Apple working on wireless charging

[Bernard Murphy]

Unclear to me if this is keeping up with the Joneses or if they have a master plan

Foxconn reportedly testing wireless charging modules for tenth-anniversary Apple iPhone - Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) | Seeking Alpha

 

[Joe Talin]

Maybe a aster plan:
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Comment: This is why Apple was right to hold back on wireless charging for the iPhone | 9to5Mac

 

[Bernard Murphy]

Interesting. But I believe there are (safety-based) restrictions on how much power can be beamed this way. I would have thought those would limit (safe) power beaming to rather slow charge rates?

 

[Joe Talin]

According to this much better source[1], "<figure class="xlrg" role="img" style="box-sizing: initial; display: inline-block; margin: 0px 0px 26px; width: 620px; height: auto; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">placed maybe 4 or 5 feet from a WattUp receiver (in the foreground) with a LED hooked up to it to provide a load:

<figcaption class="hi-cap" style="box-sizing: initial; color: rgb(86, 86, 86); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; min-height: 18px; max-width: 100%; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 4px;">Photo: Evan Ackerman/IEEE Spectrum</figcaption></figure>This one shows the same antenna hooked up directly to a power meter:
<figure class="xlrg" role="img" style="box-sizing: initial; display: inline-block; margin: 0px 0px 26px; width: 620px; height: auto; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">

<figcaption class="hi-cap" style="box-sizing: initial; color: rgb(86, 86, 86); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; min-height: 18px; max-width: 100%; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 4px;">Photo: Evan Ackerman/IEEE Spectrum</figcaption></figure>0.673 watt at just under 5 volts. A few inches away from the targeted location, the power drops off by a factor of several hundred. It doesn't work nearly as well if the receiver antenna isn't parallel to (and pointed at) the transmitter. But in practice, Lebman says, the antennas themselves are so cheap and easy to integrate that for a wearable, you could just put antennas on pretty much every surface to mitigate the orientation issue. "

[1]http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/the-smarter-grid/energous-readies-true-wireless-power-tech-for-consumer-devices

 

[Bernard Murphy]

But see eg. Dreaming of Power through the Air - Wireless Power Consortium Blog (someway down in the page). This consortium points out that the issue is not technical but safety and suggests beamed power is only practical (within regulatory restrictions) for ultralow power applications today (for example Powercast delivering microwatt-level charging). I don't see how these guys would get around that, unless the product would be used in area where it is not possible for people to walk through the beam?