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Haier Plans To Embed Area Wireless Chargers In Home Appliances
Lucas123 writes Haier has signed a development agreement with Energous, a maker of the WattUp wireless charging router. Haier plans incorporate the technology in appliances allowing enabled mobile devices and wearables to take a charge at up 15 feet away. The white goods maker is expected to come out with the enabled appliances in the next 14 months or so. The WattUp router uses radio frequency (RF) transmissions to send up to 4 watts of power in a 15-ft. radius. Within 5 feet of a WattUp wireless router, a mobile device can be charged at the same rate as if it were plugged into a wall socket, but as the distance increase the charging capability dissipates. For example, at a range of 5-to-10 feet, charging capability drops to 2 watts per device and at 10-to-15 feet, the router puts out 1 watt per device (4 watts total). Pleasanton, Calif.-based Energous raised nearly $25 million when it went public earlier this year. Its chief marketing officer said the company has joint development agreements in the works with battery makers, smartphone sleeve and wearable device manufacturers. Haier hasn't disclosed what products it plans to enable with wireless charging.
I hope it isn't the same one used by Daystrom...
So, I might have my fridge and my freezer and my washing machine emitting power on the off-beat chance that a device is nearby which needs it? Am I going to be using more power to broadcast it when it's not needed? If so, this is incredibly stupid.
Yay! Let's all spent more for our appliances and pay higher electrical bills so that our fridge could be standing by to charge our cell phones.
Is a frigging charger that had to navigate that we need out fscking applilances just beaming power just in case?
I'm sorry, but the entire idea of this sounds pretty stupid to me.
Oh, but it's fridge 3.0, it's supposed to be connected to the interweb and be a hotspot for my @%$^$# phone. I don't see much value in this product for me.
Now get off my fscking lawn, you kids and your dancy do-dads and whirly-mahoozitzes. This is just technology for the sake of it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Given the very limited ranges, they have to be talking about microwaves.
Gee, everybody, put your hands up if, like me, your router is within 3 feet of where you sit! Good, you'll now be bathed with a MUCH higher power level of microwaves.
And think of the growing health benefits. Why, you'll feel "charged up" yourself. No more need for those 5 hour energy drinks!
I look forward to putting a hot dog onto my router, so I can eat lunch without having to leave my desk. And think of the popcorn I can make while at my desk!
reviewer 1: works well to charge ipad, cellphone, and ensure carkeys glow cherry red.
reviewer 2: dresser charges cellphone quickly, washing machine bricks laptops in a jiffy
reviewer 3: washing machine wiped credit cards and screwed up my bluetooth carkey. Excellent feature to ensure laundry gets done.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Wireless charging schemes are totally awesome, because I am heavily invested in Texas and Arab Oil.
If you are a non-billionaire, remember profligate waste is super patriotic, and be sure to do your part! For AMERICA! (Or for the heathen foreign ideals of your benighted snail-eating nation, should you not be American.)
If you're a billionaire, I'll see you at the club later. Today we're using Tea Party congressmen as ponies for the polo match, and later we're having naked petroleum jelly wrestling featuring network anchor-babes. It'll be great!
just what i want, a bunch of 2-4W intentional RF transmitters scattered throughout my house. wonder what frequency these operate at?
Wouldn't it be more cost effective to build your house underneath a high voltage power line?
Seems like a bad idea, for health reasons and various other reasons.
Will just have to wait and see.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Everyone is assuming that these things will just sit there spewing out power 24/7, but I have to believe that we can figure out some sort of handshake so that these are only throwing out power when there is a valid device within range.
It doesn't say anything about that in the article, which seems odd, but I think we are only talking about the power loss from inefficient transfer (which is not insignificant), not continuous output.
Can anyone confirm?
From the Article: "On average, 40% of the electricity sent from a utility's grid into a home is wasted as it moves through various transformers. That loss is greater with wireless charging systems."
If we don't get that number down to 20% with these chargers, I wont be happy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Is this how it will work?
Does it pop corn too?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Maybe not in the home... but think about public spaces. Put a few of these in a hotel lobby and everyone traveling through there can get a charge.
What about at Airports? Put one in the middle of each waiting area and all the passengers get a charge.
How about meeting rooms at companies?
Not too mention restaurants (Starbucks?)...
There are tons of places where lots of people congregate and they would appreciate getting a "top up" on the their batteries.
This is not a question of "if" only of "when"... and these are the first steps toward that...
You have got to be kidding. What idiot MBA thought this idea up.
What practical use case does it solve for the end user that a better antenna on the main router wouldn't solve?
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
The other extremely useful place for this would be in your car - the family is rolling down the road with about half a dozen tablets etc, all getting charged. Most people are in their car often enough that they'd never have to worry about charging again.
The WattUp router uses radio frequency (RF) transmissions to send up to 4 watts of power i..a mobile device can be charged at the same rate as if it were plugged into a wall socket
What is truly amazing here is that this 4W charger can charge devices at the same rate as my 5 and 10 watt chargers! The last generation of phones use 5V 1A = 5 watt chargers, while new phones and tablets use 5V 2A = 10 watt chargers. So no, this 4 watt device won't charge them at the same rate.
For some reason I thought that Haier was the typical race-to-the-bottom appliance manufacturer that peddles short-lived, underengineered crap. I expect that the UX of this "innovation" will be a trainwreck. Why is this news?
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
At 4 watts delivered to up to 4 devices at the same time, there has to be at least 16 watts radiated power. At the specified frequency of 5.6-5.8 MHz, or a wavelength of about 52 meters, devices charging at the full 4 watt rate are within 5 feet or 1.5 meters, or about 3% of a wavelength. This is a near-field coupled RF system, so it behaves a bit like a transformer. The efficiency will be very sensitive to relative orientation of the charger and load, and to proximity of other large metal objects, especially ones that are 1/4 wavelength multiples (13 meters). With luck, they might see 50-80% efficiency. Use in a multi-story steel frame building will be interesting.
The transmitter and receiver will almost certainly be using resonant loop antennas, which again act like the primary and secondary of a transformer. It may be possible to run the transmitter at a reduced power until it sees a load appear when a receiver's loop antenna is in it's near field. This could be fooled by that steel frame building into delivering full power continuously to slightly warm the structure. A more reliable system would use two-way communication between the charger and load, at the expense of considerably more complex circuitry. Some of the docs from Energious mention Bluetooth, so they may be using a Bluetooth link to initiate and arbitrate the charging operation.
At 52 meters, the wavelength is much too long to interact with a human, so I'm not worried about medical effects. I am concerned about the potential for radio frequency interference, as each of these chargers will represent a 16 watt shortwave transmitter build without much regard to signal quality. As an amateur radio operator, I know that at these frequencies and power levels, I can throw a radio signal hundreds to thousands of miles. The thought of a few hundred thousand refrigerators and microwaves all busily transmitting, with harmonics and intermodulation effects spreading their signal across the radio spectrum seems like a perfect formula for massive radio communications interference.
I never really thought their appliances were all that good. Had 2 of them in the house I bought in 2007 (brand new for the owner to not show a "naked" kitchen. The Fridge died in less than 2 years (door never stayed closed, and yes, it was level and plumb) and the dishwasher leaked from the very first use. (guessing the gasket didn't last in a house that was not occupied for 2 years before I bought it)
I haven't bothered to check Consumer Reports, but when I think of quality appliance brands, Haier is not a name that comes in the top 10...