Trend: Wireless power

The potential of wireless power has been a promise for years. Innovative devices allow the gadget consumer to charge their mobile devices without plugging them in.

Trend Description
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was one of the first scientists who started to experiment with wireless energy transfer. Using the so-called Tesla effect, a type of high field gradient between electrode plates, he could even power a lightbulb wirelessly. “Since then scientists have shown that one can generate power, convert it to lasers or microwaves, beam it to another point and reconvert it into electricity. Such a system could beam power to hard-to-reach rural areas without running expensive power lines — or could even beam it down to Earth from power stations in space,“ writes Wired. But although concepts like these are received critically by scientists, there are now some smaller-scale projects working with wireless power. Companies experiment with inductive coupling as a means of power transfer and promise wireless charging of mobile devices.

Cases

Splashpower
Splashpower (see also our previous entry about Splashpower) is based around technology that uses inductive coupling as a means of power transfer. The SplashPad generates an electromagnetic field which is picked up by a SplashModule converting the field into usable power supplied to the battery of the device to be recharged. You just have to put your devices on the Splashpower mat and they will be recharged wirelessly. For now, just devices which incorporate a SplashModule work with this pad, which, of course, are also developed by Splashpower. In the future the company hopes that SplashPads will become part of the everyday environment, that they will be incorporated in cars, desks, restaurant tables, or wherever one might need to charge a mobile device. As of today, Splashpower still has not made an announcement when the products will be available for retail.

WildCharge
WildCharge provides a bit more universal solution for wireless charging. Like Splashower the company works with a thin, mousepad-sized charging pad which generates an electromagnetic field. Instead of providing its own devices, WildCharge came up with the WildCharger adapter to convert the field into usable power. The adapter can be attached or integrated into any mobile device. Like the SplashPad, the WildCharger pad is able to charge different and multiple mobile devices at the same time. There is also no announcement when WildCharge will be available on the consumer market.

EnOcean
EnOcean combines Energy Harvesting and Super efficient transmission to provide wireless power solutions. The company specializes on sensor and transmitter technology. Its goal is to use the tiniest amount of energy to power a sensor and send its results. Energy harvesting itself is not new (solar panels are one example) but EnOcean reduced the necessary amount of energy dramatically, which means that EnOcean sensors operate where other technologies cannot. For example EnOcean’s solar powered sensor can even work indoors with very low light sources. EnOcean currently ships transmitters that are powered by piezo, solar, and electrodynamics and is working on products specifically optimized for their environment, such as a sensor for the automotive industry that is powered by the vibration in a tire wall.

Trend Impact:
There are people who hope that wireless power might be the solution to save our planet, for example by beaming it down to Earth from power stations in space. Wired reported about the Lunar Solar Power system by David Criswell, director of the Institute for Space Systems Operations at the University of Houston, that “would use colossal solar arrays on the surface of the moon that would beam microwave energy down to Earth.” But the cost of at least $500 billion before it supposedly would start to break even, is apparently not the only problem. “The prospect of bathing the planet in radiation hardly sounds appealing”, writes Wired. For a while small-scale projects like EnOcean, WildCharge and Splashpower might offer more possibilities for experimentation. EnOcean seems to be the most promising company. We have to admit that especially Splashpower has earned itself a wide array of awards, but the pads have to be plugged in somewhere, none of the products are actually for sale yet, and there is still speculation as to how efficient the power transfer will be.

Splashpower

WildCharge

EnOcean

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