IT may not seem hard to plug a cord into the wall to charge your mobile phone or tablet. Nonetheless, a number of companies are trying to figure out how to save us from the effort.

While still in a nascent stage, wireless charging is becoming a reality, with recent announcements by Starbucks and Cadillac that they’ll both be offering the technology. Set your smartphone down on a small mat at a table or in your car’s dashboard, and your device will charge.

“It’s a paradigm shift,” said Daniel Schreiber, president of Powermat, one of the industry’s major players in this technology. “Once you have wireless charging in cars, your bedroom and a coffee shop, you don’t have to think about power.”

There are two main competing versions of wireless charging trying to gain market share. Both use a similar technology that allows users to place smartphones or tablets on a charging mat and power up in no more time than using a cable would take. For the wireless connection to work, a receiver — which could be in the device but at this point is more likely to be in a special case that you have to buy — picks up an electrical charge from a transmitter coil in the charging mat.