Disqus
Wireless charging has been the holy grail of consumer electronic devices for as long as I can remember. No more ugly wires in otherwise beautiful rooms or carrying a charger with you to make sure that your smartphone can keep on pushing you those emails from your wife asking you to bring home tartar sauce. Just plop your device on to a table and boom, free energy. If the tooth brushes that lazy yuppies use to clean their grill charges wirelessly, why can’t my mobile phone?
Last Friday the Wireless Power Consortium, responsible for the standard known as Qi, and is composed of many members, some you may have heard of: RIM, Nokia, Samsung, Verizon, LG, HTC and Sony Ericsson, announced that the standard they’ve been working on is officially official. You’ll be able to get up to 5 watts of power straight from the air. Compare this to the 2.5 watts offered by USB 1 and 2, and 4.5 watts with USB 3.0, and you’ll soon be asking yourself how you lived so long with silly rubber coated copper cables.
As for when Qi devices will ship … we don’t know, but we’d venture to say soon since in today’s hyper competitive market, any little thing that separates you from the competition is seen as positive. Mind the pun.
It’s about time that the 14 people who own a Palm Pre stopped hogging all the attention when it comes to this type of technology. With Palm’s solution however you had to change the battery cover of your device, plus buy an expensive stand. What will wireless chargers cost, and how much will adding the ability to wirelessly charge add to the bill of materials of today’s phones? All question we’ll find out in due time. We also hope that furniture companies take notice. Night stands and office desks are prime real estate for having a certain square area be the “Qi Zone”.
I’m trademarking that, so don’t even think about it.
[Via: The Boy Genius Report]
About The Author
Stefan Constantinescu
Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.
