McDonald's is introducing wireless charging in restaurants — for the few people that have the phones to use it

Charging points will use the Qi standard, which is built into Lumia and the newer Nexus phones

McDonald's is to offer free wireless charging for people in its restaurants — if they have the right phones, which are rare.

The company has a deal with wireless charging firm Aircharge to bring the chargers to 50 restaurants. In all, 600 of the charging points will be installed, all using the Qi standard.

That standard is gaining acceptance with manufacturers, but hasn’t yet been installed in many phones. Phones including the Lumia 930 and Nexus 6 have it installed already, and others are planning to.

Other companies including Samsung, Sony and BlackBerry are working on phones using the standard, which was made a consortium established in 2008.

But despite the low adoption so far, companies have jumped to provide the charging points. In 2012, Nokia announced that it would install the charging points in Heathrow Airport and in cafes in US cities, in part to promote its adoption of the standard.

Aircharge has also run trials of the technology in the UK, which the company say went very well.