[Don] bought some off-brand Bluetooth earbuds online that actually sound pretty good. But while it’s true that they don’t require wires for listening to tunes, the little storage/charging box they sleep in definitely has a micro USB port around back. Ergo, they are not truly wireless. So [Don] took it upon himself to finish what the manufacturer started. Because it’s 2019, and words have meaning.
Finally, he had a use for that Qi charger he’s had lying around since the Galaxy S5 era. [Don] pried the earbud case open with a guitar pick and found a nicely laid-out charging circuit board without any black goop.
Once he located ground and Vcc pads, it was just a matter of performing a bit of surgery on the coil’s pins so he could solder wires there instead. Miraculously, the Qi coil fit perfectly inside the bottom of the case and the plastic is thin enough that it doesn’t interfere with the charging.
Want to try it for yourself? [Don]’s done an excellent job of documenting this hack, with clear pictures of every step. Soon you’ll be able to rid yourself of all those pesky USB cables.
Of course, [Don] still has to plug the charging base into the wall. If he ever wanted to add another level of wireless, he could always retrofit the base coil into his laptop.
I’m pretty sure there are some wires inside too… So still they aren’t “truly” wireless… Unless “truly” is some shady term…
But the overall efficiency of a simple set of earbuds has dropped another notch regarding energy consumption.
But now you are stuck with the next cable. And then the next. TRULY WIRELESS will only happen when there is no wire between the generator and the battery.
I seriously don’t get the appeal of the wireless charging. It’s a lot more expensive, inefficient, reduces battery life and it only works in a single place. But yeah… you don’t have to plug in a cable.
Yep. I’ll just be leaving the USB cable plugged in, personally. What’s the loss with the Qi? 40%?
I did something similar but not as wireless as that :-D
https://blog.rastersoft.com/?p=2139
https://blog.rastersoft.com/?p=1945
This is pretty neat. Good job.
“Truly Wireless”
As in sitting in a room listening to music broadcasting from a speaker? I think I should patent this idea.
“Over The Air Truly Wireless Sound!”
[Don] clearly hasn’t seen the likes of https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33054279793.html yet.
Wow. I’m sure those things are top notch in both build quality and and materials.
But seriously, thanks for checking this out.
If you look closer you see they aren’t even ‘inductive’ wireless, just BT and base-with-battery. You press them onto barrel jacks inside the base