Power DesignLine Blog
Is wireless recharging's day finally here?
Bill Schweber
7/4/2010 8:57 AM EDT
Doing everything "wireless" has been a long-standing dream for over a hundred years, and some of that dream is reality. I see three categories of doing things wireless:
- Communication: now fully realized, via radio, TV, Wi-Fi, and satellites; the list of ways we communicate without a physical connection is pretty long;
- Power transmission over distance, envisioned by Tesla: not here, may never be, despite some impressive demonstrations, as the laws of physics which work against it are pretty fierce (see MIT's "Toward more efficient wireless power delivery";
- Short-distance power transmission: the jury is still out, but lots is happening.
- You can get accessories for your cell phone, smart phone, and similar devices which implement wireless recharging in conjunction with a special flat, inductive pad.
- The very cautious and venerable Underwriters Laboratories Inc. has initiated work on a safety standard for wireless chargers, "UL developing first-edition standard for wireless charging devices for use with low-energy products" (note that this is only a safety standard, not a performance or interoperability standard).
- Finally, market-research firm iSuppli Corp. released a report on the bright future for such chargers, "Wireless Charging Market Set to Expand by Factor of Nearly 70 by 2014" (although the precision to four significant figures of their projection, to 234.9 million units in 2014, makes me wonder about the credibility of the entire report!).
So, is wireless charging going to be a long-term winner, a loser, or a respectable, solid, mid-range success? It will be interesting to watch the market for it develop, and how it goes. ♦
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p_g
7/6/2010 1:37 PM EDT
Wireless charging is always been an interesting topic. However whenever I hear about wireless charging I got worried about its impact on human. There is already a known impact high energy cellphone signal impact on human body. The energy out of cell phone is much smaller than wireless charging energy we are talking about.
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green_is_now
7/9/2010 6:44 PM EDT
cell/smart phones, laptops/tablets, MP3 players...
Yes a winner
Everyone hates lugging and plugging in chargers.
All others like TV's...
why?
A universal one that my cell phone, laptop or whatever can be thrown on to a desktop/dashboard... and get recharded will be a winner.
I do not want 17 different inductive chargers all over my house, office and car.
This would not be much better, only saves the hassle of plugging in
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calebcrome
7/27/2010 8:55 AM EDT
I'm don't know of any credible evidence that cell phone radiation causes any harm. If you know of any studies that have passed credible peer review that do show a link, I'd love to know.
As for Inductive charging though, remember that EM fields fall off at 1/r^2 (pretty fast), whereas magnetic fields fall off at roughly 1/r^3 (super fast). That's why refrigerator magnets hardly do anything once you get them 1-2 mm away from the fridge.
As further evidence for the lack of danger are MRI machines. There, you're sitting in the middle of one of the strongest magnetic fields on the planet, and again, nobody seems to be harmed by them (except by the stray piece of iron that flys into the machine)
Of course, we need to keep vigilant for dangers, but a few charging pads around the house hardly seem like they'd pose a threat to anything, especially if they are only on when they sense a unit to charge.
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t.alex
8/1/2010 12:52 PM EDT
The simple question is: do we really need wireless charging? what are the devices that we need to charge wirelessly? at least i haven't seen the urgent need for it yet.
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