Imagine a world where we don’t have to plug anything in. Your phone, laptop, tablet and headphones are constantly being topped-up whenever they’re placed on an inductive surface, so that when you take them out with you into the wider world, your devices are always brimming with battery. Step-by-step, it’s what we might be moving toward, if the industry lobbying group The Wireless Power Consortium gets its way. The group’s long-in-development wireless charging technology, Qi, is now getting a considerable power boost, which means it will be able to charge more smartphones faster, as well as tablets, which were previously too power hungry for it. While this a big step forward for Qi, and may lead to wider adoption for the fledgling charging standard, there are other barriers still standing in the way on the road to a wireless power utopia.

First, a note on Qi’s progress: the new Qi jumps from its previous 5 watt cap to 15 watts. Most smartphones have traditionally required 5 watts of power to charge. But now, some Android phones have started to feature faster charging through the use of 15 watt chargers. This new Qi standard would allow manufacturers to make phones capable of charging wirelessly at those high speeds, up to 60 percent battery in 30 minutes, according to a Wireless Power Consortium press release. That’s compared to normal 5W charging, which according to Kirchhoff’s Law, could take more than twice that time.

The upgrade also allows Qi to charge more Android tablets, which usually require between 7.5 and 9 watts. The improvement of materials and techniques, like the use Litz wire and a method of “sandwiching” the magnetic field between the receiver and transmitter, allows power transfer to be more efficient and minimizes radiated emissions, says John Perzow, vice president of market development at the Wireless Power Consortium (which champions the Qi standard).