Realme launches MagDart magnetic wireless charging devices

As The Verge reported last week, Realme is working on a magnetic wireless charging system for its Android phones, and today it’s revealed a full range of products that’ll use the new technology. Realme is calling the system MagDart, and it’s basically a high-powered take on Apple’s MagSafe system for the iPhone 12 range of phones.

The key product in the lineup is the 50W MagDart charger, which Realme says is the world’s fastest magnetic wireless charger. It has an inescapably bulky cuboid design that makes room for a cooling fan, but Realme is banking that users will make the tradeoff for faster charging speeds.

When plugged into the company’s 65W SuperDart wired charger, Realme claims that the MagDart charger will fill a 4,500mAh phone battery up to 100 percent in 54 minutes. That’s almost as fast as what you get from Realme’s 50W wired charger.

If you don’t want to have to plug a charging brick into a charging brick, Realme is also working on a somewhat sleeker and more convenient 15W MagDart charger, which basically looks like Apple’s MagSafe puck — though Realme points out it’s 26.4 percent thinner and claims faster charging speeds. It’ll fill a 4,500mAh battery in 90 minutes, according to Realme, which would indeed be much faster than Apple’s own 15W option.

Wireless charging convenience aside, a major advantage of a magnetic design like MagDart and MagSafe is the potential for slick portless accessories, and Realme has a bunch of those as well.

• The MagDart Case is a carbon fiber-style case for the new Realme GT flagship phone with a passthrough USB-C port and headphone jack as well as built-in MagDart connectivity.

• The MagDart Wallet is, you guessed it, a three-card sleeve similar to Apple’s MagSafe wallet. But this one has a kickstand.

• Perhaps best of all is the MagDart Beauty Light, a flip-up ring light for selfies that’s powered by reverse wireless charging. It has 60 mini LEDs and a dedicated control button that lets you adjust settings like brightness and color temperature.

Realme hasn’t said anything about a release date or pricing for any of these products, and the sole existing phone confirmed to work with any MagDart device is the Realme GT — and that’s only if you buy the dedicated case. Realme is demonstrating the ecosystem with a “concept phone” called the Realme Flash, which is pictured in the above images and does have MagDart directly built in, but there aren’t any plans to actually release it yet.

That’s a pretty big catch for what’s ostensibly a launch for a major new ecosystem of products. But if Realme does integrate MagDart into its future phones, it could be a solid differentiator. Wireless charging is consistently one of the key omissions from Chinese phones that otherwise have impressive spec sheets — Oppo only recently adopted the tech, and Vivo is yet to get on board. And since Oppo’s VOOC fast-charging system made its way to OnePlus and Realme phones due to the companies’ shared ownership and supply chain, it’s plausible that the same could happen with MagDart.