Allison interviews Petri Vuori about the Wireless Power Consortium’s (WPC’s) new Qi2 25W wireless charging standard, which raises Qi2’s power limit from 15 W to 25 W using precise magnetic alignment between phone and charger to maintain performance and control heat. He explains that moving to 25 W requires better efficiency and thermal management in charger circuitry rather than changing the gap between coils.
Petri notes that certification started in mid‑2025 and that member companies like Aukey, Belkin, Mophie, and Ugreen already have stands, multi‑device chargers, and battery packs labeled with the “Qi2 25W” logo so consumers can easily identify higher‑power products.
In the second interview, Paul Golden describes Ki, a WPC standard for cordless kitchen appliances that delivers up to 2.2 kW wirelessly from transmitters embedded in countertops or cooktops to compatible receivers in kettles, blenders, toasters, air fryers, and more, eliminating cords and batteries. Ki uses NFC to authenticate certified devices, negotiates required power, shuts off when the appliance is removed, and keeps surfaces cool, with certification now in place and first products expected by late 2026.
Learn more at https://www.chargewithqi.com/ and https://www.cookwithki.com/
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Transcript of Interview:
Allison: We had a lot of fun in the Wireless Power Consortium booth last year, so we’re back again. And this time we’re going to talk to Petri Vuori about Qi 2. How’s it going?
Petri: Hi, nice to meet you. Welcome over here. We’re doing really well. We are excited. We have something new to tell you about. This is called Qi 2 25 watts. A couple of years ago, we announced Qi 2, which provides a great user experience with magnets so the phone is always locked in the correct position. That gives you high performance, fast charging, and very low heating. Now with 25 watts, we are providing even more power.
Allison: So it was limited to 15 before, I believe, right?
Petri: It was limited to 15 before, and now it’s 25 watts.
Allison: Tell me if I’ve got this right. Apple provided the technology into the consortium, but immediately made theirs higher power than the one they gave to the consortium, and now it’s gotten higher power on both sides. Something like that?
Petri: I’m not sure I can confirm that, but now we are at 25 watts also with the standard.
Allison: That’s a good political answer. Don’t anger the beast. So, 25 watts, and is that in any products yet or are we on our way?
Petri: We are already certifying the products. The certification program was started around mid-2025, and we are certifying new products as we speak. You can see behind me 25-watt products from our member companies. Wireless Power Consortium is a consortium where we have a lot of different manufacturers as members, and they are utilizing the standard we have developed to make their products compatible with all the other products that are using the same standard.
Allison: I noticed one of my favorite companies here, Anker. Anker makes really interesting products with fans in them to bring the heating down.
Petri: Yep, that’s correct. That’s one good example. Then we have some products with very clean design, like the one from Belkin on the left.
Allison: Let’s go up there and give Belkin some love.
Petri: Yep, this one here. It’s just a very simple little stand. You can charge your phone here and your earbuds back here behind it. This is intended for mobile use, so when you’re traveling, you pick this up, snap it down, and it’s easy to move with. Then we have multiple other examples here. For example, this one from Mophie. That’s providing three different charging locations. This is Qi 2 25 watts. There’s something for the watch, and then there’s regular Qi for your earbud charging.
Allison: It’s still Qi, but it’s just regular Qi?
Petri: It’s regular Qi, yes.
Allison: So it’s not magnetic?
Petri: This one down here is non-magnetic. Here’s another example.
Allison: Ugreen. You love Ugreen too.
Petri: This is a portable battery pack providing 25 watts of charge.
Allison: Wow, that’s fantastic. That’s got a nice little built-in USB-C cable that’s also a cute little handle. It’s like a strap, but when you pull it out, it’s the cable. That is really slick. Are these products on the market?
Petri: Most of them are. Some of them are prototypes, but most of them are in the market.
Allison: One of the things I’ve liked so far about the Wireless Power Consortium is they’re not confusing us like the USB people who apparently dislike us. How do you identify that it’s Qi 2 25 watt?
Petri: You look for the logo. Here as an example on the Ugreen, you can see it’s Qi 2 25 watts.
Allison: Okay, that’s how you identify it. So you didn’t want to call it Qi 3?
Petri: We felt like this was a better way.
Allison: An incremental way, and it tells you right away what’s different.
Petri: Yes, exactly. Qi 2 means that you are getting the magnetic attach, which is very easy to understand and usable. When we increase the power level, we just add a little sign providing you the information about the power level it provides.
Allison: I would assume that if people go to the trouble of being certified for Qi 2 25 watt, they’re going to put it on the box. They’re going to tell us that, right?
Petri: Yes. It’s going to be on the box, and it’s also going to be on the charger so you can visualize it somewhere on the product. For example, on this Belkin, it’s on the back bottom of it.
Allison: They kind of hid it on the back. I see it there.
Petri: Yep. So when you go to the shop, you’re able to identify the product providing the 25 watts.
Allison: Very exciting. Can you say anything about how you were able to up the power from 15 to 25 watts? What enabled that?
Petri: The key enabler was the magnetic alignment because it means we know the charger and the phone are perfectly in the right position. Then we felt safe that we are able to increase the power level without generating any side effects. With this magnetic alignment, we are able in the future to develop even more powerful systems. So it’s giving us a great platform to evolve the standard further.
Allison: So how do you increase the power without increasing the heat? The phone and the charger still have that same gap where you’re losing energy, and that’s often where the heat is.
Petri: It’s not actually the gap where you are losing the energy. It’s more in the electrical circuitry that’s being used to do that. It’s the same with all electronic power supplies. If you have something plugged into the wall and you touch it, you feel it’s warm. This is the same phenomenon. Manufacturers need to figure out how to increase the efficiency so you get fewer losses that turn into heat, or they need to get rid of the heat.
Allison: Okay, very good. If people wanted to learn more about Qi 2 25 watt, what’s the website where they could go look for that?
Petri: They can go to wirelesspowerconsortium.com or, even better, chargewithqi.com.
Allison: That’s a nice one. And Qi is spelled Q-I. Charge with Q-I. All right, thank you very much for your time. We all love this. This is fantastic.
Petri: Thank you for your time.
Allison: We’re all in love with Qi and Qi 2 from the Wireless Power Consortium, but there’s also Ki, spelled K-I, which is really some serious wireless power. I’m here with Paul Golden and he’s going to tell us all about it. We talked about it last year, but there’s even more this year.
Paul: Okay, thanks. Ki is going to revolutionize your kitchens. Think of any appliance that you take to your kitchen and plug into a wall outlet. Ki eliminates the cords and eliminates the batteries. No batteries, no cords, and it delivers up to 2.2 kilowatts of power. The way it works is by electromagnetic induction, similar to the way you charge your phone. The difference is that when you’re charging your phone, you’re charging a battery which powers the phone. In this case, the energy is coming directly from a transmitter to a receiver. The transmitter could be built into a countertop induction device like this, built into a concealed transmitter underneath your counter, or into an induction cooktop.
Allison: Those parts are plugged into power.
Paul: Those are plugged into power, correct.
Allison: Okay, it’s not magic.
Paul: It is kind of magic here. When you put the appliance on it, it recognizes that this is a Ki device. See the little light go on and hear that little beep.
Allison: You just had a blender on top of this base.
Paul: I put this blender on top of it. It recognizes that it’s a device. The transmitter communicates with the receiver using NFC, and it tells it this is a certified Ki device. It authenticates it, so if somebody put a fake device out there and said it was certified, it wouldn’t send power to it.
Allison: Oh, that’s cool.
Paul: It’s very important because this is 2.2 kilowatts of power. You don’t want to mess around with that. Then it negotiates and understands how much power it needs to send to this device. So I have the device on here.
Allison: And he’s running a blender. Let’s listen to it.
Paul: Yeah, it works. I have some freedom of movement around here. I can lift it up off the device a little bit. I’ve got my hand right underneath there, and I’m not getting electric shocks.
Allison: Wait, let me do it. Let’s see. All right, I’ve got my hand between the blender and the base. Okay. Not warm, not warm at all.
Paul: But if I move it off, it shuts off automatically. Where I was heating this, there’s no heat at all.
Allison: Right. And where the power was going, there’s no heat. So a little kid putting their hand out onto the stove?
Paul: Perfectly safe. I could be boiling water here. It would be a little warm, mainly from the heat of the water, but it wouldn’t be hot at all.
Allison: So he’s got a tea kettle there. Same thing, you’d set it on top and it lights up?
Paul: Same way. I have a tea kettle, a toaster, a waffle maker here, another blender, and an air fryer here. Basically any device you use in your kitchen would work with this system.
Allison: So we saw a lot of this last year, but what’s happened in the year since we’ve talked to you?
Paul: The standard now has been released, and the certification testing for the standard is now in place, which started in the summertime. You’ll probably see initial products coming into market before the end of 2026, but appliances have about a three-year development cycle. You’ll start seeing more and more products each year, but it’ll be several years before you really start seeing widespread products in the market like this.
Allison: So when you buy, we’ve got a Philips tea kettle here, would you buy the base, what do you call this base unit that actually provides the power?
Paul: There’s a transmitter inside each of these.
Allison: Okay, the transmitter. So would you buy the transmitter from Philips or from another manufacturer and outfit your kitchen? How is that going to work?
Paul: That’s the beauty of a standard. When you have a standard, you have interoperability. You can buy any brands and mix and match them, and they’ll all work together.
Allison: Okay, that’s fantastic. This is exciting. If people wanted to learn more about Ki and the Wireless Power Consortium, where would they go?
Paul: The best place would be to go to our website and go to cookwithki.com, and you can learn all about it there.
Allison: And again, Ki is spelled K-I. Thank you very much for your time. We’re very excited about this.
Paul: Thank you.