It's our
third year visiting with
Fulton Innovation and the
eCoupled wireless power booth at CES, and
once again there's significant progress to be seen -- this time in the form of actual shipping products like the
Case-mate Hug and the
Dell Latitude Z. Fulton's really pushing the industry standard angle with eCoupled -- it's a founding member of the
Wireless Power Consortium, which is just a few months away from finalizing a standard based on eCoupled
called Qi. Qi's going to be backed by some pretty big names: Motorola,
Nokia,
RIM, Energizer, Duracell, Samsung, and Philips are all members of the WPC, along with several others, and the goal is for all this stuff to seamlessly play together. Fulton had some pretty hot demos to show off of the standard in action, including a Toyota Avalon interior with functional spots for two phones, a GPS, a Bluetooth headset, and a netbook, a slick first-class airline seat with a charging table, and a hotel room with several power points -- including a slick motorized dock built into the desk for the Dell. Our favorite demo, however, was a wall sconce: an eCoupled point in the wall was used to power a light fixture, which was then swapped for a digital photo frame. Nifty stuff, indeed.
Still, the big challenge for Fulton and the WPC is going to be actually shipping a bunch of these products this year -- standards are nice, but without gear in hand they're meaningless, and the rival
PowerMat crew has been making a pretty big push of its own. We'll see what happens in the next few months -- and how much has changed at CES 2011. Check a couple videos after the break!
posted January 12th 2010 6:01PM
Yeah, because the best thing for your nice thin phone is a fat rubber case.
@Information Central
The point is more to have future generations of phones, laptops and other gadgets come with this technology built in and not have to use a case, fat rubber or not, at all. One standard for wireless charging and an end to the plug in chargers with incompatable connectors etc.
@Information Central I talked to the Fulton guys at CES this past weekend, and the fat case is just what they used to interface the wireless power receiver with the iPhone connector. A company could also just make a wireless charger that attaches to the connector without the fat case. When Qi gets adopted, wireless charging will happen without any add-ons. THAT'LL be cool.
Yeah, that's fine. But this is a lot of excitement over something that's not much better than coming up with a standard power/recharging jack. The only real advantage I can see to the wirelessness is the you can have several devices charging at once. But you could also accomplish that with several plugs on a single charger.
The devices have to be in close proximity to the charger anyway, even if it's wireless. But I guess if this doesn't interfere with other nearby equipment, no harm done.
@Information Central You're missing the point, though. You don't have to mess around with connectors, proprietary or otherwise! Isn't that, in itself, worth it?
I'm liking the car integration.
P.S. Nilay I love the fact that you are a huge Kuro fan. 60" Elite here.
An original BlackJack that has (Cingular logo no less) no signs of wear? Shenanigans!
@ytilanigiroon I can't believe my baby made it on the front page! =)
@dcoaster
I've got one as well, it still works, but after the firmware/OS update a year or so ago it's been s. l. o. w. Pretty sweet phone, if not for the lack of WiFi.
...Fulton had some pretty hot demos to show off of the standard in action, including a Toyota Avalon interior with functional spots for two phones, a GPS, a Bluetooth headset, and a netbook, a slick first-class airline seat with a charging table, and a hotel room with several power points...
Man!!! That's one big Toyota!!!
So is it a "baby step" or "significant progress"?
@m4192 Depends on the scale -- it's a baby step towards ubiquity in the market, and significant progress in terms of feasibility and industry support.
I imagine in the future we will replace outlets with similar technogy. Imagine a receptical that can repeat a wired signal at similar effeciencies. I hope Qi becomes the standard. Build this into airline tray tables and say hello to international flights.
Too bad Apple isn't part of it. They'll most likely steal the idea without ever being part of creating the new technology. Or pay royalties and jack up the rates on their products.
@AndrewS
More likely they'll join the process when it becomes profitable. Even more likely is that Microsoft will do the same, and null any protections by introducing inferiorities.
That car charger placement would be perfect. Great idea.
wireless power won't be cool until they are unified and devices don't need attachments to benefit. Of course, progress is good, just waned to throw that out there.
@Levi
that is very very true if it was universal world wide and built in. think about it just as long as you are in a big city you would never run out of juice,
I think a lot of us are forgetting that with wired chargers we can at least use and move our devices while they are plugged in.
@m2h from now, distance. in future, maybe an unique id in the device
If there's special bay for the cellphone in the car, then why not just connect and charge the old fashion way? What's the advantage of wireless power in that situation?
Is it just me or does anyone else find it funny that the iPhone in the picture reads "No Service."
@m2h How do you protect your current electrical outlets from "leeches"?