UBeam’s ultrasound wireless charging is real and about to be funded
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Re: UBeam’s ultrasound wireless charging is real and about to be funded
#2Relevant HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091
Re: UBeam’s ultrasound wireless charging is real and about to be funded
#3Relevant HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091
Pretty interesting how that article talked about how it was impossible and now they supposedly have working prototypes, about to close several huge deals and a series B of about $50 million less than a year later. I wonder how well it works.
Re: UBeam’s ultrasound wireless charging is real and about to be funded
#4I'm still slightly skeptical.
Let's see how it actually performs in a real situation. Of course there might be something (the public) we still don't know about it, that makes it more efficient.
Re: UBeam’s ultrasound wireless charging is real and about to be funded
#5I like that the early prototype consists of a Car-HiFi-Amplifier and something made of Perfboard...
[but of course, makes sense, in the end the HiFi Amp is just a pair of H-Bridges anyway, probably quite useful to pump rather low-frequency energy out]
Re: UBeam’s ultrasound wireless charging is real and about to be funded
#6How much transducer area do you need at the mobile device end? If you could put a flat speaker across a whole face of the device, you might have enough area. It has to be pointed more or less at the emitter, of course. I don't see this as being widely useful at longer ranges. You have to have both line of sight and alignment.
Re: UBeam’s ultrasound wireless charging is real and about to be funded
#7Im slightly concerned about having ~5w of beam formed ultrasound tracking my mobile phone as I clamp it against my ear to make a phone call. I will need convincing!
Re: UBeam’s ultrasound wireless charging is real and about to be funded
#8Im slightly concerned about having ~5w of beam formed ultrasound tracking my mobile phone as I clamp it against my ear to make a phone call. I will need convincing!
We have a persuasion-beam as well, so no problems!
Re: UBeam’s ultrasound wireless charging is real and about to be funded
#9Relevant HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091
Pretty interesting how that article talked about how it was impossible and now they supposedly have working prototypes, about to close several huge deals and a series B of about $50 million less than a year later. I wonder how well it works.
Practical applications are impossible. Prototypes are easier, because they dont have to live in real world.
simple examples - can charge phone in my pocket while im moving around? that will require at least 2(3 to be viable) charging stations in the room. What if there are two people in that room? What if I have a cat and would like to keep him sane? what if my phone is in a lower pocked below the desk level? I have to take it out and put on the desk in unobscured spot? why not put it on $10 Qi pad? Charging multiple phones in a starbucks? haha give me a break.
and all the iot talk thrown in? Its typical 'this will change the world, we can do everything' BS startups do when their core technology doesnt work at all. They have a prototype!, just no real world numbers :))
Re: UBeam’s ultrasound wireless charging is real and about to be funded
#10Im slightly concerned about having ~5w of beam formed ultrasound tracking my mobile phone as I clamp it against my ear to make a phone call. I will need convincing!
The really dangerous part is you can't tell until it starts damaging your hearing, and sometimes not even then, depending on decibels.
You won't hear the sound, so you're depending on it meeting your pain threshold to be warned that something is happening. If it's "merely" 100db or so (a loud drill), you won't feel a thing, and could be exposed for hours without noticing.
These are the lasers of hearing. Without really good studies to back up the safety of this amount of energy, I might just end up avoiding all starbucks.