GigaOM » wireless charging

Powermat marries PowerKiss, vows to use same wireless charging standard

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:27:05 +0000

Travelers between the U.S. and Europe have one less barrier to deal with when it comes to wireless charging a mobile phone or tablet. Powermat, a joint venture with Duracell, and Helsinki-based PowerKiss reconciled their differences and became one on Tuesday. The two wireless charging companies previously used incompatible technologies, but are both committed to the PMA standard and will be combined under the Powermat Technologies name.

Between the two, they have more than 2,500 wireless charging installations at public locations such as airports, coffee shops, malls and arenas. PowerKiss recently added some charging mats at select McDonalds Europe locations. The idea behind these installs is to allow customers to place their mobile device on a wireless charging pad and add juice to the battery. Of course, the device has to natively support wireless charging, such as Nokia’s Lumia 920, or be compatible with an add-on product such as a wireless charging cover.

Overall, the ability to recharge a device by placing it on a special mat really hasn’t taken off with the mainstream public. Part of the reason is a battle over the technology standards: If you have a device that supports wireless charging but doesn’t work with a compatible charging mat, you’ll have to plug in your device, of course.

Powermat Technologies is part of the PMA, or Power Matters Alliance, which boasts that 80 percent of its partner members represent the entire wireless install base. That sounds good, so what’s the issue?

Well, there’s another body, the Wireless Power Consortium, that’s been at this longer than the PMA by about four years and uses the Qi-branded standard. Even worse: Some partners are members of both groups. So while the PMA gained a new member through marriage, there are still plenty of fish in the sea using a different wireless standard.

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Wireless charging platform Qi lands its second automaker

Kevin Fitchard — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 18:00:58 +0000

The Wireless Power Consortium’s Qi charging technology will be making its way into Korean automaker Ssangyong’s future vehicles. Ssangyong isn’t revealing which car model it will embed the wireless charging surface in, but at Mobile World Congress this week the WPC is demonstrating how the technology will be implemented in Ssangyong’s future interior console designs.

Ssangyong doesn’t have quite the international pedigree of the WPC’s first car partner Toyota, but in an automotive market that traditionally takes years to plan and develop its products, the fact that Qi is making headway with any carmakers is nothing to scoff at. While the Qi platform has seen interest from many automakers, some are going to faster than others in adopting the technology, said Peter Hoehne, VP of sales and marketing for Leggett & Platt, which designed the automotive charging system.

Some are introducing Qi at the beginning of the design and development process, meaning their Qi-enabled cars won’t be out for several years, Hoehne said. Meanwhile, others are choosing to include the technology into vehicles relatively late in their development processes, he said. That was the approach Toyota adopted for the Avalon, getting the technology into its most recent 2013 model for the North American market.

Instead of relying on a cord, Qi uses induction to transfer an electric charge to your mobile phone. Typically users buy a separate charging pad they can place their phones, but in a few cases the technology is getting embedded directly into furniture and on other surfaces people are likely to place their phones. There are now 36 different Qi-integrated or Qi-ready devices, according to the WPC. Many of them, like the Samsung Galaxy S III, don’t support the technology out of the box, but require customers to buy a separate battery back plate embedded with the Qi receiver coils.

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Google finally offers Nexus 4 wireless charging orb

Kevin C. Tofel — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 19:59:03 +0000

It was a long time coming, but Google Nexus 4 phone owners can soon charge their handset without attaching a wire. On Monday, Google’s Play Store began offering the official Wireless Charging Orb for the Nexus 4. The small, round magnetic charger costs $59. Google says it should ship within one week of ordering.

The angled orb must be plugged into a standard outlet for charging to work. So the wireless part has to do with the Nexus 4 itself. Placing the phone on the charging pad will fully re-charge the phone’s battery in four hours. There are no additional features on the orb itself; it simply lets you put your phone down and top off or refill the integrated battery.

Wireless charging is one of those great-sounding technologies that really hasn’t gone mainstream. I though that might change with the Palm Pre a few years back; that handset had a wireless charging puck and special phone cover. Of course, we all know how that went: Palm was consumed by HP and the phone line died off.

Part of the issue with wireless charging is that requires a special cover or component in devices, which add costs. Various wireless charging standards haven’t helped either: Placing a device on an incompatible charging pad means you’ll have to spend even more money for a different solution. And in the case of the Nexus 4, a $59 price tag may keep some away from world of wireless charging.

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2013 Toyota Avalon jump-starts wireless phone charging in cars

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 15:22:25 +0000

Although wireless charging of mobile devices hasn’t yet become mainstream in the home or office, it could be on the road. The 2013 Avalon Limited model is the first car to natively support this: Toyota is adding a wireless charging pad in the car as part of a technology package. With the option, drivers and passengers can place a supported phone on the small console pad for a recharge during travel.

Phones that support the Qi wireless charging standard can be used with the pad. Nearly three dozen such phones exist, including the Google Nexus 4, Nokia Lumia 920, and HTC Windows Phone 8X. Third-party manufacturers, such as Energizer, make Qi-enabled sleeves for Apple’s iPhone, which would work as well with this charging pad.

While I’ve heard some valid comments that Qi-enabled wireless chargers aren’t truly wireless — since the pad itself has to be plugged in — placing this technology in an automobile simply makes sense.

There is no pad to plug in as the wireless charging surface is integrated into the vehicle and draws off the car’s power. And as someone who has more charging cords, cables and adapters in the car now, I’d love to see other auto makers follow Toyota’s lead here by integrating a standards-based wireless charger in a car.

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Nokia’s Lumia transition is complete. Will it pay off?

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 18:07:18 +0000

They’re here…. sorta. Nokia’s new Lumia phones — the 920 and 820 — were introduced at a New York City press event on Wednesday morning and they’re the first handsets to show Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 operating system. They look great and appear to have some amazing new technology, particularly around photography. With competitive new Lumias, Nokia’s transition plans appear done and now it’s time to see if the hard work pays off: Will handset buyers care?

One immediate challenge for Nokia’s “Switch to Lumia” mantra was upended by a lack of availability details. When asked, Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop, said sometime in the fourth quarter in select markets. That shouldn’t be a total surprise for those who follow this market as in the U.S., carriers typically share those details for new handsets. Regardless of that key information missing — especially since Apple is likely to launch a new iPhone along with pricing and availability details next week, the new Lumias represent the culmination of Nokia’s transition efforts.

Hey, didn’t Nokia have Lumias in 2011?

Sure, the company launched a few Windows Phone handsets last year. They were serviceable devices that helped build Microsoft’s Windows Phone share thanks to the 7 million Lumias sold so far, according to Elop. But those first Lumias arrived not long before Microsoft publicly announced Windows Phone 8. Simply put: They were stop-gap handsets compared to today’s new models, even though I was personally impressed by the old Lumia 900.

Indeed the first Nokia Windows Phone device shared far more with the MeeGo-powered Nokia N9 than it offered in terms of new design. Nokia is generally keeping that design with the new Lumias though, and I think it’s a good move. They’re relatively unique, fit well in the hand and offer a big step up in terms of hardware compared to the old models.

Much to like in the new Lumia package

My colleague Ryan Kim has a full overview of the new Lumia 920 and slightly smaller 820 and I see several key stand-out upgrades, particularly in the flagship 920. Nokia’s PureView camera technology with the 8.7 megapixel sensor should take outstanding photos. The wide f/2.0 aperture and floating lens technology will help low light pictures and provide image stabilization. The touchscreen uses “super sensitive touch” that works through gloves or mittens and both phones support wireless charging.

Gone is the 800 x 480 display from old Windows Phones, replaced by a 4.5-inch 1280 x 768 display with 332 pixels per inch — hey, it’s a Retina Display! — and 600 nits of brightness. An NFC chip works with speakers to play music from the phone. And even though Windows Phone runs superbly on older processors, the bump to a 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon chip is welcome too.

Of course, hardware is only part of the equation for success; it takes great software as well and Nokia has stepped up its game here too. Nokia’s navigation and mapping works while offline, helping to save on mobile broadband use. The City Lens app puts virtual reality to good use by superimposing points of interest on your surroundings.

Microsoft SkyDrive integration adds seamless cloud storage. At the launch event, Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore said even more Windows Phone 8 software features will be shown in the next month or two.

Nokia made a nice phone; has it made a compelling argument to switch?

So based on what I saw today, I’d say Nokia’s Lumia transition has effectively ended because it now has a true competitor to the currently available iPhone and Android devices. What’s next? Watching to see if the transition has paid off. It’s too early to say but I’m still cautiously optimistic at this point. My uncertainty isn’t because of the devices themselves; I can’t wait to get my hands on one and experience the many improvements.

Instead, I was left with a key unanswered question from Nokia that directly impacts the company’s future: What did it announce today that will get consumers to switch from an iPhone or Android device? Without a compelling answer to that question, I suspect most new Lumia sales will come from those already using an older Lumia and that won’t generate the growth that Nokia needs to sustain a turnaround.

Potential is there

To be sure there are several attractive features in the new Lumias that impress. And when you add them all up, they make for a appealing Windows Phone package. Is that enough to take back market share from iOS or Android? Surely it is from BlackBerry, which won’t be on its next platform until 2013. In fact, I still stand by my 2011 prediction that Windows Phone will grab more market share than BlackBerry at some point this year. The game isn’t really against RIM’s BlackBerry, however.

Instead, Nokia and Microsoft combined are really looking to pressure Apple and the many Android hardware partners; in particular, Samsung, which stole the top phone seller spot away from Nokia this year. Do the new Lumias with Windows Phone 8 offer enough to mount a significant challenge? On paper, I think so.

However, it’s all about marketing, sales figures and carrier support now, so while the transition is over, it won’t amount to anything without those. And part of the reason a $50 price drop last year didn’t do much for sales relates directly to potential struggles with the new phones: Application lock-in costs and wanting to use the device — and apps — your friends use are still potential obstacles no matter how nice the Lumias are. I’m hopeful, but not certain just yet that Nokia is out of the woods.

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Can Apple drive wireless power to the masses?

Ryan Kim — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 15:23:02 +0000

Wireless power had a big showcase moment with the Palm Pre, which featured the Touchstone inductive charging dock. But following Palm’s demise, the technology has quietly trudged along without capturing mainstream attention. But that may be poised to change.

Pike Research, in a new report, forecasts the wireless market to triple in size from $4.9 billion in 2012 to $15.1 billion in 2020. And that’s not really considering the impact of Apple, which just received a patent for an inductive charging dock late last month. Apple, to date, has not deployed a wireless charging system for its devices, but there is some speculation that it could introduce an inductive charging dock potentially for the next generation iPhone expected in the coming months.

Inductive charging utilizes a magnetic field to transfer power from a charging station to a device. Unlike conductive charging, inductive charging can work between very short distances without direct electrical contact.

Last year, the Wall Street Journal mentioned that Apple was experimenting with a new charging system for the 2012 iPhone. And in a patent application last year, Apple described a charging system based on magnetic fields, allowing an iMac, for example, to charge other devices such as iPhones, iPods, a mouse or keyboard. If Apple gets behind wireless charging in a big way, it could help convince a huge audience of the advantages of cutting the power cord. Apple not only has a large base of iPhone and iPad users, but it also has a reputation of making technology advances understandable to the masses.

But even if Apple holds off, Pike Research believes the wireless power market is promising. The research firm said the technology is maturing and key players from silicon vendors to manufacturers are increasingly working together on settling standards. By 2020, mobile devices will still be the largest market for wireless power with 36 percent of total revenue, said Pike. But the technology could be applied to many more application beyond just gadgets, everything from military and medical devices to electric vehicles and unmanned aircraft.

“While the market is still nascent, the rapid spread of wireless charging systems for mobile devices is a clear indicator that the broader wireless power sector has the potential to be a game-changer,” said Pike Research vice president Bob Gohn in a press release. “Evidence is building that wireless power technology can be an environmentally friendly technology and that, before the end of the decade, it could contribute to a significant reduction in carbon emissions and embedded energy used to produce, ship, and dispose of conventional charging equipment.”

Today, North America is the biggest market for wireless power but Pike predicts that Asia will overtake North America in the few years and will represent $6 billion in revenue by 2020 or 40 percent of the worldwide market.

Wireless power still faces hurdles in broad adoption. One issue is competing wireless power groups, including the latest addition, the Alliance for Wireless Power, or A4WP announced in May. This effort led by Samsung, Qualcomm and Powermat Technologies will compete against the Wireless Power Consortium, which was launched in 2008. That could lead to fragmentation and a lack of interoperability between power products. There are also some health and safety concerns from consumers that come with a new power technology. And then there’s the question of whether consumers will see the need for wireless charging, especially if it means higher costs or incompatibility with older devices.

Apple might not be able to solve all the questions about wireless charging, and it’s possible it might produce its own proprietary solution if it does. But it could help educate people about the technology and put it in a lot of people’s homes, bringing 2020 a lot faster.

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Oh, no: not another wireless-charging group!

Kevin C. Tofel — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:17:38 +0000

Over the past few years, wireless device-charging solutions have come and gone, never really becoming the promised holy grail of ease and convenience one would hope. In theory it sounds great: Just drop your gadget on a little mat, which itself is plugged into an outlet, and your phone or MP3 player sits there and charges away.

So what’s the problem? Too many cooks in the kitchen, as different companies back different standards. The latest effort is a brand-new group called the Alliance for Wireless Power, or A4WP.

On Monday Samsung, Qualcomm and Powermat Technologies announced the newly formed group, which is also backed by Ever Win Industries, Gill Industries, Peiker Acustic and SK Telecom. According to the A4WP press release, here’s the goal:

The independently operated organization’s mission is to promote global standardization of a wireless power transfer technology that offers spatial freedom, to develop product testing, certification and regulatory compliance processes, and to foster industry dialogue with regulators on wireless power policy development. The alliance is targeting a broad base of consumer electronic devices to establish a worldwide wireless power technology ecosystem.

The A4WP will focus on a new wireless power transfer technology that provides spatial freedom for charging of electrical devices in cars, on tabletops and for multiple devices simultaneously.

Now consider this “about us” blurb from the Wireless Power Consortium, which was formed in 2008 and has 100 members:

The members of the Wireless Power Consortium cooperate to make it possible that their mobile phones can charge wirelessly on each other’s chargers. Proprietary and incompatible chargers are a waste. Consumers get the most from wireless charging when their phone can charge everywhere. That is our dream. An open standard, free for all to download, easy to implement with broad support from the entire industry.

Aside from the A4WP bit on spatial freedom and more types of devices mentioned, it sounds to me like we already have a wireless-charging standard: The WPC backs a standard called Qi, and ironically after a few years of using proprietary technology, Powermat actually joined the WPC and backed Qi just last year. Samsung too is currently one of the 109 WPC member companies.

So what gives here? The only reason I can see for the new group is that Samsung, Qualcomm and Powermat feel the WPC efforts to be too limiting. It’s not just phones that these companies want to charge wirelessly but tablets, cameras and gadgets in cars, perhaps. Either that or Powermat sold Samsung and Qualcomm on its own proprietary technology, which uses custom device backs and/or batteries to provide the wireless-charging capability.

Either way, more groups trying to do the same basic thing is bad for everyone. There’s a reason we use standards for communications, wireless networks and even electricity. Trying to break out different ways to wirelessly supply electricity to a nearby device only fragments the products and confuses both the market and consumers.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved the Touchstone wireless-charging dock for my old Palm Pre in 2009, but for all of my other devices, it was as effective a charger as a hockey puck would be. One-off charging solutions specific to a certain device or a particular brand of device don’t add value. Perhaps to the device manufacturer they do, at least in the short run, but it’s bad enough that our devices are locked in by apps. Let’s not cut the cord and be locked in by how we get electricity to them too.

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Will Apple dump the iPhone’s aging 30-pin connector?

Tom Krazit — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 21:32:30 +0000

For a company as forward-thinking as Apple has been in the mobile world, it still depends on a relic of its pre-iOS days as the primary connection for charging iPhones and iPads. But now that Apple can update its iOS devices over wireless networks, the 30-pin connector may have run its course.

iMore.com reported Friday that Apple will likely get rid of the 30-pin connector in the next version of the iPhone in favor of something smaller that could help it accommodate 4G LTE radios, and it’s about time. Unfortunately, the site doesn’t think Apple will follow the lead of the rest of the smartphone market and embrace the micro USB standard for phone chargers, but it’s still a notable development.

The 30-pin dock connector has been the primary doorway into the iPod for years. It was the only way to install software updates on an iPhone or iPad until iOS 5 introduced over-the-air updates, and an easy target for those who believed Apple wasn’t living up to its “post-PC” words by requiring a physical connection to a computer for such an important task.

Eliminating the (relatively) bulky connector could make it easier for Apple to include 4G wireless connections in the next iPhone without having to make an iPhone as big as some of the Android models (like the Galaxy Nexus) that connect to 4G networks. It also means a legion of accessory makers will have to get on board with a new standard on which Apple will probably continue to charge royalties to use in their products. The success of an iPhone accessory maker like Square that bypassed the 30-pin connector altogether with its credit-card reader may have also prompted Apple to come up with a new connector that offers unique advantages.

But to take things a step further, is Apple also willing to embrace wireless charging with the next iPhone, along the lines of what Palm introduced for certain models of the Pre? That might force the company to make some tough decisions about the materials it uses in the iPhone, a notoriously sensitive subject. But wireless charging is a great idea for users, and it would also allow Apple to sell some sleek wireless charging stations at a tidy profit.

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Finally, Wireless Phone Charging Gets Easier

Kevin C. Tofel — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:29:45 +0000

Chances are, you plug that smartphone, tablet or other mobile device into an outlet at least once per day. The promise of wireless charging is supposed to make this an easier task: Just place your device on a charging pad to juice up the battery through magnetic coils. The theory is sound and it does work — Palm’s Touchstone charger from 2009 is a great example — although the charging pad itself must be plugged in via a wire. So why then hasn’t this solution, called inductive charging, taken off? The biggest challenge has been a lack of device compatibility, but Energizer is taking advantage of a new standard in the hopes of bringing wireless energy to handsets everywhere.

The standard, called Qi, was created last year by the Wireless Power Consortium, currently comprising 81 companies. Qi eliminates obstacles from proprietary wireless solutions because any device with the Qi logo can can be charged on a Qi mat, regardless of the device manufacturer. Without such a standard, consumers have to purchase device-specific cases that work only with charging pads from the same manufacturer. For example: an iPhone 4 charging case made by company A won’t work on a charger made by company B. The Qi standard eliminates that problem by making Qi-compatible devices interchangeable across products made by different manufacturers. (See: 10 Things to Know About Wireless Power)

So Qi solves the problem of using wireless charging cases with different manufacturers, but there’s still the issue of device-specific cases. As it stands now, if you switch from an iPhone to a BlackBerry device, the Qi case from your old handset won’t fit the new one, for example. Energizer’s answer to that problem is a new Qi-compatible Micro/Mini USB adapter, which it will be showing off later this month. The adapter will attach to the back of virtually any handset and uses the fairly standard micro and mini USB ports found on most phones to get wireless power to and from the mat to the handset battery.

This generic approach is sure to use some wire to route energy from the adapter to the phone, but that’s a small price to pay for the freedom of adding wireless charging capability to nearly any device. And it makes sense, given the recent adoption of micro USB as the universal charging method for phones. With the Energizer adapter, nearly any modern phone could gain wireless power. Now if we could just get our increasingly capable phones with multiple radios to easily get through a full day on a charge, we’d be in business!

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WiTricity Lands Delphi as Wireless Car Charging Partner

Jeff St. John — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:03:02 +0000

MIT spinout WiTricity wants to make charging electric vehicles plug-free — and it has landed auto parts giant Delphi as a partner. The company announced Wednesday that it would work with Delphi on “global infrastructure” for charging cars, simply by parking them on top of wireless charging systems set into garages or parking spots. If it works, it could make EVs and plug-in hybrids a lot more simple to power up.

WiTricity has developed technology for inductive wireless charging using magnetic resonance, an idea first demonstrated by Nicola Tesla in 1891. The Watertown, Mass.-based startup says it has improved on previous versions of the technology that required physical contact, allowing power to be transferred through the air between a charging plate in the ground and a receiver in the car’s chassis — though it still loses efficiency as distance increases.

Wireless charging pads for cellphones and other consumer electronics are out in the market, and Intel has been working on inductive wireless charging for electronic devices for years. But charging cars requires a lot more power to be transferred. Menno Treffers, chairman of the Wireless Power Consortium, has said that wireless charging has been able to transfer about 5 watts of power at efficiency rates of 50 to 70 percent.

But WiTricity claims its system can transfer more than 3,300 watts, enough to fully charge an electric car at the same rate as most residential plug-in chargers. It isn’t alone in the dream of cordless car charging, of course. Nissan told the UK Guardian last year that it was designing inductive charging capabilities into electric vehicles, and Virginia-based startup Evatran promises a wireless charging system with 80 percent efficiency.

A partnership with Delphi could well push WiTricity’s technology past its competitors, if the auto parts giant is able and willing to invest in it. CEO Eric Giler said Wednesday that the partnership hopes to deploy the technology in OEM vehicles and infrastructure projects worldwide. Giler also told a reporter that the company has raised a total of $15.5 million in venture investment, including a series C round earlier this year. Of course, Delphi has had its share of woes — the company declared bankruptcy in 2005 and has struggled amidst the down economy.

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