iPhone 12 pro won’t wirelessly charge

Sorry, but your assertion it's not the charger because it works with previous phones is the wrong analogy for iPhone 12. The charging coil in iPhone 12 is not in the same spot as it was in previous phones to accommodate MagSafe. That doesn't mean iPhone 12 isn't compatible with Qi chargers. It actually is. But it likely means your current chargers may not position the charging coils properly with the relocated spot on iPhone 12.

We had charging issues when we first got iPhone 12 and 12 Pro Max. After much research, I came to the conclusion my older chargers weren't going to work with iPhone 12. So I bought new chargers and haven't had any issues since. Our new chargers are dual coil and were repositioned to better align with iPhone 12. And this is important, many older chargers don't have higher watt QC 3.0 charging bricks. So my new chargers have 18W QC3.0 bricks. Bam, no issues charging wireless since and it's been over 2 months now.

Did those of you with the 12 Max Pro try slightly repositioning the phone on the charger such as turning it 90 degrees sideways and/or then moving it vertically to different positions? As I stated above, I noticed my 12 Mini had to move up a little above the position it would naturally rest on the shelf at the bottom of the chargers. These phones are all different sizes which means the charging coil in the phones are probably in slightly different positions with respect to the charging coil in the charger itself. The two coils, in each device, form a transformer but for a transformer to work properly the magnetic coupling between the two coils must be good. The relative position of the coils may not always be optimum and by moving the phone around a little bit might find the spot where there is sufficient coupling for charging to start. I certainly do not know but I would guess the Magsafe feature might be more to force the charger coil to sit in the optimum position but these aftermarket chargers do not have that so the phones, all different sizes, just sit on the bottom ledge. I am guessing but I suspect the phone takes a "reading" on how well the coils are magnetically coupled and then gives a permissive signal for charging to start if it sees sufficiently good coupling.

I am curious if all those above that cannot make their phones charge on a wireless charger have done two things:

• First, make sure the phone is horizontally centered on the charger at all times. I found even if it extends slightly over one side or the other unequally, it will not start charging.
• Second, have you very slowly tried moving the phone up, while keeping it flat against the back of the charger and centered horizontally? In my case, with an iPhone SE-Mini, placing a 1/4-3/8" shim on the bottom shelf results in 100% reliable charging. Our two SE-2020's work 100% reliably without the shim but they are somewhat bigger than the 12-Mini. If slowly moving the phone while flat against the back of the charger does not work, try removing the phone far enough away from the back of the charger each time you slightly reposition it so the charging logic resets in both the phone and charger.

It is impossible for me to know for sure because I only now have the three phones I mentioned above and five chargers, but it strongly appears to me, for a wireless charger to work, the charging coils in the charger and phone must be reasonably well aligned to achieve sufficient magnetic coupling. Again, I have no way of knowing for sure but I strongly suspect the phone (and maybe the charger too) takes a reading on the quality of the magnetic coupling and will not allow charging to start unless a certain quality factor is met. This repeats my comments far above in previous posts, but in case some of you did not look that far back, try repositioning the phone as it leans flat against the back of the charger. Once you find the hieght needed (keeping it horizontally centered), it is really easy to put an appropriate shim on the bottom shelf. I used a small square plastic level and it even look good. My very limited experience indicates these things do work so, at the expense of being redundant, I hope this might help some of you that have so far been unsuccessful. Maybe this all is the underlying reason Apple has implemented the magnetic gizmos that will exactly position the phone in their new Magsafe chargers.

iphone 12mini - Upright Qi charger. Used high power brick and then most importantly placed two small rubber stick on feet to the ledge at the bottom of the charging stand and hey presto it connects and now charges no problem. Would seem that the phone needs to be positioned perfectly to allow the phone to charge. Hope this helps you guys.

Mcpbham, Csee2xu, hefclean, and luisma05, have any of you tried to reposition the phone as it leans against the back of the charger? Your comments do not indicate you tried that. I found, with an iPhone 12 Mini, it is necessary to raise the phone about 1/4-3/8" higher than where it would normally sit on the lower ledge to make it charge with 100% reliability. I installed a semi-permanent shim (a small bubble level held to ledge with a small strip of double sided tape) that works perfectly and even looks OK on three chargers. I am not at all associated with Apple (except for the products I buy) but this fix has worked reliably for me and some others. There are a number of posts earlier in this thread that discuss it at length. Essentially, the charging coils in the phone and charger must be properly aligned for the system to start charging and there does not appear to be a lot of tolerance for misalignment. Since there is a relative large difference in the size of the different models this is not really an unexpected problem in my mind but one that can be easily compensated for with a shim the phone sits on. I suspect the higher charging rates associated with the newer model phones also requires Apple to be tighter on their tolerances for proper inductive coupling.

Update, it happens only every week or so and once I reset (power off/on) it wirelessly charges again. So when it happened again I did not reset and booked into and went to Apple to show them. They saw it. They reset the phone and reloaded firmware etc, I restored the phone and a week ltr it happened again. I did not reset and just used the cable to charge. I booked it in again and they replaced it! Awesome! The new one works perfectly.

Mine is the iPhone 12, I have discovered that it only charges wirelessly when no case is attached, the case I use is thin rubber case yet it won’t work, I tried the same case with a iPhone 11 and it charges fine wirelessly so it’s not the case. The iPhone 12 does not seem to have enough power being generated through the back of the phone to work when a case is attached, there are YouTube videos demonstrating this same issue. Hopefully Apple can increase the wireless power detection of the phone via a software update. For the moment I don’t want to remove the phone case every time I want to charge it, so until a fix is generated I will go back to using lightning cable.

It’s def the iPhone. I had this and went back and forth to Apple. They tested, saw it fail then did a f/w update and reset it. I left thinking it would be ok but a week later I returned and they tested, without resetting and saw that it would not charge. They replaced the iPhone. (iPhone 12 pro)

This is definitely a software issue. It's not a listed bug but Apple should eventually fix it. The problem seems to be a glitch in the software where it disables the device to be wirelessly charged. A "band-aid" to this issue is to reboot your device. This should work and your device should be able to charge wirelessly again.

From other people I've asked, this seems to be really impacting iphone 12 users.

Lobsterghost1, I bought that exact charger and it too will not charge my iPhone 12 Mini unless the phone is positioned 1/4" or so higher to better align the charging coils. Raise the phone a little and all the various vertical chargers we have in various rooms at home and at our office will very reliably work. I cannot speak for any phone but the 12 mini and SE-2020.

I linked the charger above, BUT.......it may NOT work with Otterbox. You should reach out to Otterbox and ask them for guidance on chargers which will work with their cases, which are thicker by design.

There's a difference between the output of the charger and the output of the charging brick which powers the charger. What is the output of the charging brick (the power brick which plugs into the wall). This is the issue with a lot of older chargers. They don't put out enough power to the coils in the chargers to charge the phone.

You can buy Apple's new MagSafe charger, but it won't work with iPhone 12 unless you buy a 20W power brick for the charger.

So without having to reset my iPhone 12 Pro, I've been able to get it to charge on a wireless charging pad (for now, anyway). I realized that I had been using a 5v 1a adapter to plug my charging pads into the wall, but what I needed was a 5v 2a adapter. Now the phone is charging fine (hoping it doesn't crap out on me later). Could it really be this simple? I have a feeling that if it were Apple would just tell people this, so maybe this is wishful thinking. But for now, it seems to be working.

No, it's a iOS/firmware fault. Happens to ours (both iPhone 12 Pros) intermittently. Usually, closing all the apps, then power-cycling it, will restore the wireless charging capability. It would be nice if Apple could fix the problem, but that doesn't appear to be as much of a priority as sparring with Facebook, for them. After all, the devices only cost a thousand dollars or so.

I had the same problem with my iPhone 12 Pro and alarm clock. Do you use an adapter to plug the clock into the wall? If so, be sure it’s a 5V2a adapter, not a 5V1a. Once I switched everything started working fine.