Imagine telling anyone with a smartphone that if they wanted to connect it to the internet they’d have to plug in a cable – people would look at you as if you were mad. Those of us who are a little older though will remember that for a long time, this was exactly how it was. Check out this (handheld footage video) of Steve Jobs introducing the world’s first consumer laptop with built-in Wi-Fi The Jobsian theatrical mastery is there, but viewed with today’s eyes it seems amusing that the crowd goes nuts because he was browsing the internet on an laptop without any cables! These days, of course, wireless internet is taken so much for granted that for most, Wi-Fi and internet are the same thing.
However, when it comes to power delivery for our smartphones, camera doorbells, game controllers and toothbrushes, and everything else – the world remains reliant on cables. OK, we do have wireless charging pads (Qi/MagSafe) – but contact is still required.
The problem, of course, is physics, and it turns out that sending energy over distances safely and efficiently is a far different challenge to sending data over radio waves.
However, a company called, Wi-Charge has been working on the problem for several years and now has a technology that can send usable amounts of power over the air, safely – which it calls “AirCord”. Not only that, but it’s now integrated into real world products. One is Wi-Spot – where power is sent to small portable video screens that are placed next to products in a supermarket to deliver advertising for adjacent products.
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