I’m not an experienced electrical engineer so I’m never sure about the feasibility of this sort of thing, but I’ve seen wireless power demonstrated before, and if you’re willing to work within certain restrictions, it seems to be a perfectly good option. I don’t really like the idea of, say, microwave based power being shot all over my room, so this magnetic induction technique is more attractive to me.
It requires a thin “receiver” coil to be installed somewhere in your phone, probably the closer to the back the better, and then a complementary coil transmits the power at a modest rate but high efficiency when you put the phone down on the charge mat. Man, that would be sweet.
I had been thinking about how to do this for a while… all I had was the idea unfortunately and no execution (obviously, since that isn’t my creation) on it, but the potential is huge. Imagine if you had your laptop with you and went to a coffee shop, just put the laptop down on the table and it could start charging. When you go to sleep, if you keep your phone next to you like I do, your night stand might have the same technology, and it could start charging automatically.
I used to think about also transmitting data over this kind of a surface, but with wifi being so developed and far along, that probably isn’t the best thing to focus on for them.
Anyway, this is pretty amazing. Personally, I think the next 4-5 years might be very interesting. With Sprint’s recent approval to acquire Clearwire (and with it, Wimax), who knows if in a few years, all of our devices like laptops will come with a data plan that is wireless and works all over the nation, at an affordable price. A large portion of the population doesn’t have a land line anymore, why is our internet still over wires? Put the technical reasons aside, and the general goal is to get rid of those wires, one step at a time.
Some questions in case someone know who knows more about the above device can answer:
1. I know just the basics about electrical topics, but will a device like this transmit AC or DC power? Basically, could we eliminate needing to convert the power for laptops and phones with a device the size of a small brick?
2. What can of materials did they make that surface out of? Will it be able to shock someone who touches it?
Ankit, the power is neither AC or DC per say it uses magnetetism to create the electricity. Same type of science used in turbines or windmills, except this time on an incredibly small scale.
As for the AC DC question, it would help charge the battery by the receiver creating electricity from the magnetic field, then sending the electricity to the battery. So no, without a charge cable you wouldn’t need a brick to change from AC to DC.
It also wouldn’t shock you as its magnetic field gets converted and changed into electric power, not actually electricity.
I am a social work major, not an engineer so I could be incredibly wrong, but this is just the way I understand it.
Theory is solid: they’ve used this in electric toothbrushes since the 1950s and in cooking surfaces for years.
This is interesting but without range, I am not sure this is really that useful. I mean, place it on a pad, I might as well just pull it in.
Also, why would manufactures integrate this tech? bec it’s cool?