On the official OnePlus forums, the company has just announced a new service that is coming to select airports in India. OnePlus Charging Stations are charging stations (obviously) that will notify nearby OnePlus smartphones of their presence, before providing rough directions to them within the airport.
Essentially, the charging stations will work by using wireless beacons, which will help OnePlus phones detect nearby Charging Stations. You’ll get a notification on your phone notifying you of a nearby Charging Station, along with information on the distance you’ll need to travel to get there.
Directions given look a little rudimentary in the screenshots provided, but within the relatively small confines of an airport, they should get you there without a fuss.
Of course, this has the potential to get a little repetitive for users—particularly on long layovers. However, you can mute the service for six hours, although OnePlus hasn’t confirmed if this will be an opt-in feature. This is likely, which means that you’ll probably want to opt out of the service if you have to stay at the airport for any longer than six hours.
At the Charging Stations, you’ll have access to Warp Charge 30 fast-charging ports, which should come in handy for a quick charging session in between flights. However, you’ll have to bring your own OnePlus proprietary red cables to use the Charging Station—which seems a little counterintuitive to me.
Regular charging stations usually have a variety of USB cables that you can use, and if I was carrying around my red cable, I’d probably carry around the Warp Charge 30 power adapter along with it.
“Traveling and visiting places is something most of us enjoy collectively. While in 2020, we have been deprived of our bucket list and places to go, but we will be travelling normally soon. This means lots of taxis and plane rides. While we use our phone for everything, ranging from tickets, checking in, booking cabs, and even the music on the plane, our phones could use some charging.”
At the moment, OnePlus’ Charging Stations are only available at Bangalore airport, although support at Delhi airport is promised “soon”. OnePlus hasn’t said if it will introduce something similar in other countries (or cities), so for now, this is limited to India.
The OxygenOS update is currently being rolled out in stages to the OnePlus 8 series, OnePlus 7 series, and the OnePlus Nord. Support for the OnePlus 6 will be coming “soon”.
