Loews Regency Hotel gets outfitted with Powermat wireless power

The wireless power business sure seems to be getting crowded these days, with upstart Powermat Ltd. only the latest company promising to free your gadgets from yet another cord. Unlike some similar products, however, Powermat's system looks to actually be ready to charge your devices, with the Loews Regency Hotel Business Center in New York City the first to put it to use. While the company eventually sees its technology being directly integrated into various electronic devices (like every other company), in the meantime you simply hook your device up to a so-called "puck," which in turn wirelessly picks up the signals from the power mat it's placed on. No word on when you'll be able to get a Powermat for yourself, but the company does say the system will be "inexpensive."

[sheehanj @ Jul 31st 2007 8:49AM]

Wireless Power...

My gut tells me I should be concerned for my health.

[Mark @ Jul 31st 2007 8:56AM]

only if you sit on the mat :)

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jul 31st 2007 3:35PM]

Even back around the 1930's Howard Hughes had the idea (and technology) for electric airplanes that recieved their power wirelessly from ground based stations. Such a phenomenon is not new, it's called induction. But the problem was (if memory serves correctly) the emission from the energy towers would interfere with existing radio communications.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrostatic_induction

[Jack @ Jul 24th 2008 7:16PM]

Who could resist!

[JOJO @ Jul 31st 2007 8:56AM]

you simply hook your device up to a so-called "puck," via a "wire" hahaha

[Rob @ Jul 31st 2007 8:57AM]

This is rubbish.
I have an even better idea that has worked for a few decades now and it costs about $5 and allows between 2-6 to connect their electronics without any additional gear and/or equipment. It's called an extension cord. Try it out. You'd be amazed at how well it works. The best part also is that it comes in many lengths and colors, so it can be placed on the floor or right on top of your desk or conference table. It's quite an affordable solution I hear.

BTW, whomever encoded the video on their site needs to get fired. I've never seen a commercial product demo video so badly pixelated.

[labwaste @ Jul 31st 2007 9:05AM]

How is this any different than having a power bar in the middle of the table?

[Jay @ Jul 31st 2007 9:07AM]

Unless the puck can be embedded in the device (quite possible) and the device can be at least a few feet from the "Powermat" (unlikely, for now) then this is almost useless. Other than looking cool and tech trendy, as another comment said, an extension cord provides the exact same thing.

[Jon @ Jul 31st 2007 9:39PM]

If people would bother looking at the company's website, they would notice that that is the company's ultimate goal, and this is merely the first generation of the concept.

[strider_mt2k @ Jul 31st 2007 9:14AM]

Wireless in this case being more like "wiring deferred" in that it simply changes the type and location of the wire as opposed to truly eliminating it.

[Ghen @ Jul 31st 2007 9:15AM]

wires wires everywhere!! I bet you can't move that table somewhere without disconnecting wires!

[Trevor @ Jul 31st 2007 11:16AM]

Unless the table is a "puck" and the floor is a giant powermat.

[Glen @ Jul 31st 2007 9:21AM]

If your mobile devices had the receiver built in and you had one of these mats embedded under a section of kitchen counter (or the whole counter for that matter), this thing would be great! Throw your keys, mobile, gps, and music player on the counter. No wires, no mess. Come back the next morning and they're all charged up and ready to go. Will it operate through 2" of granite or concrete or wood?

[nd @ Jul 31st 2007 10:05AM]

that is the most wired wireless device i've ever seen. and "not expensive"?? yeah, until you need to buy an adapter for every laptop out there!

[Andy S. @ Jul 31st 2007 10:09AM]

People seem to be missing the point that this "puck" system is a transitional step. The idea is that devices will eventually have the components of the puck integrated into the device, so you simply have to place the device (phone, iPod, laptop, whatever) onto the Powermat. The puck simply allows current devices to use the powermat until integrated devices are available. Kind of the same way that any other kind of adapter has allowed people to transition from one technology to a newer one (LCD monitors with both VGA analog and digital inputs, HD TVs that support S-Video and can upconvert standard-def signals, etc).

[tiuk @ Jul 31st 2007 11:52AM]

I'm glad somebody else gets it.

[William C Bonner @ Jul 31st 2007 10:38AM]

I find the idea of wireless power funny. Here we are trying to improve efficiency, with energy star, or driving a pious, and wireless energy by it's very nature is going to be less efficient than a wire.

[paul34 @ Jul 31st 2007 11:16AM]

... so basically, this isn't too different from putting outlets in the center of the table with short-cord power adapters... ok...

[lucas @ Jul 31st 2007 2:03PM]

Seriously guys think about it. when i come home i empty my pockets (ipod phone and phone headset) and set my book bag on the table (ds psp laptop wireless mouse and various other blue tooth objects) now imagine if you didn't have to plug all those in. You can just grab them off the table or counter and be ready for the day. its great, may be a few years away, but this making it a whole lot closer.

[Ghen @ Jul 31st 2007 3:21PM]

I come home and plug in my phones to their ready and willing power cords that are sitting on the counter. A whole 3 seconds slower than your way, but infinitely cheaper since the power cords come with the phone :P

[Ken @ Jul 31st 2007 2:07PM]

Can I get a garage-sized PowerMat and an electric car?

[Chris @ Jul 31st 2007 6:44PM]

Can I get a road-sized PowerMat and an electic car? :)

[James @ Jul 31st 2007 6:26PM]

This is addressing a serious problem from the 180-degrees-wrong end of the stick. The issue that I think they're setting out to tackle is that you have all these devices that need power, but you don't want to lug around a big power brick with at least one long-ass cord (and in the case of most laptops, two). I want to charge my iPod from anywhere, but not carry the little wall-wart with me. I want to run my laptop from the mains electric without a net carry weight almost double that of the laptop itself. But the answer is not to create a wireless device and have a "power receiver" embedded in everything (making everything heavier and bulkier in the process, no doubt), it's to settle on a standard for *supplying* DC power and make that power more commonly available.

I had this epiphany a while ago: my PDA (a Dell Axim) could charge from a USB cable, but I was using the one dock cable it came with to hook its cradle to my desktop. So I bought a USB "travel kit" online for cheap, including a USB-PDA cable, an AC Outlet-to-USB power adapter, and a 12V auto-to-USB power adapter. Suddenly, not only could I charge my PDA in any wall outlet, I could charge my MP3 player, my phone, my PSP (I bought a splitter cable), and any number of other gadgets that could feed off 5 volts from a female "A"-type socket. Then I thought: what if I didn't need the adapter? What if lots of places made a USB-factor power hub available alongside desktop AC outlets, perhaps providing a few retractable cables supplying B-type connectors? Then, pressure consumer electronics manufacturers to include jacks for one of the 3 main USB "device" connectors (B, mini-B, micro-B) on every product they sell, regardless of whether the data connection is used or not. Most types of consumer electronics devices can be designed to run from 5VDC (USB power), so as long as current draw for charging is not *huge*, it should be possible to charge from any USB power source.

Of course this doesn't cover really big devices like laptops, but if you're going to require standardization to use a new power supply, why not just standardize on a corded one? For instance, a coalition of laptop manufacturers could stipulate that all signatories would use a single form factor of power jack, with a serial data line to allow power supplies to communicate their capacity in watts (Dell does this for many of their supplies now, and I suspect many other companies are the same way) -- a high-draw laptop on a lower-power supply would either run in low-power mode or simply refuse to draw any current at all.

It might not be the best for the companies' bottom lines, but it would be a real boon for the consumer, and would certainly make a great deal more sense than this wireless nonsense.

[Michael @ Jul 31st 2007 7:15PM]

Just in regards to that picture: I hate meetings where people are hiding behind their laptops. You can almost be certain that one of them is reading email, reading Engadget or something similar.

[James A. @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:21PM]

The point is that you don't have to use a bunch of different chargers for your cell phone, laptop, ipod, etc. Whenever I travel I have to carry one bag with just my chargers and docking stations. If everything can be charged from one mat, it's a great concept.