While some have been disappointed that Apple hasn’t yet incorporated wireless charging technology into its devices, charging pads are really almost as clunky as wires: you still have wires going to the pads, and you have to put your device in a specific place to charge them. What we really want is true wireless charging, where power is beamed directly to the device through the air.
Which is exactly what Energous has been demonstrating at CES with a system it calls WattUp, reports Engadget.
WattUp […] works using a mix of RF, Bluetooth and a lot of patent-pending technology. The transmitter is where most of the magic happens. It communicates with and locates compatible devices using low-energy Bluetooth. Once they’ve established contact with a device, they send out focused RF signals on the same bands as WiFi that are then absorbed and converted into DC power by a tiny chip embedded in the device. These transmitters can be built into household appliances, TVs, speakers and standalone “energy routers.”
What looks like an oversized Internet router beams power up to 20 feet, so have enough of these – or transmitters embedded into other devices around the home – and your portable devices are powered wherever they are. All that’s needed is for the receiving devices to have the necessary chip.
Energous used an iPad app to demonstrate switching power between devices, but the plan is to build intelligence into the system so that it beams power to devices automatically depending on how much charge they have left. Once your phone has enough power, it switches instead to powering your iPad. As you move around the home, power transmission is handed off to the next source in much the same way as your phone switches between different WiFi networks.
Energous wants to license the technology to manufacturers, and Apple would clearly make a very attractive target.
The clunkiness of charging pads is, I think, why Apple hasn’t yet adopted wireless charging. This, not pads, is the way charging should work, and sooner or later this – or some equivalent tech – is how our iDevices will be charged. I’m very much hoping for ‘sooner.’
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Clunky sure, but also extremely wasteful. I think one of the reasons these aren’t popular is that they will consume way more power than they deliver, and so will increase energy bills and negatively impact the environment.
The company claims 70% power efficiency, vs 90% for charging pads, so it’s not that bad.
Who wouldnt gladly jack up their power bill to beam unnecessary power around their house all day long because WIRELESS!!!
Bear in mind that charging an iPhone 6 costs around 47 cents a year. With 70% power efficiency, you’d be looking at paying 67 cents a year to charge it wirelessly. I think the budget might run to that …
http://viptest.9to5mac.com/2014/09/25/iphone-6-plus-charging-cost/
Oh the tech is extremely cool here but that 47 cents is based upon (i assume) unplugging your charger from outlet when charging is completed. This device is a “vampire” in that these are continuously using energy to “be on” and if its beaming a wifi power signal in 360 degree direction that 70% goal they have is probably going to be around 40 in the real world. Then in the example “have enough of these placed around your house to make it fully wireless” in a 1400 to 2100 square foot home gets pretty dang expensive between cost of the number of needed emitters and the lost energy from 60 or so of these to cover a whole house?. But the tech on this device is very George Jetson cool and exciting but this has a big up hill battle to make it into the middle class homes.
We’ll need to wait for real-life power consumption figures to be sure, but generally power is only used when it is drawn by the device – the rest of the time there’s just a tiny overhead. This uses WiFi frequencies, so it’s no different to beaming WiFi around your home 24/7.
WiFi is in the 2.4Ghz range and the human body is an “interference” object meaning that as the WiFi signal passes through a person the energy is absorbed by the water in the person’s body. It’s minimal and far less than a cell phone’s energy emissions but it’s enough for some people to ask governments to look into banning WiFi from schools (that’s overkill IMO).
However, if they are now asking to transmit MORE power and from MORE devices constantly then that can be cause for concern over the long term effects.
And what happens to your brain when this thing is ‘wirelessly’ charging your devices…
I suppose a little leukemia isn’t a bad trade for keeping my devices topped off.
Note: Using WiFi’s domain on the RF spectrum does not make the charging beam “WiFi”.
Well , that’s 100 years old dream , by Nikola Tesla !
His wish that never came true yet , to make energy transmission TOTALLY wireless
http://www.teslasociety.com/tesla_tower.htm