The Best Apple Wireless Charging Stations for Multiple Devices

I’ve been reviewing mobile accessories since 2012, and I’ve been covering them for Wirecutter since 2015. I’m also the author of Wirecutter’s guides to USB wall chargers and car chargers, for which I’ve seen and tested pretty much every available charging variation.

I researched and wrote Wirecutter’s first guide to Qi wireless chargers in 2017, and I have continued testing new models and updating that guide. I also wrote our guide to Qi power banks, battery packs that use the same wireless technology.

These charging bases are designed for people who own multiple Apple devices—namely, an iPhone, an Apple Watch, and AirPods—and want to charge all of them at once, presumably overnight. Like single-device Qi chargers, these three-in-one chargers work without your having to plug cords into any of your devices.

Qi (pronounced “chee”) is the wireless-charging standard from the Wireless Power Consortium, an industry group with more than 500 members, including device manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung, as well as accessory makers such as Foxconn (Belkin’s parent company) and Mophie. For a charger to be certified by the WPC, the manufacturer has to submit it to an authorized test lab. All iPhones since the iPhone 8—even the iPhone 12 and 13 series with MagSafe—use a version of Qi charging.

If you want the fastest possible charge for your iPhone, you need to use a cable—going wireless is about convenience, not speed. Affordable, wired 20 W USB-PD chargers paired with a USB-C–to–Lightning cable are about 30% faster than the fastest wireless chargers.

The other downside to wireless charging is that you can’t pick up your phone and use it while it’s charging, as you can with a charging cable. This limitation makes a wireless option better for recharging overnight or when you want to see the phone’s display on your desk or in the kitchen, rather than while you’re watching Netflix, say, or scrolling through Twitter.

Apple first stoked the desire for this kind of accessory when it announced its AirPower charging station in late 2017. The flat pad was supposed to be able to charge an iPhone, an Apple Watch, and AirPods all at once, no matter where you placed them on the pad. Ultimately, Apple pulled the plug on the project in early 2019.

In 2020, however, the company introduced its MagSafe charging and magnetic mounting system as part of the iPhone 12 lineup. Hidden magnets inside the phone allow you to connect supported accessories and charge at up to 15 watts, in contrast to 7.5 watts with other Qi chargers. The magnets also ensure proper alignment, so you don’t have to worry about your phone being out of place and not charging properly. You can find non-MagSafe-branded magnetic chargers, too, but they can’t take advantage of the faster charging speeds that MagSafe allows.

A good wireless charger should meet all of the following basic criteria, which we used as guidelines for our research:

• WPC and MFi certification: We considered only those chargers that have been certified by the WPC. This means that a charger has been tested and found to be both safe and in compliance with the Qi standard. If a wireless charger isn’t certified, that doesn’t necessarily indicate it’s unsafe or noncompliant—but choosing something that has been verified is prudent. The same can be said for MFi certification, which is Apple’s own program that supplies the hardware components for licensed accessories and applies specifically to the charging puck and MagSafe components.
• Charging speed: Most of the chargers we tested advertised 7.5 W charging for iPhones; MagSafe chargers support 15 W. We weren’t concerned about the 10 W charging that some Android phones support because people are unlikely to use an Android phone alongside an Apple Watch.
• Design: We considered not only how the charging pad looked but also how grippy the surface was for holding a phone in place, how easily we could align devices with the charging coils, and where the watch sat (some band styles may prevent AirPods from aligning properly, for example, depending on the design). We also noted any extras, such as charging or placement indicator lights.
• Noise: Some wireless chargers emit a faint (and sometimes not so faint) whine or clicking noise, which can quickly become annoying. We listened for this in our tests.
• Maker: We considered models only from companies that we knew had a good reputation for warranty coverage and customer support. Even if a charger is WPC certified, there are no guarantees it will never have a problem, and you should be able to get help if you need that.

We tested the performance of each wireless charging base by placing an iPhone 13 with a fully drained battery on the charging pad. We measured the phone’s battery level after 30 minutes of charging and then again after one hour. A good Qi charger should fully charge any phone in a few hours (and certainly will overnight), so we focused on differences in short-term charging. I first tested everything at my desk, but if I heard a sound that could be annoying, I also tested the charger in my bedroom at night, sleeping with it positioned a couple of feet from my head to see if the noise would interfere with my sleep.

The Mophie 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand is the best choice if you have an iPhone that uses regular Qi wireless charging (iPhone 8 through 11) and you want a single charging station that can power your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods at the same time. It charges such iPhones just as quickly as any other non-MagSafe multi-device charger we’ve tested, and it’s better designed to accommodate all three devices thanks to a stand-style phone charger and a cross-shaped divot that snugly accommodates both styles of the AirPods charging case. These thoughtful design touches make it easy for you to align the respective devices so that they charge properly. Similarly, the placement of the Apple Watch charger conveniently allows you to use the watch as an alarm clock.

We’ve found through testing single-device Qi chargers that we prefer angled, stand-style chargers that hold the phone upright, for two reasons: You can more easily align the phone properly so that it actually charges, and you can more comfortably look at the screen while the handset is charging. The Mophie 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand and the Logitech Powered 3-in-1 Dock rank among the first models to bring that raised-charger design to multi-device power stations. We found that the angle made an appreciable difference in everyday use, especially at night and in the dark. It’s not impossible (or even necessarily difficult, with practice) to line up a phone on a flat charger, but it’s certainly easier to place a phone on a stand that keeps the device in the right position. The stand makes things so foolproof, you can do it by feel without even looking.

To the right of the phone charger is the Apple Watch charging puck, and to the left, a cross-shaped indentation for your AirPods or AirPods Pro case, ensuring a precise hold no matter which version of the headphones you use. Other Qi charging stations require you to align the AirPods case properly on a flat surface or in a round divot that doesn’t perfectly cradle the AirPods case as Mophie’s does, and that task can be difficult, especially without a clear visual guide. Mophie’s design allows the case to just nestle in, making charging the AirPods so simple that it’s extremely unlikely you’ll ever head to work with dead headphones.

Apple certifies only those Apple Watch chargers that use Apple-approved charging pucks, which this Mophie model does. That means it’s as safe as any first-party Apple charger for charging any Apple Watch. It works with open or closed bands and holds the watch in landscape orientation. Both the 40 mm and 44 mm watch sizes sit low enough that, if you’re using your Apple Watch’s Nightstand Mode, you can press its Digital Crown to snooze an alarm without knocking the watch off the charger. It’s a thoughtful design decision that makes the charging station more useful.

None of the iPhone and Apple Watch combo charging stations we tested filled up the phone’s battery quite as quickly as the fastest single-device charging stands we’ve tried. Since this combined charger is slower, we think it’s best for a nightstand, where, assuming you’ll be charging overnight, the slower charging rate won’t be as big of a concern. The Mophie charger powered our iPhone 13 to about 23% full battery after half an hour and 50% after an hour. Our Apple Watch Series 7 (45mm), also starting at zero, got to 23% battery capacity after a half hour and 55% after an hour.

Battery charging results on the Mophie 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand

The Mophie charger has a notably basic design. It’s an 8-by-4-inch rounded rectangle with a body primarily made of glossy black plastic. Rubber feet on the bottom prevent it from sliding around. It lacks the heaviness that you might expect high-quality materials to have, but that doesn’t affect performance. Indicator lights on the front of the charger (underneath the phone-charging stand) show whether your phone and AirPods, respectively, are charging. The lights are not terribly bright, and they turn off after a few seconds.

The power cord that you plug into the back of the Mophie 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand uses a round, barrel-style connection instead of Micro-USB or USB-C, so it won’t be as easy to replace if something goes wrong or you lose it. Mophie offers a two-year warranty on its charger and says it generally replaces the entire product rather than individual pieces under the warranty.

If you have an iPhone 12 or later and want to take advantage of the easier alignment and faster charging that the MagSafe charging system allows, consider one of our other picks below.

After we experienced intermittent charging issues while using the 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand with an iPhone 12 Pro in a MagSafe case, we reached out to Mophie, who confirmed that this is a known issue with some iPhone 12-series phones. The company has implemented a firmware update that should resolve the issue for all iPhones, and those affected should contact customer service for a replacement. If you have an iPhone 12 or 13, we think you should get the Belkin charger anyway. But if you’ve already invested in the Mophie charger and are having issues, seek a replacement. In the meantime, we’ve found removing the case can help resolve the issue.

Unlike other models, this Mophie charger can work only with the specific combination of a phone, an Apple Watch, and AirPods; that is, you can’t use the AirPods charging spot for a second phone.

The charger’s glossy surface collects more fingerprints than a detective. If that’s the kind of thing that bothers you, this model may not be the right pick for you. Both the Logitech Powered 3-in-1 Dock and the Belkin Boost Charge 3-in-1 Wireless Charger, our former top pick, are better options in that case.

Belkin’s Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 Wireless Charger with MagSafe should be your first choice if you have an iPhone 12 or 13–series phone. It’s one of the first third-party chargers to incorporate Apple’s MagSafe feature, and it’s the best implementation of the feature we’ve seen so far. Not only is attaching your phone impossible to mess up, but the dock also supports the fastest iPhone wireless charging speeds, and it’s the best-looking option. The Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 costs about the same as our top pick from Mophie, and it comes with a wall adapter, unlike Apple’s MagSafe Duo Charger. Belkin’s two-year warranty covers both the charger and connected devices.

MagSafe offers two major benefits: perfect alignment and fast, 15 W charging speeds. Although you can find plenty of magnetic chargers for sale that work like MagSafe, the Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 is officially licensed by Apple, meaning it can take full advantage of these features. In contrast, non-licensed models may hold your phone properly but won’t charge at full speed.

Most comparable charging stations require you to lay your phone on a flat pad or an angled stand that conceals a Qi charging coil. The Belkin dock holds your phone in the air, attached to a magnetic charging puck, with its center about 4½ inches above the 5¼-inch round, soft-touch rubber-covered base. A circular indentation in the center of the base lets you charge your AirPods (or another phone, albeit at a slow, 5 W charging rate). A forward-angled metal stalk behind it branches off and terminates to the left with the phone charger and to the right with the Apple Watch puck.

As long as you’re using aa MagSafe-compatible phone—either without a case or with a MagSafe-compatible case—you can’t misalign your phone. You can turn it in any orientation without disrupting its charging. The sturdy base ensures that you can tap your phone without the charging station sliding around, and its rubbery underside provides enough grip that you can easily pull the device off with one hand without the dock moving. The Apple Watch charger works much the same way and supports any kind of watch band.

At this point, only Apple-licensed magnetic chargers can support 15 W speeds; models like the Mophie 3-in-1 are limited to 7.5 W. But although the Belkin charges at a faster clip than the Mophie, it’s not twice as fast in practice, as you might expect from reading those numbers. Across three tests on the Belkin, our iPhone 13 charged from 0% to an average of 37% in half an hour and 68% in an hour, versus its results of 23% and 47%, respectively, on the Mophie. Those numbers match what we’ve seen from Apple’s own MagSafe accessories, and they’re as fast as you’re going to get in charging your devices wirelessly.

Not only does the Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 work well, but it looks great, too. It’s available in either black or white, and both versions have a matte finish that doesn’t show fingerprints like the Mophie model’s glossy surface does. It looks more like a modern sculpture than a tech gadget. If there’s a downside to the design, it’s the rather bright white light on the base that indicates when that particular charger is in use. Light-sensitive sleepers might not love that light in their bedroom.

Belkin offers a two-year connected equipment warranty, covering not only the charger itself but also up to $2,500 in costs “for the repair or replacement of connected equipment damaged from surges or spikes that occur when they are properly connected to a Belkin product.” Having a two-year warranty on the dock itself is already pretty good, but that extra protection offers real peace of mind.

Our other picks are better options if you plan to charge your gear at your bedside, but if you travel a lot (or hope to in the future), consider Apple’s MagSafe Duo Charger. This iPhone and Apple Watch charger is far smaller than any other charging station when in use, and it folds in half to take up even less space in your bag or a pocket. Because it uses Apple’s MagSafe charging system, the iPhone 12 and 13-series phone will charge faster on this model than with any non-MagSafe wireless charger, and they’ll magnetically snap into place so you don’t have to fuss with alignment. Even for a multi-device wireless charger, it’s a relatively expensive option, considering it doesn’t come with an AC adapter; since it has only two charging spots, it can charge either your phone or your AirPods, not both at the same time. But it’s the only wireless charging station that’s practical to take on the go.

The first thing that sets the MagSafe Duo Charger apart from every other wireless charging station is its compact size. Coated in soft-touch rubber, the charger consists of two 2.8-inch rounded squares with a thin hinge connecting them; you can fold it up when you aren’t using it, and the magnets hold it shut. The left square is the MagSafe phone charger, which can also charge AirPods or any other Qi-compatible device, and the right side is the Apple Watch charging puck, which you can use flat or folded up for Nightstand Mode. Opened up, the charger is roughly the width of an iPhone 12 or 13 and just a little taller. Folded, it’s about 0.6 inch thick, roughly the size of a makeup compact.

The other important feature is MagSafe, which magnetically locks compatible phones in place and also allows for faster iPhone charging than on traditional Qi chargers like our Mophie pick. It supports 15-watt charging speeds on the iPhone 12/13, 12 Pro/13 Pro, and 12 Pro Max/13 Pro Max, and 12-watt charging on the iPhone 12 mini/13 mini. In our tests, the MagSafe Duo Charger was just as fast as the Belkin Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 and notably faster than the Mophie 3-in-1, our next-fastest pick: A fully drained iPhone 13 reached 34% battery capacity in 30 minutes and 69% in an hour, even when an Apple Watch was charging at the same time. (Apple also sells a stand-alone MagSafe phone charger, but it’s no faster than the MagSafe Duo Charger.) You can charge older iPhones and other Qi-compatible devices on this model, as well, but you don’t get the same speeds or the magnetic attachment.

The MagSafe Duo Charger typically costs $130, and that price doesn’t include the 20-watt adapter you need to get the fastest charging speeds; buying that accessory brings the total price to $150, about the same as for our other picks. That’s a lot to ask for a charger that offers one fewer charging pad. But we’d never even consider traveling with one of those other chargers, whereas the MagSafe Duo Charger could be convenient if and when we ever travel again.

If you are a frequent traveler, you might like the Anker PowerWave Go 3-in-1 Stand. Its modular design makes it more useful than any other charging station we’ve seen because you can add or remove just the parts you need. The phone charging stand is actually a 10,000mAh (37Wh) wireless power bank that you can take with you for portable power, and its 20 W USB-C port can charge most phones at their fastest speeds. The Apple Watch charger is removable as well, with a USB-C connector that means it can get power from the power bank, the USB-C port on your computer, or any other USB-C charger. And the wall adapter is Anker’s Nano II 45W, which (with the included USB-C-to-USB-C cable) can be used to charge many other devices as quickly as possible, including laptops and tablets. But while these individual pieces are all exciting, they contribute to a particularly high asking price of around $180 (at the time of this writing). Despite the steep cost, the PowerWave Go 3-in-1 Stand is also slower at wireless charging than our picks, charging an iPhone 12 to 17% in 30 minutes and 33% in 60 minutes, compared to 22% and 42% from our top pick from Mophie. For most people, we think it makes sense to stick with our simpler, cheaper, and quicker picks for standard bedside or desk charging.

If you want to be able to charge two phones at once, the Logitech Powered 3-in-1 Dock is a good alternative to the Mophie 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand. Like our top pick, it has a stand-style charger for your phone and an Apple Watch charging puck. The third charging spot is flat, allowing you to power either AirPods or another phone. But the Logitech’s main charger was a little slower than that of the Mophie in our testing, it’s harder to line up an AirPods case without a dedicated divot, and this larger charging station doesn’t look as nice as our top pick.

We’re planning a new round of testing for the spring of 2023, which will pit our current picks against the following models:

• Anker 3-in-1 Cube with MagSafe
• Anker 533 Wireless Charger (3-in-1 Stand)
• Anker 544 Wireless Charger (4-in-1 Stand)
• Belkin MagSafe 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand 2nd Gen (WIZ017)
• Einova Power Bar
• ESR HaloLock 3-in-1 Wireless Charger with CryoBoost
• HyperJuice 4-in-1 Wireless Charger
• Mophie 3-in-1 Stand for MagSafe Charger
• Mophie 3-in-1 Travel Charger with MagSafe
• OtterBox 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Station for MagSafe (78-80533)
• Satechi 3-in-1 Magnetic Wireless Charging Stand
• Satechi Duo Wireless Charger Power Stand

We’re also excited about a new wireless charging standard called Qi2 that the World Power Consortium (WPC) introduced in January 2023. Apple allowed its proprietary MagSafe technology to be used as the basis for Qi2’s key feature, called the Magnetic Power Profile. Like MagSafe, the WPC says this feature uses magnets to “ensure that phones or other rechargeable battery-powered mobile products are perfectly aligned with charging devices, thus providing improved energy efficiency and faster charging.” We look forward to testing some Qi2-compliant devices from a variety of companies as they start to roll out later this year.

Nomad’s Base Station Hub with Magnetic Alignment packs in three 10W charging coils, an 18W USB-C port, and a 7.5W USB-A port; either of those ports can be paired with an optional Apple Watch Mount and your own Apple Watch charging cable if you’d like to charge your Watch. The biggest difference between this version and past Base Stations is the promise of magnetic alignment, which should work with MagSafe-equipped iPhones. Unfortunately, the magnet is quite weak in our experience. You have to move your phone around to search for it on the blank surface, unlike with true MagSafe accessories that make alignment foolproof. The charging pad is not sized properly for the iPhone 13 Pro; the phone’s raised camera bump prevents it from laying flat enough to make the necessary magnetic connection. While the iPhone 13 mini’s dimensions allow the magnets to make a connection, it’s still weaker than if the phone were able to lie totally flat.

Belkin’s Boost Charge Pro 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Pad with MagSafe is a flat, three-device charging station, and one of the first non-Apple products to support fast charging with the Apple Watch Series 7 (the other is a standalone Watch charger also from Belkin). We don’t care for the flat design; it takes up more room on your nightstand and leaves your phone flat, rather than propped up at an angle, and our tests showed this model charged an iPhone 13 more slowly than our picks from Belkin and Apple.

The Scosche Base3 3-In-1 Wireless Charging Dock has a traditional Qi stand rather than a MagSafe charger, and is less expensive than our picks. But it charges quite slowly—our drained iPhone 13 got to 15% in half an hour and 30% in an hour—and the all-plastic design isn’t as nice. It’s worth considering if you’re on a tighter budget.

Belkin’s Boost Charge 3-in-1 Wireless Charger is our former top pick, and it’s still a good choice. But the biggest downside is its AirPods charging spot: Instead of a divot that matches the size and shape of the charging case, the spot is a round indentation, which makes alignment the slightest bit more difficult. The spot is also located right behind the Apple Watch charger, so if you’re using a closed-band loop—such as the Solo Loop Apple introduced in 2020—you need to fuss with the placement to ensure that the AirPods don’t get knocked out of place.

The ESR HaloLock 2-in-1 Magnetic Wireless Charger is a flat pad with two charging spaces. One is a standard Qi charger, and the other is magnetic, allowing it to grab MagSafe-equipped iPhones and cases. Because it’s not an officially licensed MagSafe charger, it’s slower than the Belkin and Apple models we list, but it’s just as fast as other third-party magnetic chargers. In our tests, it brought a fully depleted iPhone 12 battery to 22% in 30 minutes and 48% in an hour. The lack of an Apple Watch charger knocks it out of contention for this guide, although we do appreciate the particularly low price. At the time of publication, it costs $30, and that includes a 18 W USB-C charger.

The Zens Liberty Wireless Charger Glass Edition was the first “place anywhere” wireless charger available to buy, and compared with all the other charging stations we’ve tested, it more closely matches what Apple originally promised with the AirPower station. It has 16 overlapping charging coils, all visible through a clear glass top, and those coils allow you to position two phones or other Qi-charging devices pretty much anywhere on its surface aside from the very edges. This design makes placement almost foolproof, solving one of wireless charging’s biggest drawbacks. We also like that the Liberty uses USB-C instead of a proprietary charger. But it has its downsides. The Liberty is large and expensive (a cheaper version without a glass top is available), it has loud fans that kick on when you’re charging a phone, and it doesn’t support Apple Watch charging without a $45 accessory. So although it’s a neat proof of concept, it’s best suited for early adopters willing to spend extra cash to have the coolest new tech toy.

Nomad’s Base Station Pro is similar in concept to the Zens Liberty though a bit more refined, with a slimmer and sleeker aluminum and leather design. Consisting of 18 charging coils under a roughly 5-by-9-inch surface, it’s made to charge up to three Qi devices at once, no matter where you place them. The Base Station Pro claims to power iPhones at 7.5 watts and all other devices at up to 5 watts, which means that non-Apple devices may not charge at their top speeds. But in our tests, charging was pretty slow across the board, with the iPhone 11 averaging only about 15% in half an hour and 26% in an hour, and the LG V30 hitting 9% and 16% over the same periods. Those numbers for the V30 are particularly low, but the Base Station Pro likely produced such results because it hasn’t been optimized for most Android devices yet; firmware updates may change that down the line. Rather than speed, Nomad and its partner Aira, which designed the charging technology, say the Base Station Pro’s major value proposition is convenience. It’s certainly true that you can very easily throw a phone (or three) onto the pad without worrying about lining them up perfectly, but that convenience isn’t worth the premium price: The Base Station Pro currently costs $200, or $60 more than our top pick. It’s not that hard to get your phone in the right spot with a conventional three-in-one charging pad. We hope that this technology advances quickly and falls in price, but it’s not something that most people should invest in right now.

Mophie’s 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Pad is another previous favorite and remains a good choice. We like its simple, clean aesthetics and its attention to detail—including features such as rubber elements that ensure your devices won’t slip and a divot for AirPods. But we prefer the stand-style charger of our current picks over this Mophie flat design, and this charger is also a total fingerprint magnet, much like the screen of an iPhone or iPad.

Native Union’s Drop XL Wireless Charger (Watch Edition) has a small footprint and is the least techy-looking of the chargers we tested. Thanks to the neutral gray fabric and rubber surface, it doesn’t scream “gadget” like much of the competition does, and it quickly charged everything we placed on its surface. Aligning AirPods can be difficult because the Drop XL has no clear marking, but other than that, it has no major faults that would prevent us from recommending it if you like the way it looks.

Satechi’s Trio Wireless Charging Pad was just a little slower than our picks in charging both phones we tested. It’s a flat charger, so lining a phone up on the raised rubber ring is slightly harder compared with using a stand, and it takes up a few more square inches on a desk, but we do like the AirPods divot, the fold-up Apple Watch puck (which can also work flat), and the USB-C charger.

The Zens Dual+Watch Aluminum Wireless Charger is a good alternative multi-device charger, particularly if you charge two phones at once on occasion. It charges devices quickly and looks quite nice. But lining up the AirPods case is difficult without any markings or a dedicated divot, and even getting a phone into the right position can take a bit of finagling.

We were excited about STM’s ChargeTree as an affordable alternative to the $100-plus chargers out there, but it turned out to be a rebranded version of a generic design. (We’ve seen at least two other companies serving Instagram ads selling the same thing.) That alone wouldn’t necessarily be disqualifying, but the ChargeTree isn’t MFi-certified, and it doesn’t come with an AC adapter. Taking all those factors together, we can’t recommend it.