Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Wireless Power Recharging Nears Fruition

Posted by timothy on from the lead-codpiece-is-all-that-prevents-it-now dept.

AlexanderT writes "Mobileread.com is reporting that wireless power recharging of mobile devices may become commercially available by the end of this year. Various recently filed patents by Cambridge UK-based Splashpower Ltd. indicate how close the company is in realizing this technology."

47 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. Big Deal by DaNasty · · Score: 5, Informative

    Bah, Tesla did it ages ago.

    --
    Wanna get nasty? - DaNasty
    1. Re:Big Deal by Donny+Smith · · Score: 2, Informative

      Interesting stuff can be found on networks - usually HAARP and Tesla, these two words, produce good results.

      If cell phones are dubious, this shit is scary - it must be impossible to keep out of electromagnetic radiation's reach.

    2. Re:Big Deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      One of tesla's famous experiments was powering an electric motor over a distance of several miles, to a farmhouse nearby his laboratory. The farm had no power generation of any kind (as most other places didn't at the time). Tesla was able to beam power to a receiver, and run the motor to do real work for several hours.

      His notes on this, alas, have been lost.

    3. Re:Big Deal by Soldrinero · · Score: 5, Informative
      Here's a video of a Tesla-style wireless power transmitter in action: wireless power!

      I hope they start using this widely. It will make life a lot more intersting...

      --
      I would rather be killed by a terrorist than enslaved by my government.
    4. Re:Big Deal by dbIII · · Score: 3, Informative
      Forgive me for the newb question, but are there things that he did or use that we to this day still cannot replicate and/or explain?
      No - ever wondered why those concept drawings he did of broadcast powered vehicles stayed as pencil sketches and didn't even get inked in? He moved on to AC transmission via wires. Broadcast power made more sense as a concept back then - power transmission lines didn't exist and everyone knew it would take a vast amount of copper to get electricity to cities which so some inefficiency was acceptable. In the end experiments showed that you had to have a very strong signal to be able to do much at a distance, but someone had to try it out first. A side effect of broadcast power was radio, and Tesla was eventually granted the US patent for that.

      Back then what we take as basic electronmagnetic physics was all weird stuff, the earth return experiments paticularly freaked people out (sticking a light bulb in the dirt and watch it light up), but it didn't take long before we had Telslas three phase alternating current with earth return.

      Edison pushed DC very hard, and played the man instead of the ball by attacking Tesla and not AC and succeeded in discrediting Tesla in the USA - so he's become the subject of mystic crystal crap fake TV documentaries. In the rest of the world he's just the guy who came up with the best system that did a lot of experimentation to find out what would work.

    5. Re:Big Deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      There is not even proof he did it. The most proof I have ever seen is a newspaper article about it. So, no witnesses, and I can't even find direct evidence he admitted to doing such a thing. The whole thing could be a myth.

    6. Re:Big Deal by dbIII · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I'm trying to figure out which person you're referring to, the documentary bit seems to point at tesla, but the other part points at edison...
      The sort of fake documentary I mean is the ones that talk about the boat ramps on Easter Island as proof that they are roads leading to a sunken continent. There's been stuff like that done about Tesla, using him as an excuse to push their warped ideas.

      Edison was a very capable and not entirely scrupulous businessman, and he wasn't going to let the fact he had a system that was far less safe or efficient than Teslas - so he called Telsla a crank and a dreamer that was promising the impossible. Some of the mud stuck, since Edison was more or less a national hero, and Telsa was from some bit of Eastern Europe full of untrustworthy Jews and Slavs (nineteenth century USA attidudes folks), and since no-one would go against Edison initially Telsa would tell anyone that would listen that there was a conspiricy against him - which was effectively true, but made him look more like a crank.

      In the end it was Edisons system that we use at low voltages (transmitting DC is impractical), and Teslas system to move the current long distances and run motors of any decent size. There's nothing weird or mystical about AC current or even broadcast power (which is just high intensity radio waves).

    7. Re:Big Deal by rich3rd · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Tesla had the unfortunate distinction of being latched onto by a lot of wackos who believed he was some kind of Venutian sent to Earth to save us from our ignorance. This biography illuminates his problems with Edison, who only hated AC because he didn't think of it first. Since the book was written in 1981, the author would not have known about Asperger's Syndrome, but from the accounts of all his quirks, it seems pretty obvious that he was a poster child for the condition. He was also very loyal, almost to a fault, and often to the wrong people. When George Westinghouse complained to Tesla that he couldn't afford to pay him the million dollars he had promised him for the patents on the AC power transmission system, Tesla gave him the rights. Later, when Tesla started running out of funds for his experiments, Westinghouse left him out in the cold. Another interesting thing about Edison: As part of his smear campaign to prove how "unsafe" alternating current was, he held many public demonstrations at which he used AC to electrocute live animals. Nice guy, huh? If I believed in a hell, I'd have to think that Edison is there now, being eternally electrocuted with high currents of the DC he was so fond of.

    8. Re:Big Deal by EnronHaliburton2004 · · Score: 2, Informative

      One of tesla's famous experiments was powering an electric motor over a distance of several miles, to a farmhouse nearby his laboratory.

      WHere's the proof to this claim?

      Any pictures, film, 3rd party verifiable observations, etc?

      We've all seen wireless power transmission over a few feet, which is cool but it couldn't transmit power a few miles unless the machine was huge, and it would probably be hazardous to your health (See the video in one of the other threads here), and we've seen Tesla coils. But where's the proof that he transmitted power wirelessly over several miles?

      Alot of things have been said about Tesla: Inventing small machines which can cause the earth to shake tremendously (like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge), wireless power transmission over a few miles, communication with aliens, or that Tesla was killed by the government and all of his worked is locked away in a secret lab...

      but alot of this is pure rumor, sometimes with a few sketchy notes. Where's the proof?

      --
      94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
    9. Re:Big Deal by ScrewMaster · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A lot of information about Tesla's accomplishments is apocryphal. That's not to belittle Tesla himself: some of the things he did were astounding, particularly given the times in which he lived. Truly, he was a genius at applied physics, and far more scientific in his approach than many of his contemporaries (Edison, for example, who was an empiricist to the core.) Tesla, however, has achieved a sort of cult status today, and many mysterious, unexplainable inventions have been attributed to him. One "eyewitness account" I read some years ago had Tesla connecting a wooden box containing several vacuum tubes and a complex circuit to an electric brougham, which then drove around for several hours powered solely by this device, the vehicle's batteries having been previously removed. Uh huh. The usual explanation for why he never released such a remarkable piece of technology is that he "felt the world wasn't ready for it." Sure. And when Westinghouse foundered and couldn't pay royalties on Tesla's existing patents, you don't think Tesla would have brought that out in a heartbeat to stay out of the poorhouse.

      There's a similar story about a man who buys a car and drives it from Chicago to New York on a single gallon of gas. He then drives back to Chicago and takes it back to the dealer he bought it from. The dealer then insists that he give the car back, since he had accidentally gotten an experimental model with a special "trick carburetor". So-called "free energy" nutjobs are famous for promoting stories like this, which usually involve some dark conspiracy. Of course, the fact that we would have to toss the laws of thermodynamics out the window escapes them.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    10. Re:Big Deal by johnrpenner · · Score: 4, Informative


      Tesla did Wireless Power, 'with no diminuation with distance'.

      Tesla's wireless power was technically demonstrated to be feasable.
      But socially unfeasable. Because our Social Structures do not yet permit
      a system where you can afford to give away your power for free.

      The reason nobody wants to use it, is because with Tesla's system,
      you can't METER it - you have to give it away. If you have a Hydro station,
      and use Tesla's 'Magnifying Transmitter' (as he called it), then you would be
      simply GIVING your power away, because you couldn't control who uses it.
      Therefore, all the electric companies used a more limited version of his AC system,
      using wires so that you could put a Power-Meter Barnacle on every site that
      was using the AC power you supplied.

      best regards,
      j

    11. Re:Big Deal by QuickFox · · Score: 2, Funny
      Of course, the fact that we would have to toss the laws of thermodynamics out the window escapes them.
      Don't you get it? Those laws are part of the conspiracy!
      --
      Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
  2. Again StarTrek way ahead of it's time by yabos · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Stuff like this was always on StarTrek and I thought, no way, but now, that's amazing.

    1. Re:Again StarTrek way ahead of it's time by pizen · · Score: 2, Funny

      I thought the moral was: Don't wear a red shirt on ST:TOS

  3. Wireless - really Inductive Coupling by richardoz · · Score: 5, Informative

    When I saw the title about wireless charging, RF (Radio Frequency) came to mind.
    Then I RTFA (Articles / Advertisements) and realized that they are in fact talking about inductive coupling.
    Inductive charging cradles have been used by Sonicare® for several years to charge their cordless toothbrushes.
    It pretty cool anyway!

    --
    All the worlds indeed a .sig, and we are mearly players..
  4. Nikola Tesla? by LanMan · · Score: 2, Informative

    Didn't Nikola Tesla work on remote power transmission way back when? I thought I remembered seeing info about this in the back of old Popular Science magazines when I was a kid.

    1. Re:Nikola Tesla? by Jozer99 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, but the problem was that if you got close enough to the changing station, it would charge you, in the form of 40000000 kajillion volts. They were also monsterously ineffecient, his test models that could power an acre with usable amerage were the size of light houses. Nowadays, we also know that having that much EMI around constantly will give you cancer in short order. What this company is probably doing is called inductive coupling. This is a relatively simple phenomina. When you have lots of electrity running through a coil, then you place some more wire inside the coil, current is generated in the second coil. This is not a long range effect, so don't think that when you walk in your front door your cell phone and laptop will start charging. It would be more of a "place the device on the special box, no plugging it in" kind of thing. My question is how much power it uses. Induction is much weaker than conduction, so it seems like a laptop that requires 30W of power to recharge would need 1000W to run through the charging mat. I wonder how much more people are willing to pay on their electric bills so they don't have to plug their laptops into the power adapter every day.

    2. Re:Nikola Tesla? by dougmc · · Score: 2, Informative
      Nowadays, we also know that having that much EMI around constantly will give you cancer in short order...

      Riight. And John Kerry is our rightful President.

      To expand on that, we know no such thing. Ionizing radiation (X-rays, gamma rays, etc.) certainly does, but radio and microwaves operate at much lower frequencies and do not cause ionization.

      What the effects of non-ionizing RF raditation on meat (i.e. people) are, beyond heating it up, are not really well known yet. Perhaps it does cause cancer, but it has yet to be proven. Either way, it's not considered smart to expose your self to extremely high RF levels -- and if the levels get high enough, even the thermal effects can become signifigant. People have been known to warm themselves by standing in front of a microwave dish -- but nobody knows what the long term effects of that are. (In the short term, it makes you warm. And looking at it directly can heat your eyes very quickly, sometimes even destroying your eyes if you do it long enough.)

    3. Re:Nikola Tesla? by rco3 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Inductive charging systems are considerably more than 3% efficient. It's nothing but a transformer with no magnetic core and somewhat less coupling than usual. Depending on the physical layout of the charging and receiving coils, energy transfer efficiency can easily be greater than 90%, and the least little tiny bit of intelligence on the part of the charger will have it shut down the charging coil when not needed...

      If systems that used magnetic induction between two coils for energy transfer were so inefficient, we wouldn't use these things called transformers EVERYWHERE. In fact, that was the whole point of Tesla's preference for AC power...

      --

      Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
    4. Re:Nikola Tesla? by photon317 · · Score: 2, Insightful


      Just to drive home how silly this company is, realize that not only is their "Wireless Charging" really just inductive coupling, but that inductive coupling is basically what a Transformer does. You know Transformers, which have been ubiquitous since electricity came into widespread use. They're in every freaking wall dongle and virtually every electronic device's power supply. The difference between "Inductive Coupling Chargers" and transformers is that a transformer is housed in a single case, whereas the charger split the transformer out into two distinct coils in seperate package, which you place close to each other to transmit the inductive energy.

      For that matter, my Sonicare toothbrush has been recharging via an inductive coupler for years now, so it's not like even this particular incarnation is new to the commercial world.

      --
      11*43+456^2
  5. Candela rechargeables already do this by JacobKreutzfeld · · Score: 2, Informative

    Cool candle-shaped lights. They recharge when they sit on their base station but it's not a direct electrical contact.

    http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/lights/5cf5/

  6. Oh ok....not so impressive by mcknation · · Score: 4, Informative



    At first I read the summary and freaked.
    Wireless Power!
    My mind raced witht the possible applications...this lasted 1/2 of a second. Then I stopped writing new sci-fi reality in my mind, read the company's website. It's really cool but has no where near the applications of TRUE wireless power.

    /-McK

  7. Re:Wireless charging fries brains by spac3manspiff · · Score: 5, Interesting

    " There are several small problems with this, the first being that it still requires wires! "

    It still isnt 'wireless'...

  8. How is this wireless charging ? by Animaether · · Score: 5, Informative

    How is this wireless charging, if you need to place the object on a specific pad ?

    Sure, there's no actual wire connection to your phone - but it's not like you can just walk around within N feet of some 'emitter' and the phone will charge.
    That specific pad still has to plug in somewhere.
    And that pad is larger than any travel adapter for a mobile phone - so you won't be taking one with you anytime, which means you'd have to rely on one being present wherever you decide to go ? I don't think so.

    And these plates have been around for years. It's called induction charging.

    The only place where I might just see it happening is in airports - but given that most devices will not work with this pad, but will still work with a regular charger, I don't see any airport opting to do away with their regular sockets and getting these plates instead.

  9. Efficiency? by e2ka · · Score: 3, Informative

    Isn't this going to be a horribly innefficient use of power? Instead of directing current directly to the place it needs to be you are blasting unused energy into space.

    If this gets popular, say every cell phone uses one of these, what is the total wasted energy? I bet it's huge.

    1. Re:Efficiency? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, it won't be as high as you think. As it is an inductively coupled system, it relies on magnetic coupling between the charger and the PDA, etc. It is essentially a power transformer where the secondary winding can be removed. If only the primary remains (i.e. there is no device on the charger) the only energy lost will be the magnetizing current of the primary. Granted, this will be a high-frequency power source, so there will be additional losses in the primary side semiconductors, etc., but it's not like this device is powering the whole room.

    2. Re:Efficiency? by h4rm0ny · · Score: 2, Informative


      RTFA.
      Or, barring that, at least read the first few comments.

      No energy is "blasted" anywhere. It's a pad with a zillion tiny connectors that you set your phone on. Pretty stupid, really.

      Actually, there are no connectors - it uses magnetic induction. Bascially, you run current through a coil generating a magnetic field. The device to be charged contains a similar coil and when this is placed next to the first, the magnetic field generates a charge in the device.

      The GP poster you are replying to is actually right in that this is less efficient than just plugging your phone in. True, the phone uses a transformer in the charger, but this is smaller than the proposed pad and more efficient anyway, I would expect.

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
  10. In other news.... by Grendel's+Dad · · Score: 2, Funny

    In other news, cancer rates in the greater Cambridge area have jumped to epidemic proportions....

  11. Seeing is believing. by Shoten · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've seen this company make this announcement before. And before that, there was the statement that major cellular manufacturers including Nokia and Motorola were interested in the technology. Yeah, no duh, they'd be interested, but the company played it up as though they'd signed contracts to have the tech included in their products, which was definitely not the case. And the graphic images that are being shown haven't changed in about 18 months, at the very least. Show us a working prototype at some conference and I'll kiss whoever built it, but for now I don't believe this company will ever produce a product. They have a great idea, but I don't believe they know how to make it a reality.

    --

    For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
  12. Electric Toothbrushes by n0dalus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've had my electric toothbrush that charges without contact for years. It's not very special. It's just a magnetic field that works like the two parts of a transformer.

  13. TRUE wireless power... by Manchot · · Score: 2, Informative

    "True" wireless power is not all it's cracked up to be. To do it, you'd either have to a) spew power all over the place, a la Tesla, or b) use a focused beam and send it directly at the device. The first option is a tremendous waste of energy, and the second would probably be unreliable (as well as cancer-causing).

    1. Re:TRUE wireless power... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually you are using wireless power all the time. For example in your car: The fuel is certainly not transported by wire.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  14. Standards based? by welshie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have countless wall-warts trying to provide various flavours of low voltage stuff to charge / power my electronic gear. I have things that have identical connectors that provide dangerously different voltages. So, having a wireless charging mat you could just drop your mobile phone on is great; it would be far greater if the technology is sensibly licenced, for instance, the charging equipment could be patented, with royalty fees payable to the inventor (what is this? someone on Slashdot extolling the virtues of patents?).. But the receiving equipment could be royalty free, or maybe even subsidised. This would mean that, for instance, Nokia phones might be able to charge with the same transmitting equipment as a Motorola walkie-talkie, as a Garmin GPS, as a no-named chinese portable DVD player. .. but providing the wireless charging was OPTIONAL, this wouldn't be a problem - you could still charge all the above equipment using traditional ugly wall-warts, but you could also charge with the standard wireless equipment. The inventor could then sell funky wireless recharding pads to the end users, maybe at a premium price, because you'd only need one (or maybe two - one for the home, one for the office). You're paying for the incredible convenience of it all; in much the same way as mobile phone users tend to have to put up with phone rates an order of magnitude higher than fixed line phoned - they are paying for the convenience of it.

  15. Sleep Induction by malia8888 · · Score: 4, Funny
    The company should market these to people with sleep problems. They could make mattress-sized pads and charge maybe $3,000.00 U.S. for them.

    Their ad campaign could claim "Wake up in the morning feeling really recharged!!" :P

    --
    Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
  16. God Help Us by argoff · · Score: 2, Interesting


    That is, for those of us who still have magnetic media arround like tapes and floppys (renember those)

  17. Re:cell phone users by ravenspear · · Score: 4, Funny


    Unfortunately they also need a system to wirelessly recharge their brain, and we don't have that yet.

  18. how about microwave tranmission ? by savuporo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    From what i gather, this is inductive power transmission and limited by distance.
    Well, theres another kind: microwave transmission, which is also a demonstrated technology. Theorethically, we could beam power to any distance with it
    At one point, Mitshubishi was planning on deployment of sattellite system that would have beamed microwave power to portable devices. SolarBird . They still list a launch date of 2005 but ...
    Heres a Space Solar Power Monitor, a site that keeps tabs on whats happening on WPT front.
    Btw, here's a Wikipedia page on microwave tranmission

    --
    http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
  19. Re:Wireless - really Inductive Coupling by freeze128 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, I had one of those brushes... It lasted about 1 year. After that, the battery wouldn't hold a charge anymore. In an effort to see if I could replace the battery (like I have on my rechargeable razors), I broke it open. It's just a coil of wire on the bottom of the brush. There wasn't even a LOT of wire, so it probably didn't provide too much current.

    BTW: I wasn't able to replace the battery without destroying the brush. Worthless.

  20. A couple nitpicks by serutan · · Score: 2, Funny

    First, the article makes it sound like these charging pads are going to be lying around everywhere (airports, coffee shops...). There have already been articles about businesses viewing "power leeching" as a problem. What's going to change these people's minds?

    Second, this gave me a chuckle:
    A series of recently filed patents may indicate that Slashpower technology is finally ready to march.

    Apparently the author lives someplace where filing patents means something tangible!

  21. That's so afro-tech-mod style ... by antani · · Score: 2, Funny



    http://www.afrotechmods.com/cheap/arnoldpad/arno ld pad.htm

    as you can see, you can already charge your wireless mouse in a wireless way

    they filled patents for that ! wow

  22. The trick is ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you drive the primary coil with a very spiky signal, you get max. dv/dt. That means effectively that you don't need a core. You can couple a decent amount of power at a range of a half inch or so. Look at the charging circuit on your toothbrush. You will most likely find something like a 555 timer. (I had a couple of students implement this as part of a project about seven years ago.)

    Another example of such power transfer is rfid chips. In that case, the transfer takes place over a range of feet. The bottom line is that the technology isn't very radical.

    On the other hand, the idea of some kind of standard interface for charging batteries is huge. As I sit here, I see approx. a zillion battery chargers. They infest my bookshelf. Everything I own has a different battery charger. Being able to set three cell phones, PDAs and digital camera on a pad to charge is a very welcome idea. It would sure clean up the mess of wires and wall warts that I see before me.

  23. Vaporware of 2001. by Speare · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They were talking big about this thing in 2001/2002. It's been vaporware for years, because they haven't found anyone to actually fund and manufacture the things. A couple of prototypes is nice, and a few c|net and CNN mentions is nice, but it's not on my desk right now, three years later.

    --
    [ .sig file not found ]
  24. Re:Wireless - really Inductive Coupling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    err... correct me if I'm wrong on this, but previous commercial applications based on this property were soley used for specific proprietry devices. What is unique and news worthy about this application is that it will be a standard in the same way that firewire and blue tooth are... i.e. you will be about to buy devices from diffrent manufacturers that are all inter compatable, so your mobile (cell) phone that requires 3.8v to rechange will charge on the same pad that your PDA that needs 12v. I beileve the ultimate extension of this would be that the entire surface of your desk acts as a pad, and anything you place upon it that uses batteries will recarge istself. The fact that i won't have to carry 20 diffrent powerpacks will be the major benifit to myself. the fact that my desk at home is a little less cluttered with recahrging cables.

  25. Already in use for mobile devices by TheGuano · · Score: 4, Interesting

    People have already pointed out the sonicare toothbrush, but this is also used for the Abiocor artificial heart. Especially in the case of something embedded in your body, it's much better to have a system that does not require electrodes sticking out of your skin! And while a toothbrush may fit in your pocket, I'd wager a replacement heart qualifies more as a true mobile device!

  26. Re:Wireless - really Inductive Coupling by shokk · · Score: 2, Informative

    Mine has been working fine for years. Not only do I use it, but my wife and two of our three kids use it. My third child is only 1-1/2 YO so he's still getting the hang of the non-electric version, but that Braun will work just fine for him. Our original brush cost US$50, and I've seen them in the store for US$20 that now have a two-minute timer. You probably throw away $20 on a weekly basis, so what is $20 annually even if you were to somehow mess up the new one in a year's time?

    --
    "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
  27. Re:But its different this time.. by jedi-monkey · · Score: 2, Informative
    ...this time its Patented!

    Well, not exactly...

    All these patents:

    645,576 , 649,621 , 613,809 , 685,955 , 685,953 , 985,954 , 787,412 , 723,188 , 725,605

    and most notably,

    1,119,732

    Are all Tesla's patents regarding such a feat.

  28. Re:Wireless - really Inductive Coupling by pclminion · · Score: 2, Informative
    There wasn't even a LOT of wire, so it probably didn't provide too much current.

    Actually, you've got it backwards. Coils with fewer turns can supply more current than coils with more turns, but at a lower voltage. More turns == more voltage, less current. Fewer turns == lower voltage, higher current.

    For the purpose of charging a battery, the only concern is voltage. You have to have at least battery voltage in order to get current to flow into the battery. So ideally, you want to use as few turns as necessary to achieve the desired voltage (over-volting the battery is pointless and destructive).