London Calling: Forget wireless charging

3/1/2013 10:07 AM EST

Yes, duh.

The thing that you leave unmentioned is that the wireless ecosystem that was supposed to come with wireless charging, i.e., 60GHz fat pipes, is also dead in the water as a consequence. If you have to plug in your smartphone to charge, why wouldn't you use the same plug to stream video to your TV?

3/1/2013 10:29 AM EST

Many people believe the killer app for wireless charging is for the automakers to embed it in the center consoles of cars. From an energy use perspective, there is no waste there -- the electricity will be generated anyway as a byproduct of the engine running.

For home or office charging, the concept of a charging mat that plugs into the mains doesn't seem like a huge benefit to me. But if charging mats get embedded into office desktops or kitchen countertops -- with a permanent connection to the mains -- it starts to get more interesting.

As for efficiency, your comment about "do the right thing and plug in a wired charger for the time it is needed and then disconnect it" sounds great, but I suspect few people actually do that -- not because of lack of concern about wasting energy, but more out of concern that chargers have a habit of disappearing when not plugged in.

Standard wall wart chargers could indeed be made more efficient by becoming smarter, but that seems unlikely. Who is going to add intelligence to a $5 wall wart in the interest of energy conservation, and which consumers will pay extra for that?

3/1/2013 10:49 AM EST

I really don't understand value proposition for wireless charging. I still need to bring my device to be charged in close proximity to the wireless charger. How is that different than connecting it to a wired charger? Are we really that lazy that we want to save ourselves the effort of pushing into the plug?

3/1/2013 11:03 AM EST

I think the argument goes something like, I have 4 phones in the house, a tablet (or two), a cordless phone (or two), a laptop, a remote, several battery operated kids toys and a plethora of chargers to support them all. If we all played nice and built a one size fits all charger, I think your argument applies (which is what wireless charging is trying to be).

Why do you believe that efficiencies won't get better with further development like they do everywhere else over time?

Think of the possibilities if every AA or AAA battery in your house was wirelessly rechargable. I think that's eco friendly enough for all, rather than the billions that get dumped in landfills every year? Many many more products out there simply don't come with chargers than those that do ...

3/1/2013 11:07 PM EST

Yes, we are lazy. Having a pad to throw my phone on at the end of the day is much easier than getting that little micro USB connected. On the other hand, I am very stingy with my money, so I will plug the little connector into the phone rather than pay extra in energy costs.

3/4/2013 4:11 AM EST

The universal charger already exist: through USB port. I got a smartphone, a tablet and a normal old mobile phone. All got the USB-charger port. I got an USB adaptor for the wall/car... since then I charge only through USB port.

3/4/2013 10:25 AM EST

The Y-generation is sensitive green planet, radiation pollution etc. Would young people embrace energy inefficient wireless charging?

3/4/2013 11:28 AM EST

The efficiency question will never go away, but it will become less and less or a factor. Consider the required battery capacity of a phone. Years ago, very large batteries were required. The battery size dropped over time as the electronics became more efficient and the transmit power dropped.

Battery capacity took a big saw tooth back up with Smart phones, but it will eventually work its way back down again. My pre-smart phones typically could go about a week without being plugged into a charger. My smartphone needs to be charged every day.

Once we work back to that level, then charging energy will be a much smaller factor. There are ways to deal with phantom power too. Consider a system where the wireless charging plate would draw a few micro amps when not charging anything. It may even be possible to completely disconnect it from the wall. I would venture a guess that most corded chargers are just left plugged into the wall.

3/4/2013 11:33 AM EST

If wireless chargers, through their convenience, catch on and become ubiquitous; and they are standardized to charge a multitude of devices; and if by eliminating the mechanical plug and socket, the wireless chargers have much longer lifetimes than the wall-warts and USB cables they replace: Then might not wireless charges reduce resource waste, and the energy wasted in the manufacture and distribution of countless charging devices that currently come included with almost every commercial electronic device? Perhaps wireless chargers though less efficient at their task, are potentially greener over their lifetimes when all factors are considered.

3/4/2013 12:31 PM EST

@cescharlau

It IS possible that wireless chargers are greener than badly designed and badly deployed wired chargers that are left plugged in drawing a little power 24/7.

I agree there is the issue of a single piece of equipment made, packaged and shipped versus multiple chargers.

3/4/2013 2:18 PM EST

As I look at the morass of charging wires running around my office to various objects, there's no way I'm going to unplug all of them when they are charged up, because the net result will be too many ending up uncharged, reducing battery life and ultimately costing a whole bunch of energy to replace. And, unplugging the chargers when a device is charged means adding a slight hazard (multiply this by hundreds of millions of people and it's not so slight): that of electrical shock and that of fire from disturbing the outlet strip and it's environment.

This whole obsession with energy efficiency has reached the level of a religion, with its tenets unquestioned. Energy generation is there to improve our lives, and the piddly energy savings from unplugging wall warts (or not using the less efficient near field chargers) is just not enough to justify the effort except for either the innumerate or the energy obsessed. If the near field charging reduces the clutter (not to mention the fire hazard), I'll use it even if it's 50% efficient.

3/4/2013 4:09 PM EST

Sure, energy is here to improve our lives...but we can't afford to ruin the planet in the process as that would eventually ruin our lifes

3/4/2013 8:52 PM EST

Well said, iniewski. The world is not here for us to exploit. Life goes on without you. M9 is likely of the XYZ gen., not an insightful bunch.

3/5/2013 3:31 AM EST

This power-saving business is a big joke to people who are heated by electric heaters.
During winter, when energy is scarce (hydro-electric is off due to water freezing, solar energy is low, and power requirements are high), people who use electricity to heat their homes and unplug their chargers or turn off their lights will only increase the power consumption of their heaters. In the end, you'll want N kW of power to heat up your home at all times, and whether that power comes from your electric-heaters or various plugged-in electronic devices will not change a thing: all energy ends up as heat.
And in summer, energy is abondant enough (solar is more efficient, hydroelectric is on, and power demand is low) for you to be able to waste some of it.

This power-saving business only applies to people who heat their homes with something else than electricity, and in my country, gaz-based central heating has become more or less illegal in new buildings due to explosion hazard, so all new buildings are electric-heated.

My point: as long as we don't look at the full picture, "saving energy" by turning off a light bulb has no meaning.

3/5/2013 11:41 AM EST

That is partially true Denis but only in cold places and only at cold times. I live in Canada (cold place by any standard) and use heating only 4 months. On top of that natural gas heating is 3x less expensive than electrical here. So I have no plans to use wireless charging while charging my iPhones to heat my house in the process anytime soon ;-)

3/5/2013 3:17 PM EST

If done right wireless can be made efficient.
Wireless charging is going to happen everywhere.
It's just a matter of time. Best we do it efficiently.

3/5/2013 3:20 PM EST

In fact wireless charging of electric cars will also happen. (They have buses like this at bus stops now - for a developmental version of these buses.) And the charging coils will be in the streets - this will save tons of weight as only minimal battery capacity will be needed.
(An emergency small gas generator can be added to the car in case street coils are broken or not there in places.)

3/5/2013 3:22 PM EST

Everyone. Quit being so negative. All things are possible.

3/6/2013 1:57 AM EST

Wow, Peter, this is first time I've seen such an explicit 180 from you. There must be a lot of info that's covered up or ignored by marketing then?

3/6/2013 3:55 AM EST

I came across Splashpower right at the beginning as I used to work with its first first CEO. I agree that the potential of wireless charging seemed fantastic. They were talking about pads in coffee shops, hotels, bars, cars, bedrooms, kitchen worktops etc. The ability to walk into almost any room and drop all my devices on a pad was (and still is) very attractive from a convenience point of view.

I think it foundered, and possibly will continue to founder, on two things. One is the need for ubiquitous pads; the other is the need for universal and seamless interworking across products and manufacturers.

I suspect that the first will never happen due to the cost and the second because of competing interests. I am happy to be corrected by events on both counts!

I admit that I had not considered the "green" aspect before but it is clear that any wireless charging solution is going to be less energy-efficient (for all sorts of reasons - transmission loss and being left on all the time to name but two). Peter's aspiration to used a wired brick and always unplug it when not in use is admirable but 99% of us (myself included) will _never_ do it!

Chris

3/7/2013 3:21 PM EST

All of you talk about the inefficiencies, but none have given any hard numbers. You are all going on gut, which is mostly good, but best you get some hard facts from an actual pad or pad company with each of the competing technologies (inductive or resonant, or etc) before you start spouting a religion.

3/7/2013 11:17 PM EST

I have designed wireless and it will never be as efficient as wired everything being equal. Wired can more easily detect load and shut itself down. If the manufactures can use a standard for wireless they could create a standard for a couple of common plugs for different power levels. I believe parts of Europe require common chargers for cell phones. Think of all the land fills saved and the energy saved in not making extra chargers. Also no EMI pollution.