Aldi Bauhn Wireless Charging Stand (eco tech) review

Yesterday I purchased from Aldi a couple of the Bauhn Wireless Charging Stand (eco tech) and was pretty happy with the purchase. They are 15W wireless charging stands for $24.99 which I felt was pretty good value. Recycled material gives a nice feeling too although I do wonder if not buying it at all is better for the environment.

Plugged the Aldi Bauhn wireless charging stand in and put my mobile on the stand and the phone's screen came on showing everything was working. Then everything started to go down hill very quickly.

Charging for the Samsung S21 was quite slow and for the iPhone 12 next to useless. Didn't even charge the iPhone over night.

Something wasn't quite as expected. First checking the packaging gives you no specifications at all. Does it even work with the devices I have? The first thought is the ports in my powerboard are only rated at 2.1A maximum and older iPhone chargers are often 1A. Perhaps it's the chargers that's the issue. I suspect this is what everyone will be faced with so my experience won't differ from most people except that when I see a problem I like to know why something doesn't work.

I started to check the amps and my 5 volt, 2.1A Apple charge when charging an 85% full Samsung S21 was delivering around 1.25A, so a little over 6W. Perhaps that's what is to be expected for a 2.1A charge, I'm not sure.

For the Apple iPhone I think it was about 0.3A which is next to useless and the iPhone is more likely to lose charge than to be charged. So far useless for the iPhone 12 but OK, albeit slower charging for the Samsung S21.

I then started to investigate wireless charging and fast charging and found there's two standards, PD (Power Delivery) and QC (Quick Charge) with various version numbers. I checked the internet and found Kmart has a 30W PD3.0 and QC3.0 charger so I've ordered one and will soon continue this post.

At this stage if you're considering getting an Aldi Bauhn Wireless Charging Stand and only have an iPhone with a 5V, 1A charger you'll be wasting your money. Stick with the power cable. With a Samsung S21 it will charge faster than the cable, but still it will be quite slow. Also I've found if you're trying to do something on your phone (e.g. uploading) the charging will stop with overheating whereas you can use the cable and whilst the charge in the mobile will continue to drop, my feeling is plugging in the cable will slow the drop down so you can continue to upload for longer.

Update: 30/06/2022
Received the 30W charger from Kmart and after testing the Apple iPhone 12 charged up using around 10-12W or power using the QC socket. Charging was at roughly 9V/1.2A. It was interesting to see the higher voltage being used. If I recall correctly I think I read on the Apple site that wireless charging requires a minimum 20W charger.

The lesson here is the lower powered charges we typically have aren't good enough for wireless charging and a higher wattage charger is required, particularly for the Apple iPhones.

Kelvin