Wireless charging from 30+ feet away

[rhoenix]

A startup on Tuesday unveiled technology that it claims can simultaneously charge multiple devices in a house, even through walls and around corners, by using the same radio spectrum as other wireless standards, such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

"You don't have to put [the charging] device in every room. You just put it into one room in your house and it will power all your devices," said Hatem Zeine, founder of Ossia, developer of the technology. "It's like your Wi-Fi signal. If you can get a Wi-Fi signal, you'll be able to get power."

After six years of development, Ossia today unwrapped the new Cota wireless charging technology, which it says will be available to consumers and enterprises by 2015.

Zeine, demonstrated a prototype of the charging system at the TechCrunch Disrupt technology conference in San Francisco this week.

In a video posted by TechCrunch, Zeine held a 2- by 2- by 1-in. cube-shaped dongle device, plugged it into an iPhone 5 via a standard charging cable and held it in the air until the iPhone's screen displayed the green battery icon that indicated that it was wirelessly charging -- whereupon the audience erupted in applause.

"For me, wireless means remote, automatic, effortless," Zeine told the audience.

The Cota wireless charging system includes a charge-transmitting unit and a charge receiver. The charging unit in the video was only shown briefly, but it appeared to be a pillar-shaped piece of equipment that's about 6 feet tall. The receiver can be either a dongle unit or technology integrated into a device, such as a smartphone or a battery. While it has yet to be miniaturized, Zeine said the wireless technology will eventually be small enough to fit onto the motherboard of a smartphone or even in a triple-A battery.

Zeine said the wireless charging technology should appeal to enterprises such as oil and gas companies, where removing power wires from equipment could improve safety. "Imagine the impact of Cota on the medical [and] retail [industries] and the hundreds of devices [that] we call the Internet of things. The possibilities are endless," he added.

The wireless charging technology can deliver 1 watt of power at a distance of 30 feet, and it could span an entire home and could power multiple devices, Zeine said.

"Cota is inherently safe, as safe as your Wi-Fi hub," Zeine said. "A Cota-enabled device sends out a beacon signal that finds paths to the charger, which in turn returns the power signal through only those open paths back to the receiver, avoiding people or anything that absorbs its energy."

The Cota wireless charging system does not require a line of sight to the device being charged -- it can go through walls and around corners without interfering with other electronic equipment in its path, Zeine said.

According to Zeine, the Cota wireless charging technology was discovered by accident. While experimenting with wireless signal management, Zeine, a physicist, discovered that it's possible to focus a signal on a receiving device.

Zeine said his company currently holds four core patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office, as well as other patents issued internationally. He plans to license the technology to equipment makers. He said Ossia is already discussing the technology with some companies.

A consumer version of the Cota transmitter would sell for about the same amount as a Wi-Fi hub -- "basically $100 or a little more," Zeine said.

While Zeine may believe his technology is without compare, there are other wireless charging systems, though most use ether tightly or loosely coupled magnetic induction technology based on the Qi standard or magnetic resonance technology, which can wirelessly charge devices over very short distances.

The Qi (pronounced "chee") standard, developed by the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), enables inductive or pad-style charging and short-distance (1.5cm or less) magnetic resonance charging. The specifications are supported by a list of 166 companies that reads like a who's who of electronics, including LG Electronics, Sony, Nokia and Verizon Wireless.

A Watertown, Mass.-based company called WiTricity has developed its own flavor of wireless charging that's designed to work across distances that exceed 1.5cm and through solid objects.

David Schatz, director of business development at WiTricity, calls the company's technology highly resonant wireless power transfer.

Schatz has demonstrated how a prototype WiTricity wireless charger, called "Prodigy," can power a device from about 10 inches away. The black, oval-shaped Prodigy charger looks much like any charging pad sold in stores today. It sells for $995 and is now essentially a demo kit for engineers, researchers and entrepreneurs who might want to use it to develop their own charging products.

WiTricity is one of several startups that are part of yet another wireless power association, the Power Matters Alliance (PMA). The PMA's members include prestigious players such as Duracell Powermat, developer of the most widely used wireless charging technology today. Starbucks coffee shops, for example, use Powermat technology to allow patrons to charge properly equipped smartphones and tablets on tabletops.

Then there's the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP), a rival group that's backed by Qualcomm and Samsung. The 50-plus members of A4WP also include Broadcom, Haier, Intel, LG Electronics, and SanDisk.

The A4WP claims that its technology, too, enables users to charge devices at a distance, and the group also contends that its system offers a larger charging field than competing platforms. With A4WP technology, the organization claims, multiple devices, such as a tablet and a smartphone, could be placed on one pad to be charged at the same time.

The Cota wireless charging system is currently only available as a prototype. The charger that Zeine demonstrated at TechCrunch's Disrupt show contained 200 transmitters; in the video, it is hidden behind a curtain during the demo, but afterward Zeine briefly pulls the curtain back while answering a question, revealing a piece of equipment that appears to be about 6 feet tall.

Zeine said that once the technology is miniaturized and is no longer based on "off-the-shelf electronics," the Cota development team will be able fit 20,000 transmitters into an 18-in. cube. "The more transmitters, the higher the efficiency," he said.

The charger can come in the form of a dongle that can be plugged into a device via a USB port or another connector, or charging technology can be integrated into a device's circuitry.

The Cota wireless charger delivers about 1 watt, which is about one-third the power a device would get if it was charged via a USB power signal.

Cota said that once the technology is licensed to developers and manufacturers, he envisions that it could power anything -- a cellphone, a TV remote-control clicker, a game controller, Bluetooth headsets or flashlights.

"Just think, this could forever eliminate that annoying chirp from the mystery smoke detector with a dying battery at 3:00 in the morning," Zeine said.

So... what I'm reading here is that Tesla was right the entire time about wireless power.