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Hardware Hack Allows Samsung Galaxy S III to Wirelessly Charge Using Palm Touchstone Charger

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While we’re still waiting for an official wireless charging back battery cover and charging solution from Samsung, enterprising hardware hackers of the Samsung Galaxy S III have devised a way to get wireless charging enabled through the use of old Palm Pre components. If you have an old Palm Pre or Palm Pixi with the wireless Touchstone back charger, along with the Touchstone wireless charging accessory, you can do some hardware modification to enable the same experience on your Galaxy S III.

You’ll have to graft the the Touchstone component from the rear back battery cover of a compatible Palm Pre or Palm Pixi smartphone onto the Glaaxy S III’s polycarbonate rear battery cover. The solution does cause some the rear battery cover of the Galaxy S III to bulge out a little, but as we found in the review, the rear battery cover is extremely flexible so this shouldn’t be an issue at all.

As the magnets are also part of the Touchstone-enabled Pre rear cover, with the grafted components, the magnets should be able to securely hold your Galaxy S III onto the Touchstone charger. It’s definitely an elegant solution for your desk.

Soldering seems to also be needed.

Thanks to Peter Dangtran for the news tip. 

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Andy

    06/21/2012 at 8:35 am

    Has anyone out there done this and used it for a while? I’m about to upgrade from my Palm Pre to the Galaxy SIII (arriving today). The one thing I’ll miss about my Pre is the Touchstone.

    When the Pre is on it, there is a large amount of heat generated. I’m not surprised it works with the Galaxy SIII, but will the phone take the heat over the long haul? I’d hate to kill my new phone in a couple of weeks due to the heat generated while charging. Somehow I don’t think the warranty will cover that.

    • Adam

      11/17/2012 at 8:13 am

      Not sure if this is relevant at this time for you, however this hack does work, and it works fairly well. The current from the touchstone is less than the regular charger, but if you’re using it for charging over night, it works.

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