Shower Thought: Why Aren't There More Dock Charging Wireless Headsets?

[KingPizza]

This thread has been edited to reflect corrected terminology.

 

Why aren't there more high-end and PC/gaming oriented wireless headsets that have charging docks? The few I could find online are designed more with casual/TV listening in mind. It seems like such an easy money-making idea. I love the freedom of my wireless headset, but I have to keep an unwieldy USB cable attached to my PC because I will inevitably forget to charge it after a day or 2 of gaming. If there was a dock I could just set it in and forget it, that would be great.

 

If anyone knows of any headsets like this that are actually good, let me know. If you don't, I would love to hear your take on the lack of availability.

[minibois]

Are you asking about a charging stand, that you place your headset onto to charge or are you asking about a wireless charging system like phones use? (where you set it down flat to charge).

 

For the former, I don't think there is just a lot of demand for wireless charging using stands, as people usually just seem to prefer being able to plug a cable into the device. I'm not sure why some higher end devices don't utilize both though.

 

As for the wireless charging, using a charging pad I suspect there are two reasons:

1. Balance. A phone or earphone charging case have a big flat surface, great to put the copper coil in that is used to 'receive' the power from a charging pad. Your headphones really only have two flat surfaces, the two earcups and you'd need to design your headphones to lay flat on those and not fall over. You could use a magnet inside of them to hold the wireless charger, but I think that is where you run into issue two as well.

2. Interference. I'm no expert on this, but headphones have a coil inside that is part of the speaker design. Introducing another coil for wireless charging in the earcup and perhaps even a magnet would probably interfere with the operation of the headphones (probably specifically interfering with the coil in the speaker).

 

Keep in mind I definitely don't know for sure if this is the issue, but I suspect it at least aids in making it more difficult to design a wirelessly charging headset.

[Kon-Tiki]

My assumption is that getting the coil placement right would be difficult, unless you move the charging coil into the head straps. High-end over-ear headsets have large driving coils for the speakers in the ear cups which would most likely interact with the dynamic electromagnetic field required to make wireless charging work in ways you don't want them.

 

With that said I'm not an audio or electrical engineer and I wouldn't be surprised if through some clever engineering and optimization of coil placements one could perhaps achieve charging through the ear pieces.

[KingPizza]

1 hour ago, minibois said:

Are you asking about a charging stand, that you place your headset onto to charge or are you asking about a wireless charging system like phones use? (where you set it down flat to charge).

 

For the former, I don't think there is just a lot of demand for wireless charging using stands, as people usually just seem to prefer being able to plug a cable into the device. I'm not sure why some higher end devices don't utilize both though.

 

As for the wireless charging, using a charging pad I suspect there are two reasons:

1. Balance. A phone or earphone charging case have a big flat surface, great to put the copper coil in that is used to 'receive' the power from a charging pad. Your headphones really only have two flat surfaces, the two earcups and you'd need to design your headphones to lay flat on those and not fall over. You could use a magnet inside of them to hold the wireless charger, but I think that is where you run into issue two as well.

2. Interference. I'm no expert on this, but headphones have a coil inside that is part of the speaker design. Introducing another coil for wireless charging in the earcup and perhaps even a magnet would probably interfere with the operation of the headphones (probably specifically interfering with the coil in the speaker).

 

Keep in mind I definitely don't know for sure if this is the issue, but I suspect it at least aids in making it more difficult to design a wirelessly charging headset.

I was referring to the former, but confusing it with the latter. I meant to say headphones that have a charging dock, so charging contact points that press in to the headset when cradled, like with a smart remote that has a dock. So not a wireless charger at all. I edited the OP to reflect this.

[KingPizza]

10 hours ago, Kon-Tiki said:

My assumption is that getting the coil placement right would be difficult, unless you move the charging coil into the head straps. High-end over-ear headsets have large driving coils for the speakers in the ear cups which would most likely interact with the dynamic electromagnetic field required to make wireless charging work in ways you don't want them.

 

With that said I'm not an audio or electrical engineer and I wouldn't be surprised if through some clever engineering and optimization of coil placements one could perhaps achieve charging through the ear pieces.

Putting the coils in the headband for wireless charging on a stand would probably be the ideal solution, but yeah, it would most likely take some serious R&D to come out with an elegant product.

[Spuriae]

The Astro A50 and RIG 800 Pro are wireless gaming headsets with docks. Both are quite good-sounding, at least by gaming headset standards, but having to slot into a dock limits their range of adjustability somewhat.

 

Edit: And the HyperX Cloud Flight has Qi wireless charging in one of the cups.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Nimrodor

[KingPizza]

2 hours ago, Nimrodor said:

The Astro A50 and RIG 800 Pro are wireless gaming headsets with docks. Both are quite good-sounding, at least by gaming headset standards, but having to slot into a dock limits their range of adjustability somewhat.

 

Edit: And the HyperX Cloud Flight has Qi wireless charging in one of the cups.

I was not aware of these. The RIG 800 Pro looks like a great choice which I might consider.