Wireless Power Group Has 'Qi' Prototypes

judgecorp writes "Steady progress on inductive wireless charging. There are now certified prototypes of chargers for Blackberry and iPhone devices that meet the Qi specification of the Wireless Power Consortium, which was announced last year. The spec has advanced from version 0.95 to 1.0, too."

Comments

They are still sorting out cell phones

[scosco62]

with respect to RF....granted, you aren't holding the charger next to your head...but how "near" is near-field when it comes to putting power through the air and the ramifications around EMI and/or health.

Efficient? Better in any way?

[captainpanic]

Call me a conservative engineer... I don't care.

What's the point of this? Is it more efficient (using less electricity) than just plugging a cable into a small socket on the side of the phone? I doubt it.

It easier to use than plugging in a cable in a socket? Hardly.

Is the charger easier to replace than those standard nokia chargers that everyone has several of lying around? Doubt it.

Will it be standardized? That'd be lovely. But normal chargers should have been standardized long ago.

The only added value I see is that you can now completely waterproof a gadget.
I can see the added value for things like electric toothbrushes - those must be encased in a water proof shell. But the whole point of phones is that you replace them every 1-2 years. Making them stronger and water proof is bad business.

Re:Efficient? Better in any way?

[Amouth]

...
I can see the added value for things like electric toothbrushes - those must be encased in a water proof shell. But the whole point of phones is that you replace them every 1-2 years. Making them stronger and water proof is bad business.

actually there is no reason not to do contact based charging with a water proof object just make the exposed metal contacts out of a non corrosive metal - gold plating is best, chrome plating works for low voltage/current - solid nickel works really well.

Re:Efficient? Better in any way?

[Joce640k]

What's the efficiency of these? The last thing the world needs right now is another way to waste energy.

Still ... if it's expensive enough and leads to standardization it might mean less overall waste then having dozens of chargers for everything.

Re:Efficient? Better in any way?

[maxume]

The electricity most people use for small electronics pales in comparison to the energy they use for heating and cooling.

The public awareness programs trying to get people to unplug chargers are ridiculous, that money should be spent trying to convince them to move their thermostat 1/2 degree or add insulation.

And please note that I'm not saying that it won't have any impact, I'm saying that the impact it has is so much smaller than other things that it is currently a wasted effort.

Re:Efficient? Better in any way?

[needs2bfree]

Is there a currency drain through those contacts when immersed in water with high salinity or other contaminants?

Re:Efficient? Better in any way?

[ConfusedVorlon]

well - they pretty much are now.

the EU threatened the phone companies with compulsory standardisation if they didn't play nice, so they all agreed to standardise on usb chargers.

ok, so there are a bunch of USB plug formats, and yes Apple exempted themselves, but nonetheless we are pretty close to a standard charger now.

Re:Efficient? Better in any way?

[rthille]

No, diodes can make it so electricity can only "come in" to the device, not leave it.

Re:Efficient? Better in any way?

[natoochtoniket]

It's not really about efficiency or financial savings. It's about consumer psychology. Of course, the big items have the big potential gains. But, big items cost big money to change. People don't spend big money until they know and understand the benefit. Little things have smaller potential gains,but can be implemented for little or no money. A PR campaign for a little thing educates the consumers about the issue, without threatening the consumers emotionally by telling them to spend a lot of money. Power adapters and light bulbs are the two major examples of such campaigns.

Getting people to change a light bulb is a little thing. It costs just a couple bucks, and takes just a few minutes. And, old light bulbs need to be replaced when they fail, anyway. The savings to one consumer by changing one light bulb is only a few bucks. But there is a big savings, both environmentally and economically, when you multiply by the number of light bulbs i the nation and the hours that they are normally operated.

Power adapters cost a little more to replace with high-efficiency units, but can be unplugged easily and for not cost. The campaign to get people to unplug power adapters isn't really going to save much power, because the newer units really don't use much power, and older units get replaced anyway whenever the phone gets replaced. The savings from 'unplugging' is also smaller because it takes labor, so most people just won't do it. So, there really isn't much actual power savings available. But, because "unplugging" is free, it is a non-threatening way to achieve some consumer education.

The biggest effect is that it gets consumers to think about the power that they use in their houses. After a consumer understands the potential savings, they become more willing to spend some capital to get more of those savings.

Re:Efficient? Better in any way?

[IndustrialComplex]

Doesn't mean its okay to splash the stuff around now.

Actually it might. It is cost prohibitive (and quality of life prohibitive) to attempt to live in a 100% efficient manner. There will always be boundaries in which there is flexibility.

Heating and cooling are orders of magnitude greater than pocket electronics in terms of power consumption. To put it bluntly, you would need to charge your cell phone 300-400 times in order to match running your Air Conditioner for 1 hour.

I'd say that gives cell phones some wiggle room in the charging efficiency category. The reason why cell phones require so little power is by virtue of the fact that they are designed to be portable, and available for the entire day (or days). Televisions, DVD players, and game consoles which COULD benefit from more power efficiency (in terms of 'green') don't do so because they currently don't need to.

As a result, worrying about cell phones is just, pardon the pun, wasted energy. Their efficiency puts them so low on the energy impact scale that I probably wasted more energy typing up this post on a regular computer than my cell phone consumed playing back music at the same time.

Cell phones have a natural check to energy wastefullness that other electronic products do not have. That check is that they MUST be portable, and therefore efficiency is ALWAYS a high concern of the designers. This means that they will likely always at the bottom of any list of household power consumers. Even if the chargers become less efficient, the cell phone itself will not really require enough power to make us worry about it.

The 'waste' you are worried about is like worrying about waste energy when you walk out your front door and the AC is running. Yes, there is loss, but with respect to things we can actually worry about without impacting our quality of life, it is inconsequential.

Not sure what the benefit is

[Sonny Yatsen]

I'm not really sure what the overall benefit of the "wireless" electromagnetic induction chargers are. You're still left with a wire (from the wall to your induction charger plate) and now, you're left with the added problem of having to hunt around for the induction charger plate whenever you need to charge your device. Plus, I'm betting those chargers will cost you a lot more than, say, a USB mini cable. It just seems like the technology's desperately looking for an audience.

Re:Not sure what the benefit is

[HelioWalton]

I believe the idea is that you have one charger plate that you would always leave plugged in, and it works for all of your devices that have a power receiver plugged in (Or built in, I suppose). You wouldn't have to "hunt around for the induction charger plate", since you would have one between all of your devices. It would be like a bowl for your keys at the door - When you come in, you can just chuck your stuff onto the charger plate, and hey presto, it's charged next time you grab it. No fiddly wires to plug or unplug when you come in.

Just more convenient

[Alwin Henseler]

I'd think the main advantage would be one of convenience - come home, drop cellphone on charging pad. When leaving, just pick up cellphone from charging pad. No fiddling with small power plugs or figuring out which adapter/plug goes into which device, and (if some sort of compatibility is maintained between these devices): drop multiple devices on the same (larger) charging pad.

Of course some losses would be associated with inductive charging, but unless very significant I doubt that's a problem for low power devices like cellphones.

Re:Counter-intuitive?

[mcgrew]

when I have to degauss hard drives they get HOT and degaussers don't just ruin the data on the platters but also annihilate ICs and most components on the PC board

You must be using a VERY high power degausser. My eight year old old Trinitron degausses every time I turn it on, but its ICs and other components don't suffer for it. I'm sure that this isn't so powerful you'll ruin your phone.

If you remove the drives before degaussing them, you won't lose the rest of the parts.

Solid Nickel

[spectrokid]

please note some people are allergic to Nickel, and the right side of their face turns fancy colours when they use cheap phones that have Ni in the "metallic" shiny buttons.