Can you charge other devices with inductive charging coils?

It's not quite as straightforward as you might think. Inductive charging coils don't work with every device - only with ones that are specifically designed for it, meaning they have a matching receiver coil built into the device itself. That's the key point: the transmitter and receiver have to be compatible, otherwise nothing happens. So you can't just throw your old smartphone or camera on one of these coils and hope it charges.

But that doesn't mean the coils are useless if you need something new. There are adapters - flat pads or back covers with built-in coils - that you can stick onto devices that don't have inductive charging as standard. They're cheap and actually work pretty well. Some people use them for older phones or even external battery packs. Whether it's worth it depends on how often you need to charge the thing and whether you mind having that extra layer on your device.

Bottom line: direct charging only works with devices that have a built-in coil, but with a cheap adapter you can get other stuff to work with wireless charging too.