Forget Apple’s AirPower, This 22-Year-Old Vlogger Created an AirDesk

Are you still waiting on Apple to launch its wireless charging mat, AirPower? Well, maybe it’s time for you to move on to AirDesk, an upgraded, DIY version of AirPower.

It doesn’t come from Apple, though. The company was supposed to launch AirPower in early 2018, but it canceled the product in March 2019 due to technical difficulties.

Disappointed at the news, tech influencer He Shijie, 22, better known as He Tongxue, decided to make his own version of AirPower — but better. Instead of a wireless charging mat, he spent two months and made a multifunctional charging desk.

He released a video of his creation online on Monday.

According to He’s video, AirDesk can wirelessly charge digital devices no matter where they’re placed on the desk.

The table can detect each device’s location and charge them individually. It also has two extra charging pads at the bottom corners, meaning the desk can charge three devices simultaneously.

In addition to multi-device charging, He also shows the other functions of his AirDesk in the video. For example, a to-do list. He can display his daily tasks on the desk and crosses things off as he finishes.

The best part is that, after he completes everything on the list, the desk will warmly greet him with the words ‘off duty’ or ‘xia ban 下班’ in Chinese.

The AirDesk also boasts a ‘focus mode.’

As He shows in the video, after he puts his phone on the desk and turns the focus mode on, he can’t move the phone for the next 25 minutes. If he moves it, the desk will refuse to charge the phone when he puts it back. He says in the video that the function helps him stay focused.

Finally, an hourly alert reminds him to stand up and drink more water. He says in the video that he made AirDesk a height-adjustable standing desk because he tends to sit for too long while editing videos.

At the end of the video, he discloses that Loctek, a Chinese tech company producing standing desks and other work equipment, sponsored the adjustable desk legs of AirDesk.

After He published the video online, it quickly went viral on Chinese social media. It also helped Loctek’s stock climb by nearly 14% on Tuesday.

The hashtag ‘He Tongxue Airpower’ (#何同学 AirPower#) had garnered 83.3 million views on China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo at the time of writing, while the video itself had gotten nearly 25 million views.

“He Tongxue has become more and more hardcore,” reads the most upvoted comment under He’s Weibo post.

“So cool! Please mass-produce, and I’ll buy one,” reads another.

He is a recent graduate from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. He started uploading self-made tech videos on the Chinese streaming platform Bilibili in 2017.

Now, he has more than 8 million followers on the site and has become one of the top tech influencers in China. In February this year, he scored a surprise interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Cover photo: Screengrab via He Tongxue’s video