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Apple is working with Energous on wireless charging

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Re: Apple is working with Energous on wireless charging

#11

Post by scoot »

noobermin wrote: post #9
nxzero wrote: post #3

Work on wireless power transfer has been going on over 100-years, even Tesla worked on it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_power_transfer Hard to imagine this being mainstream anytime soon. Is there any reason to believe this will become mainstream in the near future?

Want to take it even further? "Wireless power transfer" has existed since the sun started shining. Sit outside on a sunny day, and you'll receive power through the transferred through the vacuum of space. I know, I know, I kid. We're talking specifically energy transfer that is readily convertible to electrical current.

Like a solar powered watch or calculator?

Re: Apple is working with Energous on wireless charging

#12

Post by cmiller1 »

brendan_a_b wrote: post #8
ihuman wrote: post #4

I thought Apple already did wireless charging with the Apple Watch. Why is this news?

"Energous’ technology involves more than just a charging mat to lay devices on top of. The company’s transmitter broadcasts proprietary waveforms directly to receivers and then surrounds those receivers with a radio frequency “pocket” that charges devices. The signals can travel up to 15 feet, and up to 12 devices can be charged at once." This quote sums up the difference

>The signals can travel up to 15 feet, and up to 12 devices can be charged at once.

Wow, so if this technology became ubiquitous and transmitters were installed en masse in public places... we might in the future simply not even THINK about our device battery levels.

Re: Apple is working with Energous on wireless charging

#13

Post by satysin »

brendan_a_b wrote: post #8
ihuman wrote: post #4

I thought Apple already did wireless charging with the Apple Watch. Why is this news?

"Energous’ technology involves more than just a charging mat to lay devices on top of. The company’s transmitter broadcasts proprietary waveforms directly to receivers and then surrounds those receivers with a radio frequency “pocket” that charges devices. The signals can travel up to 15 feet, and up to 12 devices can be charged at once." This quote sums up the difference

Yay a proprietary changing protocol so I will need how many different wireless charging stations?

Sigh.

Re: Apple is working with Energous on wireless charging

#14

Post by FireBeyond »

cmiller1 wrote: post #12
brendan_a_b wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Energous’ technology involves more than just a charging mat to lay devices on top of. The company’s transmitter broadcasts proprietary waveforms directly to receivers and then surrounds those receivers with a radio frequency “pocket” that charges devices. The signals can travel up to 15 feet, and up to 12 devices can be charged at once." This quote sums up the difference

>The signals can travel up to 15 feet, and up to 12 devices can be charged at once. Wow, so if this technology became ubiquitous and transmitters were installed en masse in public places... we might in the future simply not even THINK about our device battery levels.

It'd be awesome. Shame it won't be this technology, which is going to be proprietary to Apple devices, though.

Re: Apple is working with Energous on wireless charging

#16

Post by tedsanders »

nxzero wrote: post #3

Work on wireless power transfer has been going on over 100-years, even Tesla worked on it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_power_transfer Hard to imagine this being mainstream anytime soon. Is there any reason to believe this will become mainstream in the near future?

As a physicist, I am similarly skeptical. It seems quite unlikely to me that wireless power will take off within our lifetimes. However, if it does happen, I suspect it will be because of one of the following hypotheses:

(1) Electronics continue to become more energy efficient, to the point that a tiny wireless power trickle is sufficient to run them

(2) Perhaps computers will be an enabling technology, both in design (with E&M modeling, algorithm-assisted antenna design) and in operations (computer controlled beam steering)

Anyone care to share any other "post-mortem" hypotheses?

Re: Apple is working with Energous on wireless charging

#17

Post by agumonkey »

adevine wrote: post #15

My understanding, though, is that all of these wireless charging solutions are significantly less efficient that wired power. Even if it's, say, 10% less efficient, that's a huge, huge waste of energy on a large scale if this technology becomes popular.

Depends, how much energy is used in making cables that break, get lost ? Even though building the wireless adapter endpoints will also be costly ... hmm

Re: Apple is working with Energous on wireless charging

#20

Post by noobermin »

scoot wrote: post #11
noobermin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want to take it even further? "Wireless power transfer" has existed since the sun started shining. Sit outside on a sunny day, and you'll receive power through the transferred through the vacuum of space. I know, I know, I kid. We're talking specifically energy transfer that is readily convertible to electrical current.

Like a solar powered watch or calculator?

Arguably, yes. Of course, the power requirement to recharge a battery for a calculator (in a decent amount of time) is a lot less than that for a modern cell phone. Same physics if your level of detail is Ohm's Law but very different in practice because we are talking about charging a phone batt in a comparable time to plugging it in.
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