It’s a similar story with Energy, the company has announced an impressive series of partnerships and demonstrated the WattUp technology many times but has yet to reach consumers. Tech people Haven’t gone to the market yet. The wit around the tram. Powercast was one of the first companies to release consumer devices, wireless charger and transmitter for the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controller, but it costs $150 and has a range of only about a foot. A killer product to drive adoption remains elusive.
Rank up
GuRu, the company behind Motorola’s demo, may be a few steps ahead of its peers. It uses an RF lens to send a focused beam from the generator (Gu) to the collector (Ru). Ali Hajimiri, co-founder of GuRu and its chief scientific advisor, showed me a pair of small chips with built-in antennas about the size of a Lego block and said the company has developed flexible materials allowing this technology to work on different types of devices. .
“We are the only company that can power multiple devices at multiple meters at the same time,” Hajimiri said.
I first met GuRu at CES 2020 to see the Rovi, a portable transmitter that resembles a robot vacuum that moves to charge various devices, get close enough to emit a useful amount of energy. The company has made a lot of progress since then. Its technology incorporates an integrated ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit), an intelligent algorithm that can quickly and efficiently concentrate energy in a small spot and, importantly, at a higher frequency to provide Provides more power at longer range.
Most of these technologies start at the 2.4GHz frequency we’re familiar with Wi-Fi, and it’s also the frequency that charges Samsung’s new remote the most efficiently. Energous uses the 5.8 GHz frequency and Ossia is switching to the 5.8 GHz frequency using its Cota technology. Part of GuRu’s secret sauce is its ability to operate at 24 GHz. Not only does this jump mean more power and longer range, it also allows for smaller transmitters and receivers. A smartphone-sized power generator can charge headphones from within a few feet.
“It’s like a magnifying glass where you can focus energy on one point, but that point can move and you can create multiple points,” says Hajimiri.
Chicken and eggs
The need for transmitters and receivers embedded in our products has hindered the early adoption of wireless power over distance. It sounds convenient, but who would spend hundreds of dollars on a power router that supports a limited number of devices or requires another retrofit add-on to work?
“I think a good analogy for this technology is Wi-Fi,” Hajimiri said. “In the early days, you had to buy this big, cumbersome PCMCIA card to fit in your laptop, and a lot of people would say, ‘I’ll never use Wi-Fi because of my ethernet cable. I’m 100 times faster’.”
Wi-Fi has been improved a lot, and we accept a performance hit for the convenience of wireless network use. Power can follow the same trajectory and have other potential benefits.
