Magnets are known to be harmful to electronic devices since they can ruin and erase data on the device’s like hard disk. The rise of magnetic phone chargers in recent years begs for an answer to the question, “Do magnets affect wireless charging on phones?”
In a deeper retrospective, magnets are everywhere in some of our most commonly used electronics, such as speakers, earphones, and washing machines. This article provides an in-depth explanation of the role magnets plays in wireless charging.
The Effect of Magnets in Wireless Charging
Wireless charging would not be possible without magnets. Magnetic fields must be created for power to transfer in magnetic chargers. Innovators first laid a foundation for wireless charging by understanding how electricity and magnetism relate to each other. Phones are attracted to the charger through magnetism.
You should not worry about magnets causing damage to your electronics since the magnets inside electronics are usually at a household level, which is very much safe to use. The only thing to ensure is that the magnets are properly installed.
In wireless charging, magnetic fields are used to transfer electricity without using any wires. Hence, the presence of a magnet can interfere with the process of wireless charging. This makes it difficult for a wireless charger and a magnet to pair together.
This is also the reason why magnetic cases, magnetic mounts, and other objects are placed between your phone and the charger. Some companies place magnets that avoid interference between your phone and the charging coils. To avoid the intricate working of your phone, metals are placed specifically inside your phone case or on your smartphone.
When a metal plate is placed in the middle of your phone, wireless charging is likely to be interfered with. However, when it is placed at the bottom of your phone while utilizing small metal plates in between, magnetic mounting will be utilized.
In other words, metal plates are likely to interfere with wireless charging. You need to reposition it so that it does not block the charger, or attach the metal plate to your phone case and remove the phone from the case to charge.
Magnetic chargers provide a constant stable charge by auto-aligning your device on the mount. Wireless chargers are known to use inductive charging where the charger and the phone are required to touch.
Read Also: Smartphones wireless charging technology
Once you place your phone to charge on a wireless charger, you will not be able to pick it up and use it in places where the phone may shift due to vibrations. This is where magnets come in, they provide stability to your phone regardless of the condition.
Magnetic Accessories
Whether or not a magnetic accessory affects your smartphone largely depends on the strength of the magnet. You will also have to determine the parts of a smartphone that are affected by magnets and the extent to which those magnetic fields can cause damage to those parts. We have seen that magnets have little effect on home electronic devices.
Magnets do not produce noticeable damage on smartphones. But they do affect smartphones. Some of these effects serve as important functions, such as enabling wireless charging. A lot of magnetic accessories are made up of magnetic materials such as nickel, iron, and cobalt together with their alloys.
When these magnets rub on your smartphone, they invoke magnetic fields around your phone. And when the magnetic fields keep changing, the fields created around your smartphone worsens. Your phone’s compass and GPS are likely to malfunction.
This will be an indicator that the magnet around your phone has affected some of your smartphone’s internal sensors, which work on the Hall Effect to provide cardinal directions. Some people conducted experiments to determine the effect of a magnet or magnetic material when they are brought closer to a smartphone.
They discovered that they cause a realignment of a magnetic domain inside the phone which in turn affects the compass reading. And as the strength of the magnet is increased, the effect worsens. This means that a strong magnet can magnetize parts of your smartphone that are made of magnetic materials.
These parts will tend to behave like weak magnets. With the internal components of the smartphone, the compass calibration will be most affected in this scenario. It is thus advisable to avoid using metal components and magnets in cases.
If the data in your phone memory was recorded magnetically, the presence of magnets can wipe your phone memory off. Magnets have the ability to corrupt technologies like floppy disks, cassettes, hard drives, credit cards, and VHS, (most are already outdated). For this to happen, a super-gigantic magnet with a stronger magnetic field will be required.
Magnets can affect internal magnetic sensors inside your smartphone and can even slightly magnetize the steel inside your phone. As seen above this can cause interference with your phone’s compass direction and some of your GPS apps like Google Maps.
How to Choose an Appropriate Wireless Charger
When selecting an appropriate magnetic wireless charger, go for those that securely hold your phone when charging. A lot of phones these days have a glass back which are appropriate materials for LTE signals, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Purchase a phone case that already has a metal or metal sticker in it.
Wireless charging can easily be interfered with when near metals, just as they have interfered while using magnets. Position the magnet and metal carefully to avoid blocking your phone’s wireless charging function. If possible, go for a wireless charger that comes with a matching phone case. Wireless chargers are flexible enough and are adjustable. This means, as it charges, you can access your phone at a comfortable angle.
Magnets are generally great additions to innovations. When used properly, they can produce cleaver designs and other useful magnetic gadgets that make life more easy and convenient. Magnets will not cause any damage to your device when used correctly.
While they will not destroy your smartphone, there is a possibility they will cause some disruption to your phone’s internal compass. Magnetic wireless chargers are becoming more and more prevalent in these recent times, and as a precaution, most phones are designed with their magnetometers towards the top of the phone. Hence, when you are attaching a magnetic accessory, keep it closer to the bottom.
