Hi fellow Mini owners, so something that has annoyed me since getting my F54 LCI JCW Clubman is the poor wireless charging. Ive seen mixed results from different people and hear different stories.
To summarize my experience and demonstrate the reason for my complete and utter disappointment with this feature I'll tell you about one trip in particular:
I drove from Sydney to Canberra, a trip that's about 3-4 hours. The phone was doing nothing to contribute to navigation or entertainment, just charging. At the start of the trip I had 19% battery and at the end I had 6%!!!
So besides actually working in reverse, the cradle is just rubbish. It's the most poorly integrated feature on a BMW/MINI I have seen in a long long time.
After doing some real digging I now know where these are manufactured and by who. This is the company that makes them: https://www.bury.com/en/business/mar...less-charging/
As you can see, they are only a 5W Qi charger.
I really hope BMW, or rather BURY, can release a 15W version of this cradle so users can upgrade.
It's just so poor to see little things like this let the brand down. I really expected better from a 'premium' brand.
This part is in all 3rd Gen MINIs and many BMWs [F45, F46, I01, F48, F39, F56, F55, F54, F57, F60 + Others]

The other really annoying thing about this is the fact it doesn't hold large phones! Seriously who designs, approves and QCs these things?!?!?!

 

I agree! And add that it isn't really unusually large phones, but what are normal and typically sized smartphones of today.

Too bad that MINI didn't even try to fix this, in the 2022 interior redesign.

 

There is also the overheating issue to contend with, really poor design.

 

I would gather that when you place your phone inside of that space, it has to up the power to keep a consistent signal, thus drawing more power than is being charged into it.