. You either lie your phone flat on them. Or you lay your phone on them like a book on a self at an angle. Simple. And yet it’s not that simple. For there is a lot of stuff that goes into a wireless charger. I will of course give you a good run down of that in the technical section.
But first, leet’s talk about the Lift in a general sense. So here’s the nickel tour!
- It’s made out of cast aluminum
- There is some leather
- Dimensions: 3.8″ Depth x 2.75″ Width x 5.3″ Height
- Weight: Makes no difference since you aren’t going to be holding it 🙂
- Qi-compatible inductive charging
- Up to 10W fast charge with 2 coils
- It has a small blue led to let you know the phone is charging
There you go. The nickel tour. It’s not fancy, but then again, it doesn’t need to be. It’s a solid piece of equipment that looks good. ‘Nough said. Picture Time!
Overall I like the design and I also like the feel of it. It’s solid and doesn’t feel like a cheap plastic thing you just want to put in the recycle bin.
Technical Stuff
Okay so let’s get right down to it. How does this thing work? Well let’s get down to the nitty gritty.
History lesson
Before I start let’s say what two types of induction we are talking about.
- Inductive Charging
- Resonant Inductive Coupling
Both of these do the exact same thing. Charge something by using a magnetic field. But that is where the similarities end. So in order to understand how your simple Fuse Chicken Gravity Wireless Charger works, you must understand these two principles.
Inductive Charging
This all started in 1831 when Michael Faraday made the discovery public. Some might want to give this credit to Nikola Tesla, but they would be wrong. And I’ll explain that later. But back to Mr. Faraday.
So you have Faraday’s Law:
The induced electromotive force in any closed circuit is equal to the negative of the time rate of change of the magnetic flux enclosed by the circuit.
So in simpler terms and one that is really relevant to this particular review, is that he is describing how electricity can be transferred from one coil to another coil by electromagnetic induction. He put a coiled wire around one side of a iron ring. And a second coil around the other side of an iron ring. He attached one coil to a battery and the other to a device to measure the amount of current that passed through it (a galvanometer).
He noticed that when he completed the circuit with the battery, that the secondary coil had an electrical current induced into to it. He hypothesized that this induction was due to to a change in the magnet flux when the battery was connected and disconnected.
This was later proven by Joseph Henry in 1832. BAM! Wireless charging before there was TV!
Resonant Inductive Coupling
Now, how is the different than what Nikola Tesla came up with Resonant inductive coupling? In inductive charging, the oscillator (the coil that has the power attached to it) generates a magnetic field and the rectifier (the coil that has the load attached to it. Or the receiver coil), extracts as much energy from that field as possible. In order for this to be as efficient as possible, the two parts must be as close as possible to each other.
But, in resonant inductive coupling, there is a series of loosely coiled wires that resonate at a specific frequency. This is place closer to the rectifier. It’s this resonance that allows for greater efficiency at greater distances.
In 1894 Nikola used resonant inductive coupling to light up a few lights in New York City. And in 1897 he patented the famous Tesla Coil. So a good 60 years after Michael Faraday’s initial discovery Nikola Tesla gives us a better way to transfer energy over greater distances.
Boo Ya! Wireless charging busses!
Review
So let me start out by saying, having a wireless charger is a nice luxury, but not something that is mandatory. It is nice to be able to just plop your phone on it and not worry about it running out of juice. So what makes the [Fuse] chicken Gravity any different from the other wireless chargers. Well I’ll be more than happy to tell you.
- It has freaking leather on it! Seriously, it’s leather….
- It just looks freaking cool! Being cast aluminum, it has a completely different look that all the other plain plasticky looking devices.
- It works without any issues. I used several phones to test and never had an issue. I know that seems stupid to talk about something working that should work, but you’d be surprised at how many times, simplicity fails.
- Having up to 10 watts charging with 2 coils, means that this thing will keep charging the future phones. So it’s almost future proof!
I will say, there isn’t too much you can write about a slab of metal that charges another slab of metal and plastic. But I don’t think there’s been a device that I have sat on my desk and it adds something to the over all aesthetics of the desk. I am a simplistic guy. I don’t like a lot of things on my desk. I like to keep it clean and organized. And the [Fuse] chicken Gravity Lift fits right in.
Make sure you go read Ben’s review… Seriously get over there and read it!
Conclusion
I like the fact that this thing is different. I like the fact that it just works. I like the fact that it is good looking. There really isn’t a bad thing to say about this device. It works! It does it’s job very well. And above all else, it’s made very well. The quality is nice!
So would I recommend this? Absolutely. If you just want a plain ol’ wireless charger, then go get you a plain ol’ wireless charger. But, if you want something that looks good, functions like it’s supposed to and is just a quality made item, then go spend a little more and get you the [Fuse] chicken Gravity Lift. It’s well worth the money!