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Gadget watch - wireless charging

powermat-wireless-charging

Happy 2009!

Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and New Year.

Let’s kick off 2009 with a time and space saving gadget. There have been lots of rumours about the Powermat but at this year’s CES (Consumer Electronics Association), we’ve finally heard that they will be in stores this year.

What are they? They’re mats that can be plugged in and will simultaneously charge a whole heap of gadgets, all at the same time, wirelessly.

That’s no more chargers cluttering up your house, no more tangled wires and no need to use multiple plugs when you need to charge up more than one thing at the same time.

The Powermat uses magnetic induction and, according to the website, “When a Powermat-enabled device is placed on the mat, a “handshake” process synchronizes the mat with the receiver and electric power is generated to meet the specific energy needs of the device.”They’ll then monitor the power in the device and disconnect power to each device once they’ve finished charging.

Powermats will also be able to be used in cars with their universal, window mount car charger for powermat-car-chargerhand-held devices.

At the moment, you can use the Powermat with mobile phones, laptops, iPods, digital cameras, handheld games consoles and sat navs.

Pretty exciting stuff but we still have no word on prices. So we’ll wait and see about the price tags on these things before we go ahead and liberate our chargers.

For more info, check out the website.

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Blog posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 1:39 pm under Mobile Phones, Satellite navigation, gadgets. Leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.


5 Responses to “Gadget watch - wireless charging”

Ben Says:
January 15th, 2009 at 2:17 pm

I think it’s worth noting that this technology doesn’t just work - it requires that you put the item that you wish to charge in a bulky case to make it compatible with the powermat.

I don’t think it’s a viable product until manufacturers build this functionality directly into their products. Considering manufacturers have so far failed to come up with a compatible wire charger, I can’t see this happening.

westprog.com Says:
January 18th, 2009 at 6:10 am

nice gadget. but I still confuse,how can the electricity can send to the PDA via wireless

allen Says:
January 19th, 2009 at 5:49 pm

in the most basic explanation.
Energy flying through a copper coil in the mat can hop through the air to another copper coil in the device (or an object attached to the device if the technology is not incorporated into the phone by the manufacturer.)The copper coils make a magnetic field which is turned into power. http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid40_gci1307236,00.html

On a side note, the same technology can transfer HEAT and is used to super heat magnetic metals when the frequency is matched to it. In this case a spinning magnetic field is created with an electro-magnet and the molecules in the metal are spun around (moment equals heat). http://www.ameritherm.com/videoindex.html

Patt Says:
January 21st, 2009 at 2:34 pm

It’s a transformer (no not the toy cars that turn into robots!)
And being a transformer, at best it can achieve about 83% efficiency in transferring alternating current(AC)power input into the primary coil of wire through a very suitable magnetic medium (the core)to a secondary coil. The other approx 17% is dissipated as undesirable heat, unless you want it to help heat your room up. In the case of this pad gadget, there is an airgap between the primary and the secondary making it less efficient.
It’s not new either, waterproofed rechargeable toothbrushes are an example of this.
But it’s good to see engineers still in thinking mode, as opposed to being out of work.

Michael Says:
February 7th, 2009 at 3:52 pm

My electric toothbrushes (SoniCare & others) have used this technology for more than a decade. I don’t understand why cell phone manufacturers haven’t shipped their phones with chargers like the toothbrushes - it seems like a no brainer. I am so tired of mobile phone/pda charge connectors breaking or wearing out.

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