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Aloysius Low/CNET
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Luxa2, the lesser-known division of Thermaltake, is likely to have slipped under the radar. That’s not to say there aren’t any noteworthy products being released by the company, as was made abundantly clear while walking past the Thermaltake booth at Computex 2014, adorned as it was with high-end PC towers and cooling equipment.
What piqued my interest though, was a new range of wireless portable charging banks that run on the Qi standard. The 10,000mAh TX-P2 looks like a metallic brick, and a pretty hefty one at that, supporting both wireless and wired charging.
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However, apart from the Nokia Lumia devices, there aren’t really a lot of phones that come with wireless charging as default. But that isn’t stopping Luxa2. A spokesperson from the company showed me some of Luxa2’s wireless charging receivers, costing just $10 (£6, AU$10.8), that you can attach to four of the high-end Samsung phones. These are already available in online stores such as Newegg.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 , S4 , Note 2 and Note 3 are supported, but you’ll have to make sure to purchase the correct version for it to work on your phone. There’s no soldering involved, you just stick the kit over your battery at a specific point and your phone can now be charged wirelessly.
The reason this works is because wireless charging capabilities were already built into the phones, but Samsung did not ship the devices with wireless charging covers (these are sold separately).
One thing to note when using these stickers on your Samsung phone, and as pointed out by my colleague Nic Healy who has tried something similar before, is that it blocks your NFC. According to Luxa2, of the four supported phones, only the Note 2’s NFC isn’t blocked.
