While it may seem as though we live in a wireless age, with gadgets of all shapes and sizes filling our pockets, in actuality we're just visiting. At the end of the day we run home and plug everything in, recharging drained batteries for the next day of exploring out in the juice-less wilderness. That's about to change, as wireless power technologies are approaching prime time. One company on the forefront of the advance thinks that its technology is ready for adoption by the gadget world at large, specifically Apple and its ubiquitous portable devices.
The company is called eCoupled. It produces a wireless power receiver integrated into a component about the size of a quarter, but thinner. The component uses magnetic fields to receive power without wires, charging the battery in the device and juicing it up (similar to how many rechargeable toothbrushes work). Unfortunately, the range is extremely low (nothing like the MIT prototype we reported on last year), basically requiring the device to sit on a custom charging pad that could be built into a countertop.
So, we're not talking about juicing up your iPhone while you wander around your apartment with it in your pocket. But throwing it down on your desk to recharge is a bit more convenient than slotting it into its charging cradle. Add two or three other charging cradles, plus the requisite nest of AC adapter cords, and suddenly the benefits of this sort of technology start to become apparent -- at least for those with an aversion to twisted cable messes.
That said, eCouple's particular implementation of this technology isn't quite there yet and it's still likely to be a year or more before any mainstream gadgets -- like wireless mice that charge themselves through their mouspads -- start showing up.
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