Cutting the Power Cable: How Advantageous Is Wireless Charging? 284
Lucas123 writes "Furniture and auto makers are already ramping up production of wireless charging for mobile devices that will also allow I/O for music and data synchronization. Thanks to the widely accepted Qi standard, there shouldn't be a problem with interoperability, but how advantageous is wireless charging? Would it really offer more charging opportunities for mobile users in coffee shops who are today hamstrung by how many outlets are available? And then there's the added cost and reduced efficiency. As wireless systems are more complicated, a wireless battery charger will be more expensive and there are resistive losses on the coil, stray coupling, etc."
It will have a certain cool factor at first (Score:3, Insightful)
"Come to our hip coffee shop and charge wirelessly!" will attract a certain trendy crowd at first (maybe enough to justify the new furniture/equipment). But, in practice, it won't be much different than offering USB ports/outlets/ethernet ports/wireless service/etc. that a lot of places already offer. There are already a million places to connect and recharge in the big city. Aside from the initial cool factor, this one is no different. Things move so fast these days, it doesn't take very long for cool tech to turn into "so what?"
I just hope no one spills their coffee on the expensive new charging table.
Re:It will have a certain cool factor at first (Score:5, Insightful)
"I just hope no one spills their coffee on the expensive new charging table."
It'll be waterproof. Nice feature. My electric toothbrush has had this for years.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:It will have a certain cool factor at first (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently you coffee test all the electronics in your house before use.
Clearly his keyboard failed the test:
But is is coffee proof? ... Tht may burn thrpung seals and gaskets.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, its only value is the "coolness" factor (which only matters to those under 30). It won't be a real benefit unless it gets good enough that you can charge your phone without taking it out of your pocket. Plugging it in is no bigger a deal than laying it on a charging pad. If I could have a wireless charger that would charge it from across my living room, that would be great; I'd buy one. But to have to put it on a mat, using more electricity than if I plugged it in? No thanks.
Re:It will have a certain cool factor at first (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, its only value is the "coolness" factor (which only matters to those under 30). It won't be a real benefit unless it gets good enough that you can charge your phone without taking it out of your pocket. Plugging it in is no bigger a deal than laying it on a charging pad. If I could have a wireless charger that would charge it from across my living room, that would be great; I'd buy one. But to have to put it on a mat, using more electricity than if I plugged it in? No thanks.
If you eliminate the need for a power connector, it would be pretty simple to start producing smartphones and other devices that are waterproof themselves. That would be a nice improvement. My last smartphone met with a watery grave. I see it as just a gimmick to add this onto an existing device, but for new devices designed around this it would be useful.
Re: (Score:2)
If you eliminate the need for a power connector, it would be pretty simple to start producing smartphones and other devices that are waterproof themselves.
If you can waterproof the ubiquitous USB connection, then you can also waterproof any power connection, so wireless charging really adds nothing to the waterproofability of a device.
Re:It will have a certain cool factor at first (Score:4, Insightful)
If you can waterproof the ubiquitous USB connection
Right. So, can you? Because if you can't, it renders the rest of your statement moot.
Re:It will have a certain cool factor at first (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, you can. Waterproof the port, allow the conductive to pass through the waterproofed port. Set up a second ground/power pair that is ONLY used to detect when the device is submerged in a conductive medium and use that to disable the other pins avoiding a short circuit.
The metal pins still won't be happy to be submerged in a corrosive salt-water solution but if you rinse it off right away it should be ok.
Re: (Score:2)
It's just a couple of prongs that make a connection. It's easy to waterproof the connector, it's not so easy to make the act of connecting it waterproof.
I can think of several ways to allow you to connect something underwater while maintaining waterproof capabilities, but then it would cease to be a USB cable.
Re: (Score:2)
It's easy to waterproof the connector, it's not so easy to make the act of connecting it waterproof.
A waterproof device doesn't mean you have to be able to connect external cables to it while underwater, only that it is impervious to water while it is submerged. I don't think many people are going to say "gee, I have to connect this phone to the USB cable while it's still in the toilet."
Seacon, for example, makes lots of waterproof connections, but many of those are not underwater mateable, they need to be connected while on land and then they can be submerged without damage.
Re: (Score:2)
Right. So, can you? Because if you can't, it renders the rest of your statement moot.
Not moot. It proves the point. Going to wireless charging removes one (or maybe zero, if you charge via USB to start with) holes in the case. If you can't waterproof the USB connection, then having no charging connection doesn't make the device waterproof. You still have the USB port that lets water in.
OTH, if you CAN waterproof the USB connection, then you can do the same to the charging connection, and you will have just as waterproof a device as one without a charging connection.
In other words, since
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Charging cables double as data cables. How would people react if you got rid of data cables entirely? Wireless syncing is nice, but I find I usually go for the cable. It's faster and has less chance of error, plus no drain on the phone's battery.
If the phone does the wireless syncing on the wireless charging pad there probably won't be much of drain on the phone's battery :)
I currently sync my phone and laptop via bluetooth without errors. Although I do use cable sometimes if I am in hurry or low on battery, so speed may be an issue. (But well, the cable option isn't actually disappearing yet...)
Re: (Score:2)
I would think that you would get wireless charging with the wireless sync, so it's pointless to worry about the drain on the phone's battery.
Re: (Score:3)
If you eliminate the need for a power connector, it would be pretty simple to start producing smartphones and other devices that are waterproof themselves. That would be a nice improvement.
Charging cables double as data cables. How would people react if you got rid of data cables entirely? Wireless syncing is nice, but I find I usually go for the cable. It's faster and has less chance of error, plus no drain on the phone's battery.
I didn't know people still used data cables for syncing with modern phones - I have a Galaxy Nexus and the only thing I've used the USB port for is charging. Everything else goes over Wifi or Bluetooth so I wouldn't miss it at all if the USB port went away and was replaced by wireless charging,
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't know people still used data cables for syncing with modern phones - I have a Galaxy Nexus and the only thing I've used the USB port for is charging. Everything else goes over Wifi or Bluetooth so I wouldn't miss it at all if the USB port went away and was replaced by wireless charging,
I use usb most of the time to load media onto my phone, or to copy photos and videos off of it. It's easier than removing the microSD card because of the hard to remove otterBox case I've got. I could easily eliminate it by loading up an samba. Since I have to plug in for power anyway I haven't bothered, but with 802.11n the performance shouldn't be all that bad.
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't know people still used data cables for syncing with modern phones - I have a Galaxy Nexus and the only thing I've used the USB port for is charging. Everything else goes over Wifi or Bluetooth so I wouldn't miss it at all if the USB port went away and was replaced by wireless charging,
For Android toys like the Nexus a Wifi/BT Connection is fast enough, but for professional use i prefer a fast reliable wired connection.
I don't think think wireless charging was meant to work for everyone's application - I charge by phone via USB, but my walkie-talkie at work is charged in a drop-in charger. What is this professional phone use that requires USB versus Wifi speeds?
Re: (Score:2)
you eliminate the need for a power connector, it would be pretty simple to start producing smartphones and other devices that are waterproof themselves. That would be a nice improvement. My last smartphone met with a watery grave. I see it as just a gimmick to add this onto an existing device, but for new devices designed around this it would be useful.
If you can eliminate the need for a power connector, and make wireless power ubiquitous enough, we can also eliminate the battery.
No available wireless power transmission method is meant for long-range (beyond a few mm or centimeters) transmission of power so I don't think there's any chance of batteries going away in the near term.
Re: (Score:3)
Eliminating the battery would be great as long as you can manage to make it through your day never getting more than a few inches from a charging station. I envision thousands of miles of charging trays built into every sidewalk, wainscott, chair-rail, railing, escalator, and countertop. You could have hanging charge-lines you could take with you when you cross streets like the overhead power used for trolley-cars.
Or were you thinking they could use mega-capacitors instead of batteries to hold you over for
Re:It will have a certain cool factor at first (Score:5, Insightful)
Eliminating the battery would be great as long as you can manage to make it through your day never getting more than a few inches from a charging station. I envision thousands of miles of charging trays built into every sidewalk, wainscott, chair-rail, railing, escalator, and countertop. You could have hanging charge-lines you could take with you when you cross streets like the overhead power used for trolley-cars.
Thank you for that awesome 1930s-radiopunk-dystopia mental image.
Seriously, I want a wallpaper of that.
(Once a day, like clockwork, New York City shuts down as Pirate Nikola Tesla broadcasts tendrils of free charge-lightning all across the Eastern Seaboard from his secret Magnifying Transmitter base. Desperate power-hungry citizens raise dirty vacuum tubes to the heavens to harvest illegal St Elmo's Fire. Meanwhile mammoth Edison Company marketing dirigibles, fresh from destroying the Martian invading force, drop Tripods full of patent lawyers in the Los Angeles desert to storm Fortress Hollywood...)
Re:It will have a certain cool factor at first (Score:5, Interesting)
Plugging it in is no bigger a deal than laying it on a charging pad.
I bought one of those firesale HP touchpads. They have wireless charging with a special stand and it is the single best feature of the device. Plugging in to charge sucks - there is wear-and-tear on the mini-usb port, the fiddling to get everything lined up requires good lighting and too much time. With the wireless charging stand, it is dead simple - just put it on the stand, listen for the "bonk" sound the OS makes when charging starts and everything just works. It is so much more convenient that wireless charging is now mandatory for any of my future phone and tablet purchases.
Re: (Score:3)
The Palm Pre (HP Pre after HP bought Palm) phones had the same wireless charging, and with magnetic charging stands. It was easy to have a stand on your desk at work, at home, and one on the car's dash, so that wherever you were, you could just set the phone down, have it stuck in place and charging until you were ready to move again.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It will have a certain cool factor at first (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno, I have a ruggedized Samsung mobile phone. It's waterproof to 1 meter, dustproof, vibration resistant, etc. The microphone and speaker are behind impermeable membranes while the battery compartment and microUSB charging port are behind separate gasketed panels.
Every time I open the charging panel I put wear and tear on the gasket material. If I could wirelessly charge it then I'd only ever need to open it if I needed to change SIM cards, the battery, or the rare occasion where I'd need to plug it into the computer for some reason. Wireless charging, even on a charging pad, has some appeal to me.
Re:It will have a certain cool factor at first (Score:5, Insightful)
The power connector itself is a massive point of failure, as they get full of dust, dirt, bent, static discharge, etc. My girlfriend has gone through 4 phones essentially because the microUSB power connector failed. I recently had to do some minor surgery to my Galaxy Nexus because the power connector was slightly bent, so that it always showed that it was charging even when not connected.
Good riddance to wired power. I'd gladly take my phone it out of my pocket and place it on a pad. I can't wait until such charging pads can be built into couch arms, tables, desks, etc. I'll never have to worry about whether my devices are charged. And some of them could be physically sealed from dust and water, substantially increasing their lifetime. (If you can forgo the headphone jack, microphone, etc -- like a on tablet)
Re: (Score:3)
I cannot understand this. If you (or your girlfriend) are breaking your ports that easily, either you're buying crap phones or you're putting them through some SERIOUS abuse. I've got a 7 year old phone in my pocket right now, and guess what? Nothing's broken. Not a single connector. And I do have a somewhat nasty habit of pulling the device from the nightstand to my bed by yanking on the charging cable....
Of all the devices I've ever owned, I've only ever had two ports break -- one was a USB port on the fr
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm.. i disagree. tossing my phone on to the couch is a lot easier than lining up the dastardly adapter in the fragile charging stand, or having to dink with cables and find an outlet. maybe i'm just super lazy, but i really like the sound of not having to fuss with adapters, and i'm over 40.
Re: (Score:2)
I just toss my phone into the cradle I bought for it. It's far easier to line up than a naked connector, and as a bonus, I have a hardware audio connection with my phone as a result.
Re: (Score:2)
More than cool. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure there's definitely a whiz-bang factor at work here, but I think there's more to it than that.
Power is the last reason you need to connect a cable to most wireless devices now. Have low bandwidth data needs communicated at short distances (both a limitation and a feature)? There's NFC. Have one or two-way audio, or higher speed data transmission with the range of a room or two? There's Bluetooth. Need to communicate at greater range with much higher bandwidth? There's Wifi. Need to charge your device? There's Qi.
Why do I need a USB port anymore? My phone syncs over my WiFi network. It talks to my car audio system via Bluetooth. It talks to my car speaker phone or my headset via Bluetooth too. It just might, someday very soon, pay for my purchase via NFC as I swipe it at the checkout lane. Someday soon, you may even pair your device with Bluetooth accessories or join it to a WiFi network by passing it over a NFC pad. So I have to find the right cable and power adapter to charge it? Why should I have to do that when there's Qi?
Given that Qi can be combined with NFC, its possible that there is some hardware design synergy that makes the cost of implementing both together more palatable than implementing either alone. Honestly, if Apple were a member of the Wireless Power Consortium, I'd expect the new iPhone to have both NFC and Qi. Even without that membership, it just might anyway.
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly how lazy/self entitled do you have to be to want this?
Part of the problem is that there's no standard for power connectors. We all seem to be moving to 5V because of USB but the connector still isn't decided.
PS: Micro USB is a rubbish connector for power. Far too small and fiddly in use. No connector should take three attempts to connect it so make them round. Center pin connectors aren't needed any more with modern wall warts so something like a headphone jack would be good.
Not new (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Thomas Edison Was A Douche (The Oatmeal!) [wordpress.com]
Re: (Score:2)
For anyone who's followed their dentist's advice, wireless charging is not new [metafilter.com].
Error: File not found Looks like you've asked for a file that doesn't exist, try out the search below to find what you are looking for, which searches across all the MetaFilter sites.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
As I recall induction charging is OK for a toothbrush that you only use for a few minutes a day and has hours to charge, and has a low draw on the battery. Smartphone is basically opposite of that.
Efficiency should kill it (Score:2)
Efficiency alone is such a big problem that it is hard to imagine it getting widely adopted before regulators kill it.
It is much more logical to push for common connectors.
Re:Efficiency should kill it (Score:5, Insightful)
We pretty much already have common connectors with the exception of Apple.
Re: (Score:3)
Because Nokia, RIM and Samsung are all doing the sane thing and standardizing on MicroUSB.
Re: (Score:2)
Uh, I've found micro USB chargers at _gas stations_. Dunno about Nokia, but I've never seen a RIM or Samsung device that used anything different. Haven't yet seen an Apple charger at a 7/11, though I'm sure some stock those as well...
Re: (Score:2)
So buy a better fridge or something. There. You just carbon credited about ten years of phone charging.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
These devices use very little power.
A typical person in the Western world uses, on average, 2+ kW. That's not 2kWh per day, that's 2+ kWh EACH AND EVERY HOUR.
These devices that are proposed to be charged wirelessly are usually just a few watts, about 1/1000 of what the person is using; so even if the power efficiency halved for those particular devices, it would make essentially sod-all difference.
The other thing is that in many cases if it's easier to recharge, then you don't need such a big battery; batte
Re:Efficiency should kill it (Score:4, Interesting)
A typical person in the Western world uses, on average, 2+ kW. That's not 2kWh per day, that's 2+ kWh EACH AND EVERY HOUR.
Can you back this up a bit? You're saying that the average Westerner uses 48+ kWh every day. That's well over a megaWatt hour every month (and closer to 1.5 MWh). Does this figure include the average person's share of the power used for street lights, traffic lights, businesses, etc.?
Re: (Score:2)
If it includes fuel. then I am surprised it isn't higher. An empty house with all the light turned off uses between 1-2kW just from running refrigerator, freezer and stand-by power for all the electronic junk plus heating and/or air-conditioning (well 3-4kW if A/C is actually turned on).
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know how you reach that number, but for my family of 5, in a large house with lots of window in a very northern location that gets very cold in the winter and needs a lot of lighting, with tons of computers & devices, we only manage to reach a yearly average of a bit less than 3kW. That's less than 0.6kW per occupant.
Not that I am not seeing your point, I just hate that over 83% of all statistics like those come from nowhere!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I just don't get why this is such a popular idea, unless I remind myself that the average person is more or less technically uneducated, and doesn't understand that it's wildly energy inefficient. Also, echoing other comments on this topic: This is far from a new idea, and again: there are reasons we haven't gone this way before, but nobody seems to understand that.
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, this. I just don't get why this is such a popular idea, unless I remind myself that the average person is more or less technically uneducated, and doesn't understand that it's wildly energy inefficient. Also, echoing other comments on this topic: This is far from a new idea, and again: there are reasons we haven't gone this way before, but nobody seems to understand that.
Nothing serious about the inefficiency. We are not talking about cars, we are talking about 5W chargers...
I would read this with a pinch of salt (I probably would not often charge two devices at the same time), but it is pretty informative. http://www.wirelesspowerconsortium.com/technology/total-energy-consumption.html [wirelesspo...ortium.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, this.
I just don't get why this is such a popular idea, unless I remind myself that the average person is more or less technically uneducated, and doesn't understand that it's wildly energy inefficient. Also, echoing other comments on this topic: This is far from a new idea, and again: there are reasons we haven't gone this way before, but nobody seems to understand that.
Since you're so technically educated, please explain how it's so energy inefficient? A wireless charging device is essentially half of a transformer (your phone is the other half). Transformer efficiency can exceed 99%. But since the wireless charging mat is not a perfect transformer (an air gap is not as efficient as a metal core), efficiency will be lower, but I don't see why it can't exceed 90%. Do you have documentation for this low efficiency claim?
Re: (Score:2)
Efficiency alone is such a big problem that it is hard to imagine it getting widely adopted before regulators kill it.
It is much more logical to push for common connectors.
As long as it doesn't use much standby power, efficiency during charging shouldn't be that big of a factor.
My phone battery holds around 8Watt-hours of power, so even if the charger is only 50% efficient, that means 8Wh of power wasted for each charge.
8 Wh wasted every day for a year is 3Kwh, or around 45 cents of power (depending on where you live).
In comparison, an EnergyStar rated TV is allowed to consume up to 1W of power in sleep mode, so if your TV is powered off 16 hours a day, it will waste 16Wh of
Re: (Score:3)
...though I'm sure the iPhone crowd will probably find they can't do without it.
Considering the iPhone doesn't have it and there are a growing number of "I can't live without it" posts from folks who already have it I agree with you. Nice try, but a miss on the Apple bashing.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. There is nothing 'green' about it, though I'm sure the iPhone crowd will probably find they can't do without it.
It just bleeds energy into the atmosphere. Running your GPU at full tilt to generate BitCoins might be less dangerous.
What are you talking about? A wireless charger doesn't radiate Watts of energy into the air when there's no device on the charging mat. Standby power use should be around the same as a traditional charger - the wireless power consortium claims they have test devices that are as low as .0001W of standby power [wirelesspo...ortium.com], but they don't say what currently shipping chargers are at.
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed. There is nothing 'green' about it, though I'm sure the iPhone crowd will probably find they can't do without it.
Let's see how the Nokia crowd get on with it first shall we...
Hopefully both of them will come in and post.
Interoperable until Apple gets bright ideas... (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks to the widely accepted Qi standard, there shouldn't be a problem with interoperability [...]
Just then, Tim Cook looked at that with a cold, calculated expression, and simply responded, "Challenge accepted".
Great for the forgetful (Score:2)
I know a few people who would actually remember to charge their phones given wireless tech that don't now.
All they need is to put the charger by their bed and they're set.
why is it better? (Score:3)
i just plug my iphone into my laptop all day and not think about it. at home its into the wall
what does wireless charging give me?
Re: (Score:2)
i just plug my iphone into my laptop all day and not think about it. at home its into the wall
what does wireless charging give me?
It would give you a few seconds of your time back each day. Instead of having to plug it in to your laptop when you get to work, unplug it when you leave, plug it in when you get home, unplug it when you leave, you could just drop it on the charging mat at night when you go to bed and you're done. No cables to plug in.
Rage Comic (Score:3, Funny)
Panel 1: Phone runs out of juice
Panel 2: Put phone on wireless charger
Panel 3: Hmm... wireless energy transfer...
Panel 4: I am Nikola Tesla!
Panel 5: Me gusta!
Panel 6: Extra panel. Ignore.
Efficiency versus not breaking your phone. (Score:5, Insightful)
Something to consider - I've replaced the MicroUSB connector in my cellphone *twice*. The phone would work for about a year, then it would go flaky - you'd have to wiggle the connector a few times for the phone to reliably charge, and sometimes I'd go check on it and it wouldn't be charging - and it would happen with different cables. Supposedly these things are rated for 10,000 cycles, but I haven't seen it. Maybe my phone does something it shouldn't, like spark the +5V pin when the connector is plugged in. *shrug*
Secondly, I've caught the cord of my phone multiple times and pulled it off the desk onto the floor - and my cats/dogs have probably done it more times than I have.
Though there's an efficiency loss in wireless charging versus conductive charging, I wonder if there's an efficiency gain that exists in less phones being repaired/replaced because of damage related to conductive charging.
(Note that this is not a well thought out, researched argument - just a dumb thought.)
Re: (Score:2)
Yup. The mechanical stress from plugging it in and pulling is quite a bit. Power plugs failed on three laptops/netbooks of mine and the connector on my current phone has started to move a lot more than it used to. I wonder how long the solder connection will last.
Re: (Score:2)
Though there's an efficiency loss in wireless charging versus conductive charging, I wonder if there's an efficiency gain that exists in less phones being repaired/replaced because of damage related to conductive charging.
(Note that this is not a well thought out, researched argument - just a dumb thought.)
True, one prematurely replaced cell phone buys quite a few kilowatt-hours of electricity. And add to that that one prematurely replaced hip buys a lot of cellphones.
Re: (Score:3)
I've replaced the MicroUSB connector in my cellphone *twice*... Supposedly these things are rated for 10,000 cycles, but I haven't seen it... I've caught the cord of my phone multiple times and pulled it off the desk onto the floor - and my cats/dogs have probably done it more times than I have.
I think I see the problem
Time (Score:3)
Time is, I think, the real issue for consumers. If you can put your phone on a table, or whatever, for 30mins and have it completely recharged this will do well. But I have a feeling that inefficiency will make it something for when you sleep, so you can wake up to fully recharged gadgets. I can't see wireless providing more juice than most gadgets use so having them in public places, coffee shops. etc., will not overcome the inevitable flat battery, just delay it for a bit.
Re: (Score:2)
Time is, I think, the real issue for consumers. If you can put your phone on a table, or whatever, for 30mins and have it completely recharged this will do well. But I have a feeling that inefficiency will make it something for when you sleep, so you can wake up to fully recharged gadgets. I can't see wireless providing more juice than most gadgets use so having them in public places, coffee shops. etc., will not overcome the inevitable flat battery, just delay it for a bit.
The efficiency is around 70%, so it will certainly delay the flat battery. Especially if the phone were to do wireless syncing at the same time (so less syncing would be needed when it is on its own battery...)
homebrew / hacking (Score:3)
I find it odd no one has implemented a homebrew hack of Qi.
You'd think it would be a fairly stereotypical elektor / nuts n volts / QST QEX type of article, "run your ardweeeeeeeeno off a Qi charger!" type of article.
Or if you'd prefer hardware modules, a adafruit / dangerous prototypes here's a little 1 sq inch PCB that when waved over a Qi charger outputs regulated 5 volts on these terminals.
All that's out there is sealed consumer grade end user devices, which is kinda weird compared to, say, the bluetooth or GPS or wifi or ethernet or pretty much every other "system" ecosystem.
Doesn't even have to be "hack-ish" for end user devices. Personally, as a guy who occasionally butchers wood aka wanna be finish carpenter, I'd wanna buy a little charger module for some of my projects. Here, route a pocket of specified dimensions, epoxy module in place, run power cable to wall, module is polyurethane finish compatible (or lacquer or whatever). I'm sure that would be very challenging for a roofer or someone completely confounded at the installation of a standard lockset in a pre-drilled door, but I think your average "real" woodworker could figure it out easily enough.
Its like they're trying to choke off innovation to make it fail, so they can "prove" no one wants it.
Re: (Score:3)
http://www.electronics-sourcing.com/2012/07/16/wurth-electronics-qi-power-charging-coils-available-at-mouser-electronics/ [electronics-sourcing.com]
Nightstands (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Personally I prefer a ball of thermonuclear plasma, unfortunately I don't live on a farm, and at what time the sun rises is completely irrelevant to when I need to get out of bed.
A coffee shop is not the killer app. (Score:5, Interesting)
Each time I read a wireless charging article I find people who seem incapable of believing how simply most consumers will use this technology. Consumers don't want wireless charging primarily for use at a coffee shop, or on the bus, or in a train. They aren't, for the most part, interested in the ability to top off at the airport. No, for all of those things consumers have always demanded enough battery life to make it through the day without needing to recharge. Preferably several days. Most phones deliver, at least for the right usage patterns.
Wireless charging is all about forgetting to charge at home, and the inconvenience of 25 different chargers. Sitting next to me are propretary chargers for proprietary devices. A digital SLR. A digital point and shoot. An old cell phone. A new cell phone. A camcorder. Some regular AA's for my Apple wireless keyboard. The number of wall warts and specialty cables is astounding and annoying. Even if all the tech wasn't a disaster, sometimes I'm just tired and forget to charge my phone overnight.
This is why wireless is such a sexy idea. Imagine a wireless charging pad where you store your cameras, and one on your bedside table. You just toss your phone or cameras on it at night, wake up and it is charged. No plugging in cables. No row of wall warts. No incompatible battery chargers. No running out of outlets along a segment of counter.
Wireless charging's killer app is at home. One charging "area" for multiple devices. Make it cheap enough I can afford one by my desk, in my kitchen, and at my night stand and my gizmos will never run out of juice again, and topping off at a coffee shop, airport, or other place will diminish in need.
Re: (Score:3)
Also as far as I know Qi is worldwide, unlike almost every other charging standard. If this tech survives, you'll be able to walk into every hotel room in the world and drop your phone on the charger and it'll work.
Please don't tell me USB is worldwide. By "USB" do you mean micro, mini, full size, or that apple doc connector, and do you mean raw regulated 5V or apple wiring with the weird sense resistors to program peak current? AC line power is more "standard" than USB.
Re: (Score:2)
Hipsta puh-leez! (Score:2)
We've been going nutz and switching to crappy fluorescent lamps for years because they are more efficient, phone makers have been adopting charging standards that allow a phone charger to be used with any brand of phone, and they've been redesigning those for minimal "vampire" (1W) power use. Now, all of a sudden, we should give up on efficiency?
10 years ago I used to drop my Palm Pilot into a charging/sync cradle. It was efficient and worked reliably. Wireless charging is not an improvement.
Re: (Score:2)
Interference with RFID (Score:3)
The QI chargers frequency shift between 110khz and 205khz depending on power demand. This stomps over the common RFID frequencies of 125khz and 134.2khz which also use near field coupling to communicate with tags commonly used in animal and asset identification. .Having deliberate frequency changing leaky coupled chargers is going to cause massive interference headaches for hundreds of thousands of existing LF RFID operators.
These systems already have a hard time dealing with ambient noise from motors, power lines etc.
Why couldn't they have limited the carrier from 150 to 250khz instead???
Re: (Score:2)
Lowest aviation NDB I'm aware is is around 190 KHz so you're already pissing off the aviators with the current 110-205 standard. push it lower like 80 to 100 please, not into the aviation bands. "Malfunctioning Qi charger kills hundreds in jetliner crash!" etc.
Re: (Score:2)
How many airliners use NDBs as opposed to VORs or simply GPS waypoints nowadays?
The largest market for this... (Score:4, Interesting)
Imagine how many people will walk away from their cellphones after they've put them on the table at the coffee shop. The old adage "keep it in your pants" will take on a whole new life.
How do you convince people it's safe? (Score:2)
I've got lots of friends that won't hold a cell phone to their heads to use it, but will only use their cell phone with a lanyard/earbud, due to concerns about phone radiation.
Now we're supposed to convince them that it's ok to put a device on a charging pad?
Re: (Score:3)
"Widely accepted Qi standard" - not (Score:2)
This article is a pitch for the Qi standard. The "widely accepted Qi standard" is still one of several competing technologies. Neither Apple nor Google is a member of the Wireless Power Consortium. There are 91 Qi compatible products [wirelesspo...ortium.com], but most of them are chargers or add-on power receivers. Other than NTT DoCoMo, almost no manufacturer makes phones tablets with the Qi technology. Nobody seems to make a tablet or laptop with it built in.
One thing they got right is that there's minimal communication betwe
I have to wonder about health issues (Score:2)
It's SUPER advantageous (Score:2)
...for the power companies, that is.
For end users who aren't physically handicapped, well, not so much.
What's the Efficiency? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I don't know about the efficiency of this kind of wireless charger or of wired chargers for that matter, but I'd expect a consumer grade wireless charger to be less efficient than a wired one. If we're going to put a few hundred million of these things in service I'd like to know what the energy penalty will be.
Palm Pre / HP TouchPad Touchstone Charger... (Score:2)
A cute little base that the phone clung to magnetically, and it would charge.
No fiddling with the fragile micro-USB cover, no getting the connector upside-down.
Never misplaced my phone, because I would just park it on the Touchstone at home or work (I bought two).
I anxiously await standardization... (Score:4, Interesting)
What's with all the contrarians? Why do we need wireless charging? For the same reasons your phone has WiFi and not an RJ45 port...
As a heavy Android phone user, I'm anxiously awaiting some wireless charging standard. I have wall-warts all over my house, so that wherever I sit, I can plug-in... Because cell phones just can't handle even a half day of heavy use between recharges. And even if one could, I wouldn't want to cut it that close.
So now, my cell is perpetually tethered to a microUSB cable, getting pulled off tables onto the floor, getting tugged when I try to move it and there's not enough slack, getting stress on the cable and socket when I want to set it on the armrest right where the plug is sticking out, and always fumbling with putting the connector in the right way, and pulling it out when I go, or it becomes a particular nusiance, maybe 10x a day.
What's more is the nusiance of travel... I've got a cigarette lighter to microUSB plug for driving, then I've got to carry a wall adapter for motel rooms, conference rooms, or whatnot, and then supplament that with a AA battery to microUSB adapter when I'm not within reach of a power outlet, but still need to use my phone heavily. Times like flying in particular.
All that stuff is much, much larger than my cell phone, and could be eliminated from my bag if restaurants, hotels, cars, passenger jets, and conference rooms had them built-in.
Now let's consider that I carry two or more devices around... One phone needs one charger, while the other phone won't charge from it at all. Wall chargers break USB specs in multiple, and mutually incompatible ways. That's why we have items like the Skiva QuadPower, which has one port that works on Apple devices, one port that works on Android devices, and two generic USB ports that are needed for Palm/Blackberry/BREW/Nokia/etc devices, that won't charge from the other ports.
And that's just getting started. Throw in tablets, or netbooks/ultrabooks, or even laptops. Tablets are almost always able to charge from USB, even if only very slowly, because we've built the modern world on the non-standard USB charging standard, and everyone wants to be able to get some charge out of it in the worst case. But the low voltage and power of USB leads to far more contortions than even smartphones have to contend with... And all because USB is such a poor charging standard. I'd sure love a universal charger, but even low power netbooks/ultrabooks don't even try to use USB, because the voltage is far too low, and they'd have to go nuts to add more special-cases to USB wall chargers.
We clearly need something better... Something that can supply more than 5v, and a whole lot of amps.
Who wouldn't want to have a flat pad they can put on their coffee table, that automatically starts charging any device you set on it? Laptop, cell phone, tablet, maybe laptop batteries not currently connected, etc. Throw in TV remote controls, flashlights, cordless keyboards/mice, console game controllers, etc., for good measure. It would be an incredible improvement over the current disjointed charging situation. And don't start complaining about efficiency... Even if it's got high losses, being able to top-off everywhere you go is much more efficient than having your battery get drained.
Re: (Score:3)
And then conspiracy theorists will of course complain about "the waves" that are "invading their bodies" and how it's going to make them sterile so all humans will die and the secret lizard people illuminati will rule the earth.
Solution: package combined Qi charger / wifi base station. Everyone knows wifi already does all that stuff, so Qi won't get any of the blame. Everybody wins!
Re: (Score:3)
A wireless charging pad is largely useless. I had one for the Touchpad. It was neat, but ultimately not worth the cost (though I did get it on a steep discount).
On the other hand, I would absolutely love a wireless charging table or countertop. In my SF dream world, my house would charge all my devices while I was inside, regardless of where I put them. Of course, my SF dream world has flying cars and teleporters.
Re: (Score:3)
Odd. My SF dream world has Jessica Beil in garters, stockings and high heels and Scarlett Johansen in cuffs and a ball gag.
Re: (Score:2)
Waste of power if you transmit it over any distance, and otherwise you still have to put it on a pad that's connected to a wire.
So yeah, not all that useful for most applications.
But what about the stated application of charging your phone? How is it not useful for a phone? I keep my phone on the dresser at night, I'd rather drop it on a mat then have to plug it in in the dark when I go to bed. Where do you keep your phone at night if you don't put it on a table somewhere?
Likewise, I wish I could drop my phone in the center console of my car and have it charge automatically rather than plug it in to a charger every time I get into the car.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
20mW x (conservatively) 50,000,000 devices nationwide (what, you thought this was just about cell phones? Don't forget LameBoys, PeeS2's and the NoMindO DS) ~= 100,000W.
100KW? For the nation? That's nothing. I'll even say literally nothing - that would be in the unmeasurable noise of country-wide power generation.
If a 100 people make morning toast at the same time they'll be using more power than that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This this this.
I'm thinking about a bag similar to what is offered by Voltaic Systems [voltaicsystems.com], but with wireless charging instead.
I bike and wear a backpack, and have been looking at rolling a custom thing from some of Voltaic's parts, and to think that if there was wireless charging capability, I would never have to worry about my devices bouncing around in my bag while connected to a laptop or battery to charge.
Someone build this and let me test the prototype =).
Re: (Score:2)
I came here to say the same thing. A decade ago, my phones had power/data connections designed so the plug would fail, protecting the phone, and could be replaced cheaply. Look at the business end of an Ericsson T28 for an example. You could drop it from several feet up directly on the plug and the plug itself would absorb much of the impact's energy as it popped free from the phone. Same with my Motorola iDEN phone. My favorite early phone, a Sony Z100, had a charger that used pogo pins to charge the
Re: (Score:3)
Oh gods yes. I miss my Palm Pre's wireless charging. I used one from 2009 until sometime in 2010 when I upgraded to an iPhone because the Pre was becoming a bit of a dead end.
The wireless Touchstone charging is one thing that Palm Inc. (I refuse to give HP credit) got very, very right. Why can't the other manufacturers copy from them or license the tech? It was so wonderful and elegant to be able to just place the phone on the stand and have it charge. It worked very reliably and I never had a lick of troub