Slashdot Mirror
Wireless Power Group Sees Standard Within 6 Months
alphadogg writes "The group developing a standard for wireless charging expects to complete its first specification within six months, opening the door for makers of cell phones, digital cameras and other devices to bring compatible products to market. Wireless charging lets consumers place gadgets on a mat that plugs into a wall outlet, and have the devices recharge automatically without needing to plug in each one. Apart from the gee-whiz factor, it's supposed to make life more convenient by letting people walk into their home or office, toss their gadgets onto a mat to recharge and forget about them."
Charging mats will recognize when a device is fully charged and then consume a trickle of energy in standby mode
Okay thats interesting. We all use wireless (inductive) power in other places and while, yeah, the cheap plugpack segment is mostly switchmode now I wonder if there are places where the efficency of transformers could be improved with a digital back channel which says send me this much power.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
We've tried doing this with physical plugs to no avail, even if one half conforms to a standard there will always be a few very popular device manufacturers -cough- Apple -cough- who will break the trend and inconvenience a large amount of users.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Well, unless the baby implements the correct handshaking protocol with the controller there shouldn't be a problem. And as for metal, I'm assuming that the standard (or decent implementations of it) will deal with what to do in the event the mat detects that its deriving an unknown load (shorted loop, etc.).
Have gnu, will travel.
You could put the baby beside a phone or camera which requests power, but even then its only five watts which is not going to do any damage.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The article mentions "The standard is for delivering up to 5 watts of power, which covers most smaller devices. "
This sounds like a pretty low limit to me. My iPhone charger delivers 5 watts and it takes hours before it's charged. Now imagine you buy one of those matts and your family or colleagues throw their phones on the matt as well. At the end of the day, they might not even be charged!
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
I don't really see the point. As long as you have to put the device in a specific location anyway, I don't see that it's much of an improvement over having to connect it with your charger. You have to connect it with a location just the same, with this new tech, just the plug is different (a pad vs a plug).
Wake me when you have a tech that charges my mobile from the moment I step in my home door and leave my mobile in my jacket pocket hanging in the foyer.
Until that use case can be satisfied, I think this is just the same-old, same-old.
With all the /. users saying "this is going to be pointless," and "it's already easy enough as it is," this is sure to be a hit.
Number of times phone stolen from bedside table: 0
Number of times phone stolen from office desk: 0
moox. for a new generation.
You could put the baby beside a phone or camera
No damage to the baby, but that phone/camera is toast as soon as you turn your head :)
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
This will be a huge boon to me.. One of my hobbies is underwater photography, and as anyone who does that will testify, you always have a nervous moment when you immerse the camera and housing at the start of a dive..
This is because you have to seal the camera in a housing, sealed by a multitude of o-rings, each of which need to be cleaned and re-greased every time you open the housing. When you put the o-rings back in place, you have to look carefully for a hair, or a speck of grit or dirt, or anything that could compromise the seal in any way. If you mess up (even a single hair can cause a seal failure), you'll have a lovely view of rising water in your camera housing, and you camera will be so much junk (and you may kill the electronics in the housing too, which is expensive as well!)..
This can really put a crimp in a holiday (no more photography for you! And you did have it insured, didn't you??)..
There are really only two common reasons to crack a housing open.. To take the memory card out and back it up, and to recharge the camera/strobe batteries after a dive..
As you need to recharge after most dives, nobody's really bothered much with wireless data transmission, but if you can wirelessly recharge, it's simple to add wireless data transfer too, so you'll not have to crack the case 'till you want to change the lens (which isn't too common most of the time) or strip it for cleaning (you could probably get away with once or twice a holiday, if that).. Much safer!
You guys do realize that there was a fellow named Tesla that did some really ground breaking work on this originally, right?
Some people are only alive because it's against the law for me to hunt them down and kill them.
The article implies a data channel from the device to the charger so the charger knows when not to deliver power.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Do babies come with Induction coils?
Quote TFA:
"The standard is for a technology called magnetic induction, in which power is transferred between metal coils built into the device and the charging mat when they are placed close to each other. "
Its just a magnetic field folks.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Times cell phone has been stolen at all: 0
Seriously, it lives in your pocket, or on your belt. How many times have you had your wallet stolen? Maybe you have an issue with keeping track of your personal belongings. I've never heard of any of my friends (mostly BB and iPhone users, fairly desirable phones, unlockable and use SIM cards) with stolen phones. Usually it's death by toilet, sidewalk or frustration (wall).
moox. for a new generation.
Do babies come with Induction coils?
A few.
A guy I worked with his son had broken the antenna on his implant in the playground at school. They could get it working by squeezing his head in just the right way to close the break in the antenna wire.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
If the public is already afraid of living near power lines (100yds away), what makes these manufacturers think that having a bunch of 'wireless power pads' is going to be any different? Or is this a case of a rabid chihuahua is no threat due to its size?
How about standardizing on a USB charging interface?
I thought we already had
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
the fact that this process inevitably will cost more energy than plugging the device is seems unimportant...
Privacy is terrorism.
OK does any one else see this as completely nuts?
At the moment the power output is relatively low. 5 watts ish. Lets think about this. This is BROADCAST POWER. It's going to leak into everything around it. There will be no such thing as 95% efficient transfer of power. So where does this residual power go. Well into everything around it. The closer something is the more it will receive.
Very simple chemistry here. Entropy increase with energy. Entropy can simple be defined as the desire of a substance to reach it most random and natural state. ( There is probably a more accurate definition than that. ) AKA Entropy is all about things BREAKING DOWN. So if we add energy to a "thing" it ultimately will break down faster.
I'm sorry but I don't want to be walking around in yet more energy radiation fields. Especially one designed to transmit POWER AKA ENERGY.
5 watts gives way to 10 watts gives away to 25 watts gives away to stupid amounts of power. As "improvements" and legislation allow higher and higher output.
This also strikes me as the most un-green tech out there. Simply a device that radiates POWER.