3d Printed Wireless Phone Charging Stand with NFC

I spend a lot of time in my garage workshop. My smartphone is always at my side for referencing information, playing music, looking up useful videos, but in the garage there never seemed to be a safe place to charge it and keep it handy.

I looked at buying a standard wireless charging stand but I did't like the form factor of most of them on the market for my intended application. So I did what I often do and made one myself.. . I modeled the whole thing in Fusion 360. Purchased a standard and cheap wireless charging pad from Amazon. Finally in the maker spririt I added some features that I haven't seen in any of the commercially available models. NFC or Near Field Communication is a feature built into most late model smart phones. It allows your phone to detect NFC tags. With an app like Trigger on the Google Play Store you can take an NFC tag and use it to activate (or trigger.... get it? hah) an action on the phone. In my case I wanted the tag to be used to open a music app, Pandora.

After 3d printing the base and installing the charger I simply programmed an NFC tag to activate music playback. Now when I get to work I can dock my phone and start playing my favorite tunes all in one smooth action. Makes me feel kind of like Tony Stark.

Check out the video below for more details. Enjoy.