As personal devices proliferate —
smartphones, wearable fitness bands, Kindles, tablets, smart glasses —
our charger collections are starting to look like the
electrical outlet in the movie “A Christmas Story.”
Wireless charging to the rescue? Not quite. The concept has been caught in a slow-moving standards war.
That’s not to say wireless charging
capabilities aren’t starting to creep into devices. Google’s Nexus 4 and
Nexus 5 phones and Nexus 7 tablet support wireless charging, and Google
even makes its own
wireless charger with the Nexus name.
The Motorola Droid Maxx supports wireless charging, while a few other
Android phones sort of do: the LG G2 only offers it on the Verizon
model, and Samsung Galaxy S4 owners can spend $90 on an official
wireless charging back cover and pad.
Several charging covers are available for
other Android phones and for many Nokia phones, like the Lumia 1020.
There’s even a new,
Indiegogo-funded wireless charging kit for iPhone, called the iQi.
So, interest is growing, but why don’t more
devices have wireless charging capability built in? The primary reason
is, like so many things in tech, conflicting standards. Until last week,
there were three separate groups pushing wireless charging standards.
And phone, tablet and wearable makers are hesitant to tie their devices
to a specific charging tech.
The Wireless Power Consortium backs the Qi
(pronounced “chee”) standard used in the iQi and in the accessories
mentioned above, as well as the Nexus line. Qi is arguably the wireless
charging leader, and support for the specification is built into some
400 devices from
almost 200 different companies.
If you’ve seen Powermat chargers in Starbucks
and McDonald’s, those support the Power Matters Alliance standard. A
third specification comes from Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP), which
has Qualcomm as a founding member. Last week, though, the alliance and
A4WP announced a merger, bringing the three major standards-bearers down
to two.
Confused yet?
The two organizations employ similar, but not
identical magnetic charging technologies: A4WP’s newer resonance
charging lets you charge multiple devices on a single charging pad
without worrying too much about where they’re placed. The alliance, on
the other hand, uses inductive charging, which requires more precise
placement for a device to charge properly.
Qi chargers use the more restrictive
inductive charging, but the consortium showed off resonance charging
devices at International CES in Las Vegas in January, and the standard
supports the more flexible charging technique.
But other companies hope to sidestep the
standards slog with their own innovations.The Israeli start-up Humavox
is pushing a new, wireless charging technology based not on magnetic
induction, but on radio frequency. Its Eterna platform employs an
extremely tiny receiver, originally designed for hearing aids, and a
transmitter that can work in any kind of charging receptacle, from a pad
to a bowl to a portable charging box.
Humavox wants to license its technology,
rather than build products. But it’s been showing off prototype devices
including one it calls a “Nest,” which is basically a small white bowl
into which you can casually toss a jumble of fitness bands and phones
and charge them in about the same amount of time as a charging cable.
The technology seems promising as a
demonstration, primarily because the idea of tossing devices into a bowl
for charging is endlessly appealing. But as with all platforms, success
depends on adoption. Humavox says it’s working with a few partners
making semiconductors and health-related devices, but consumer brands
are still slow to come around.
It’s hard to say whether Humavox’s entry will
make things even more confusing or give manufacturers a good option. At
least one other company, Ossia, is working on a wireless charging
technology that uses radio frequencies, and there may be more in the
works.
So for now — and please pardon the pun — wireless charging is still as tangled as the cords next to my bedside table.
Original piece at
nytimes.com
