Wireless charging is one of those kinda-handy things that’s almost been about to go mainstream for five years now. But Duracell is tired of waiting for the wireless charging revolution. Duracell wants you to wirelessly charge by plugging in this dongle instead. Wait, what?
The Duracell Powermat Power Ring is a $50 inductive charging coil (including charge mat), thinly veiled in plastic, which you’re meant to plug into your non-wireless charging smartphone, enabling you to juice up without plugging in a wire. Instead, you have to plug in this big dumb dongle.
At first glance, you’d think this was either a) a not-funny April Fools’ joke, or b) another crummy Kickstarter, but no. This is an actual thing that a company worth $4.7 billion thinks you should buy.
To be clear: this is not a thing you should even slightly think about maybe buying. No ifs, no buts, no “oh but my Starbucks just added wireless charging mats.” Just no.