Unboxing and building FurniQi – The side table with wireless charging built-in [Video]

Last week, Fonesalesman — the company behind the LG G4 PWRPatch I showed you recently — announced that it is launching a side table with a built in Qi-standard wireless charging unit called FurniQi. It’s made from  sustainable bamboo, and is designed to remove the usual clutter associated with having wireless chargers lying around on surfaces, and I unboxed it and built it…

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VflWQV3V3-g]

Unboxing it, you’ll notice that the number of contents is kept to a minimum. There are four bolts, and an allen key (or hex key) for screwing them in to table. Then there’s the main round surface of the table which you’ll notice has a laser-cut circle outline on the top. This indicates where you should place your phone, without being obtrusive. Underneath, there are four holes for the legs,  a further four with metal threads for the bolts and the embedded wireless charging unit.

Other package contents include a small bag containing a few cable tidying clips and the tan brown USB to Micro USB cable. It’s designed to match the wood color, and make the cable semi-camouflaged. There are also four felt pads with adhesive on one side for sticking underneath the table’s feet. Then there are the legs. They come in two pairs, both with a cutout in the middle for locking them together.

The legs only fit one way, and cross over each other diagonally, slotting in to the round holes in the underside of the table. Once in place, you can feed the bolts through and screw them in to place using the provided hex key. There were no instructions with my kit, so I went ahead and applied the adhesive felt pads to the feet before moving on to the charger unit.

Right next to the charger is a wide channel routed in to the wood, I stuck a cable clip inside, then plugged the Micro USB connector in to the wireless charger. After that, it was a case of running the cable down the back of one of the legs to hide it from view. Then, once plugged in, it was ready to use.

What I love about the finish is that it’s clean, and completely flush. There’s no protruding charger. It’s no different to just putting your phone down on any other table, except, this one charges it. I used it on both the Nexus 6 (which has built-in wireless charging) and the LG G4, which I adapted to make it compatible. So far, it’s worked every time. There’s no bright pulsating light to let you know that the phone is charge, which I think is a good thing (nothing to keep me awake at night). Instead, the charger beeps once to let you know that your phone is in the correct position. If it’s slightly off, it’ll beep continuously until you’ve lined it up correctly.

It’s a neat idea, and if you want to be the first to get your hands on the FurniQi side table, head on over to the company’s IndieGoGo page where you can pledge $119 and get one by Christmas. If you want to wait until it’s available to buy in the normal old-fashioned way, you’ll have to wait until next year.