If you have an iPhone, AirPods, and an Apple Watch, congrats! You have the holy trinity of Apple products. But keeping all these gadgets powered up can be annoying, since they all have individual cables and proprietary charging solutions. Why deal with all that hassle when a single 3-in-1 wireless charger can accommodate everything?
A Quick Primer on MagSafe
Most of the wireless chargers in this guide are MagSafe wireless chargers or Qi2 certified. That means they take advantage of the magnets embedded in the back of the iPhone 12, iPhone 13, iPhone 14, iPhone 15, and iPhone 16 range. I cannot stress this enough: If you buy a case, ensure it is a MagSafe case. We have several third-party options in the linked case guides above. A normal iPhone case will weaken the pull of the magnets in the device and will not stick to MagSafe accessories well.
What’s the point of MagSafe? You don’t have to worry about misalignment with the wireless charger, meaning you won’t wake up to a dead iPhone. Technically, this perfect alignment means chargers can provide faster 15-watt charging, but Apple has restricted this perk to select products from a few brands. MagSafe is available in the AirPods charging case as well (depending on your model). Apple’s AirPods and AirPods Pro with the wireless charging case will work with nearly all of the standard Qi wireless charging pads on these chargers (as will many third-party wireless earbuds), but if you have AirPods with MagSafe, then you can hook it up to the magnetic mounts as well. If you don’t have a MagSafe iPhone, then your device won’t be able to attach to these chargers, though we do have some recommendations for older iPhones (and the iPhone SE).
What Are StandBy Mode and Nightstand Mode?
You’ll see us bring up two specific modes throughout this guide: StandBy mode and Nightstand mode. What are they?
StandBy mode was introduced in iOS 17. When you place your iPhone on a charger in landscape orientation, it will turn the screen into a dock of sorts, showing the clock (with different designs you can choose from), photos from your library, or widgets. If you have an iPhone that supports an always-on screen, you can choose to have the display automatically turn off after some time when the iPhone isn’t in use or if the room is dark. Head to Settings > Standby to customize it.
Nightstand mode has long been around on the Apple Watch. Basically, when the watch is sitting upright and charging, the clockface will stay on so you can always tell the time. You can customize this on your Apple Watch by heading to Settings > General > Nightstand mode.
Our Best Wireless Chargers guide has a few recommendations, but many more great docking systems exist for Apple devices. After years of testing, these are our favorites. Be sure to read our other Apple guides, including the Best MagSafe Wireless Chargers, Best MagSafe Accessories, Best iPhone 16 Cases, Best iPhone, Best Apple Watch, and Best AirPods.
Updated October 2024: We added chargers by Spigen, Anker, and Zens, including some new honorable mentions and some chargers to avoid, removed a couple of discontinued models, and updated prices.
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