Do I really need... Wireless charging?

What does it do?

Not quite what it says on the tin. In 1891, Nikolai Tesla (whose name was later nabbed by Elon Musk for his electric car company) demonstrated the Tesla coil (pictured), which could transmit electricity through the air. Today, inductive charging lets devices top up their batteries by being placed next to a source of power rather than needing a physical connection. It’s supported by more and more smartphones.

Why would I want it?

It saves fiddling about with Microusb, USB Type-c or Apple’s Lightning plugs. Thanks to the Wireless Power Consortium, which includes many of the big tech firms, there’s now a standard called ‘Qi’ (pronounced ‘chee’, after the ancient Chinese concept of life force) that lets different devices use the same charging mats. These can be found built into furniture from the likes of Ikea. Manufacturers hope these will become commonplace, so you can always find somewhere to plonk down your phone and charge it: in a café or at an airport, say.

What’s the catch?

As with electric cars, you can’t yet rely on finding a charginging station wherever you go. In the absence ence of a magic coffee table, e, you’ll need a charging ging mat (pictured under der the phone), which still needs plugging into o the mains. That’s not really wireless, is it?

So can I do withoutthout it?

Yes, but if the industry has its way you may not need it anyway. There’s even tech in development to charge devices at long distance, as Tesla envisaged, bu but at the moment this requires an al aluminium-lined room with a copper po pole in the middle. Even Changing Ro Rooms might baulk at that.

VERDICT: It looks a bit clunky and feels like a work in progress, but if an always-on voice assistant with video chat appeals, the Show does a decent job

★★★★☆

ALTERNATIVE: Amazon Fire 7 £50 You can run the Alexa app on any of Amazon’s Fire tablets, though you have to press a button instead of just saying ‘Alexa…’lexa…’