I have a wireless router but I have to keep it plugged so it's able to transmit. I have to plug my phone in order to charge it. I have to plug in my PC and my monitor if want them to work. I need t plug my laptop so I can charge it. So many darn cables!
When you enter my room, there are wires and cords everywhere and even through my sincerest efforts I haven't been able to hide all of them. I've always wondered about Tesla's wireless electricity transmission experiment and if it's a myth or it really happened. If everything were wireless, the world would be a better places. Or at least not as wired (makes sense, right?).
But it would seem that we are still making the effort. Wireless Internet, wireless phones and now wireless chargers. Most of the wireless charging technologies that exist right now still rely on physical contact, but there have been some innovations in recent years.
Even though the technology is still sort of new, I'm happy that there is research done about it and that maybe one day cords will be casted in the eternal abyss of the obsolete technologies. But anyway, how do some of these technologies work?
Contact-point Wireless Chargers
These contact-point wireless chargers are called that because they charge your phone wirelessly (meaning you don't have to insert the power cord) but there still has to be a physical contact between your phone and the pad, hence the “contact-point” in the name. This technology is interesting, albeit not all that useful. |
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I mean, yes, it does save you the five minutes of looking for your charger and then the three seconds for plugging it in, but is it really all that useful? And also, the pad itself still uses cords in order to draw power from the grid. So it's not really all that wireless after all.
The good news is that most such pads are compatible with many devices so you can charge your tablet, your phone and your mp3 player in the same time, on the same platform. There is still some form of contact but to be honest, it does solve the problem of multiple wiring – one cord for many devices. Sadly you can't walk around with your device because contact must be maintained at all times. Or can you?
Inductive Charging
This is a revolutionary new technology and the next step in wireless charging technologies. This thing basically works the same way as the one above – you still need to plug the transmitter into the grid. However, the difference is that in this case the energy is transmitted wirelessly via an electromagnetic field generated by the transmitter with the help of coils.These coils create the magnetic field around the transmitter and when you have a receiver attached to your device (in the form of a clip, case or a sleeve), electric current is generated in the receiver, thus charging the device. The longer the distance is, the weaker the field and hence the current are, but this is truly fascinating. We are talking about actual factual wireless charging.
I can't explain to you how excited I am about this and I'm sure as the technology progresses further, it will be used in more fields than mobile device charging. Essentially, this is the dawn of a new age of transmitting energy and I can't wait to ditch all the wiring in favor of the much more preferable wireless technologies. We live in truly remarkable times!
Rose FinchleyAbout the Author:
Rose Finchley works as a technician and reads a lot about technology.