Nikola Tesla’s long-awaited dream of wireless electricity is finally a little bit closer to the modern era. Technology trends often follow the ramblings and decision-making of those in science’s history, and that is now happening with the rise of Qi chargers. This new system of phone charging uses coiled electric current that rests on lamps or tables that can be used to charge cell phones that are simply placed on top of the charger. There’s no need to worry about plugging phones in or making sure that they are fitting snugly into a dock – they simply are charged as long as they make contact with a little metal that extends out from the surface of these chargers.
The company that is trying to bring these into everyone’s homes is the venerable Swedish furniture giant, IKEA. They are building a number of their lamps, bedside tables, and other home furnishings into stations that will automatically have Qi charging ports as a part of their design. This will allow people to let the new technology naturally fit into their home. Many big name consumer phones already support the new Qi chargers, according to Engadget. In fact, some people may already be familiar with the technology because of companies like Starbucks, which has been utilizing these chargers as a way to allow people to rest their phones on charging surfaces as they enjoy their coffee. The new furnishing being provided by IKEA are floor, table and work lamps.
Get a charge out of your lamps
This push is part of a general trend toward wireless charging. Many organizations besides IKEA have been looking toward bringing this to consumers. While there are Qi charging stations, there are also Qualcomm chargers, known as WiPower. The technology behind this is “magnetic resonance charging,” and it works by stimulating an electric current to move through a phone without leaving the heat normally associated with electricity.
The science behind all of this is simple, according to C|Net. The charger generates a magnetic field using an antenna and coils, which both compatible devices and the charging station itself posses. Once the charging field is set, the surface has to be designed to make it reach up and into any phones it needs to charge. This is kind of like finding the right station on the radio, except that most of these devices will already be pre-tuned to work with various cell phones that want to be compatible with the device.
It remains to be seen whether or not consumers will latch on to this new hardware for their phones. Like the wearables of 2012 and 2013, these bedside charging tables may be an idea that is slightly ahead of its time. Then again, they may not. Speaker docks used to be quite popular before the dawn of customer-accessible Bluetooth speakers around every corner. These new charging stations may provide an upgraded version of that old quality-of-life improvement afforded to consumers by those speaker docks. You could even set your phone to play music through speakers while leaving it charging on a Qi charger in order to really replicate that 2008 era phone-music experience. All of this is contingent on these products actually seeing a breakthrough in the market place, however, and who knows if they will.
Is all of this necessary? Do our phones need to charge resting on a surface? Wouldn’t it be simpler to do it the old fashioned way, where we just let our phones connect directly to a wall outlet? Well, it might be. But aren’t you tired of plugging things in?
