By Ariel Grossman, NoCamels -
Israeli startup is first to market with infrared technology.
No wires, no batteries: just charge your smartphone, laptop, game controller, even your electric toothbrush from a transmitter mounted in the ceiling.
It uses electromagnetic radiation to beam the charge to devices up to 30ft away.
Wi-Charge, based in Israel, says it is the first company to commercialize over-the-air wireless charging.
It converts electricity to infrared radiation, which is invisible to the human eye and safe for exposure.
Chip-sized receivers embedded in devices absorb the radiation and turn it back into electricity.
The company aims for its tech to be universal, so that everyone will be charging on the go, whenever they walk into a home, shop, office or restaurant.
It took eight years to develop the technology. It is currently being used to power smart door locks and electronic advertising displays in retail stores, the US, Canada, Brazil, and Israel, and will be rolled out to consumers in the future.
“We are the only company in the world doing this – we have devices that have already been deployed, validated by partners, commercially available, and installed,” says Ori Mor, the company’s Co-founder and Chief Business Officer.
It all started when Co-founder Ortal Alpert experienced something that has happened to us all. He was traveling around the world for his previous company, but his phone kept dying because of battery issues. So he founded the company to resolve the nuisance of charging phones.
“But our product has a greater capability than just charging phones,” says Mor. “It can provide people with the new ability to charge many devices, at a distance and simultaneously,”
Wireless charging won’t just be more convenient for consumers. It actually has the potential to increase the capabilities and performance of countless battery-operated devices.
Many battery-operated devices are actually capable of more smart features than we think, says Mor. But because they are very power-hungry, manufacturers purposely limit their abilities in order for batteries to not run out too quickly.
Mor believes the sky’s the limit, and in the long term, he envisions Wi-Charge being licensed by leading technology giants.
“Power device manufacturers like Apple, Sony, Amazon, Toshiba, you name it, from very different products and very different industries, would embed a Wi-Charge receiver into their devices.”
The company has also created its own wireless charging pad for smartphones, which it claims is the first of its kind. Transmitters deliver power to the charging pads, which are embedded with receivers, rather than receiving power from a cable connected to an electric socket.
“If you’re in a meeting room and need to charge your phone, you can ask someone to just pass you the charging pad – there are no wires or clutter on the table.”
He says the technology can function for 20 years, much like solar cells, and he has no evidence that the receivers or transmitters lose efficiency over time.
There are over 200 charging companies developing comparable technologies, but Mor says that Wi-Charge is the only one in the world with products that are commercially available.
These companies, like Ossia and Energous, use radio waves to wirelessly charge devices.
They have opted for radio wave charging is because it’s cheaper, says Mor. The components are readily available and can be bought and tweaked, rather than built from scratch.
He says converting infrared into energy is 100 times more efficient than converting radio waves into energy. This is because radio waves and microwave radiation, both of which have longer wavelengths than infrared radiation, spread too quickly, making it difficult to capture more than a small portion and convert it to electricity.
However, he accepts there will never be anything better than a wire that directly connects to an electronic device.
“The value of over-the-air wireless charging versus wired charging is that it happens without user intervention,” Mor tells NoCamels. “And the other value is being able to deliver power to places that wires cannot reach – like a smart lock for a door.
“The best way to charge devices is to wire them. Just like the best way to provide good internet is with an Ethernet cable – it’s always faster. But the convenience of wireless is its driving value.”
Wi-Charge is also addressing the growing problem of battery waste. Research funded by the EU has found that about 78 million batteries powering smart devices will be dumped every day by 2025.
As they corrode, their chemicals soak into soil and contaminate groundwater and surface water. Technology that prevents the need for batteries – like the Wi-Charge – can help change that.
Wi-Charge is already being used by Alfred International Inc, a North American producer of smart locks, for commercial real estate developers in the US and Canada.
It has also formed a joint partnership with Charter House Innovations, a furniture supplier for restaurants, and with Glass-Media, a digital advertising provider, to deliver wirelessly-powered advertising displays for the food and beverage and retail industries.
Wi-Charge plans to ramp up production of its electronic displays and smart locks, and find the right partners to market its wireless charging pads.
Caption: Rehovot-based Wi-Charge is capable of charging smart devices wirelessly by converting electricity to infrared radiation.
Credit: Courtesy.
