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.

Comments

Sounds wasteful and stupid ...

[gstoddart]

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.

Re:Sounds wasteful and stupid ...

[CreatureComfort]

How about having your can opener/coffee maker/etc. with a battery to wirelessly charge and not have to have cords all across your counters? How about LED under counter lights that don't need cords, or electric plugs?

I can think of a dozen good uses for this. Now whether it's worth the end cost is a debatable subject.

Ideally, the charge transmitter and charge receiver should have a built in short range communications path, and the transmitter would only turn on when it received a request, and then would turn off once the receiver indicated it was full.

Re:Sounds wasteful and stupid ...

[hedgemage]

I really want to hear some numbers to inform me how efficient this is. I am not a EE or physicist, so I'm having a hard time seeing how this could be efficient in any way.
Wouldn't wireless charging in this sense, even if it was initiated by the target device, result in a lot of wasted power? If a transmitter is beaming out power it wouldn't all be 'captured' by a device needing to be charged, would it?
Isn't this similar to filling a glass of water by setting it on your front lawn and turning on the sprinklers? Yes the glass will fill, but in the process, a lot of water has been broadcast to places where the glass wasn't there to receive it.

Re:Sounds wasteful and stupid ...

[AchilleTalon]

I don't believe you can run your coffee maker on 4 W, neither your toaster, these appliances are power hungry. Unless you wish to be cooked by your wireless thingy there is no hope to take rid of these power cables in a foreseeable future.

Average power consumption table

This thing is good only for smartphones, tablets or slowly recharge a laptop battery. Even LED ligths are starting at 5 W to 60 W. There is a lot of unrealistic expectations here.