New company uBeam aims to wirelessly charge your phone from across the room.
The wireless technology was originally outlined at the All Things D Science Fair back in 2011, but now the company has a fully-fledged prototype to show off.
Traditional wireless charging technology requires your device to be on contact with the pad, but uBeam uses ultrasound-based tech to charge your phone remotely.
That’s not just in the immediate vicinity either, uBeam’s plan is to let you move around the room while your battery is charging.
Basically, the general gist of the technology is that the charging station takes electricity, converts it into sounds and then transmits it over ultrasound.
A receiver attached to your phone or other devices picks up the sound waves and then converts it back into energy. Currently, it’s only line of sight retrieval but the next prototype will transmit it around a room.
However, it won’t be able to pass through walls, so if you want to wander around the house and charge your phone, you’ll have to buy several receivers.
The company expect to have the first consumer products available sometime in the autumn, but there’s no concrete time frame as yet. Although, when they are available the uBeam devices will be sold to consumers and businesses directly.
The future could see your phone being constantly charged when you’re at home, with manufacturers potentially building the uBeam technology into their devices, which could affect how manufacturers design phones and tablets in the future.
Apple recently had a rather similar patent approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office, which outlined wireless near-field magnetic resonance (NFMR) to transmit power wireless to multiple devices.
The Cupertino company’s patent was more focused on the technology being built into laptops and desktop Macs to wireless charge peripherals like keyboards and mice.
Read more: Best mobile phones 2014
Via: Engadget
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