It’s not often that a truly useful new technology is released that both increases performance and undercuts the cost of the tech it replaces. But that’s exactly what the new Qi2 magnetic wireless charging standard has done for iPhone owners — and soon, Android — now that the first products have arrived. 

For the past two weeks, I’ve been testing a new Qi2 charging mount for cars that matches the performance of Apple’s MagSafe-certified chargers and costs less. Hell, it’ll also work with Android devices once they start shipping with Qi2 support.

To be honest, I don’t know if it’s the $35.99 ESR charger that I’m so impressed by or the fact that Qi2 products have shipped that are immediately beneficial just one year after the standardization effort was first announced. USB-C didn’t do that, Wi-Fi 7 didn’t, and Matter… well, I’m not brave enough to even try.

But this inexpensive car mount holds my phone securely with a strong magnet, fast-charges it at 15W, and takes just seconds to set up in a car. It’s enough to make me forget about the potential of the Vision Pro because Qi2 is the future, now.

After upgrading to an iPhone 15 Pro a few months ago, I finally got interested in Apple’s MagSafe charging tech to replace my slow $55 robotic car mount that could only muster a 7.5W Qi charge. I just didn’t want to pay a premium for a MagSafe-certified car mount — which start at $80 on Apple dot com — knowing that inexpensive Qi2 solutions were coming.

And now that I’ve tested the ESR charger, I can confirm it does in fact do (almost) everything MagSafe does, only cheaper. When placed on the ESR charger, my iPhone 15 Pro in an Apple MagSafe case charges from zero to 100 percent in two hours and 45 minutes, same as it would if connected to an Apple MagSafe charger. 

The ESR wireless car charger comes with the magnetic charging base and two mounts that attach to the base in less than a minute. One mount is a clip that you squeeze and release to grab onto the slats inside your car’s air vent; the other is an oversize GoPro-like 3M adhesive mount for a semipermanent attachment to your car’s dashboard. I don’t own a car, so being able to temporarily clip the charger into whatever car-share I’m driving is crucial to my needs.

Here’s the thing, though: that clip on the vent mount is fat. I tested it on the vents inside a piece of shit VW Up, a stupidly fast BMW 335d E92, and an old Ford Westfalia camper van. It easily fit the first two but was far too thick to latch securely onto the Ford’s dense and shallow cluster of slats inside its vents.

Otherwise, the clip performed as expected. It’s bolstered by a small adjustable flange below the clip that rests on the vent or dashboard (depending on which vent slat you choose to clip the mount) to create a sturdy platform that keeps the phone still and directed at the driver. When the ESR logo is upright on the charging puck, the USB-C jack is at the bottom, with two blue lights on the driver and passenger sides to indicate power.