We’ve got to hand it to TwelveSouth for bringing some tasteful class to wireless charging. No longer do you need to have ugly chargers laying around your home, instead you can replace them with a framed photo of your favorite people and places. The new PowerPic is a contemporary photo frame that doubles as a wireless phone charger. It fits any 5”x7” photo and will charge all of the Qi-enabled phones on the market including iPhone, Pixel, Galaxy, and most other new Android phones.
PowerPic looks like a regular photo frame. The only noticeable difference is the USB cable coming out the back of it, and that can be easily hidden. Like many frames, the PowerPic is tilted slightly back and has a wood frame that surrounds a recessed photo covered by a sheet of glass. This design creates a perfect home for your phone to lay in. Since some of the framed photo can be seen behind your phone, you can get creative and have your phone’s background complement the framed photo.
The Qi-certified fast charger delivers up to 10W of wireless power. It comes with a 1.5-meter USB-C to USB A cable, but no wall adapter. You can easily plug it into any normal USB port like a phone adapter or a computer, but note that the adapter will influence charging speed. At 10 watts, this is one of the faster chargers available for today’s phones. iPhones can currently only charge up to 7.5 watts. On the back of the frame is a status light that displays charging status and can alert you if the frame identifies a foreign object that it can’t charge.
PowerPic is the perfect bed-side device. It hasn’t just added warmth and appreciation for my cat to the bedroom, it’s replaced an ugly wireless charger. Speaking of cats, it’s now a little harder for my cat to knock over my phone during her ninja activities.
There’s only a couple of gripes I have with PowerPic. Firstly, I don’t use a case, so it’s a weird sound and feeling to plop my glass phone onto a glass frame. This wouldn’t be an issue if I used a case, and nicely enough charging works through cases up to 3mm thick. I tested this successfully, it worked fine with a case. My only other gripe is that my iPhone XS needs to lay in the center of the frame to charge. If it’s touching one of the sides it won’t charge. Outside of that, I couldn’t be happier with PowerPic.
The TwelveSouth PowerPic retails for $79.99, but can be found on Amazon for as low as $57 in black and $69.99 in white. At that price, it costs two or three times the price of a regular wireless charger but it’s easily worth it if you care about aesthetics and decor. It also makes a wonderful gift.