‘Motorola shows wireless charger that works 1 meter away’
Wireless charging is starting to get faster and more reliable, so much so that Xiaomi introduced a wireless charger ‘for remote’ on Friday morning. Motorola is on the heels of Xiaomi with its own technology, according to a ‘teaser video’ in which two phones are charged remotely.
Fiction or reality?
Xiaomi was the first company to introduce the wireless charging technique, called Mi Air Charge, to the general public on Friday. Xiaomi’s technology can charge devices such as your phone with up to five watts while you walk through your living room – Xiaomi claims to use 144 antennas with beamforming technology for this. With this technique, they can direct their transmission power to your phone, and thereby charge your device more effectively. Motorola has the same in store, according to a teaser video released on Friday.
The video, shared via Weibo and found by XDA, shows two Hyper One phones in a test setup with a device that can emit energy. Initially, Motorola Hyper One devices are out of reach of the wireless charger. Only as soon as the two telephones are placed within range of the charger – 100 centimeters to be precise – will the telephones be charged wirelessly.
Doesn’t always work
What is striking is that a problem of this wireless charging technique is discussed in the video. In the video, a hand is placed in front of the wireless charger, after which the charging of the phones is stopped. Presumably this has to do with the signals required for these types of wireless chargers; so-called ‘mmWave’ signals. It is also used in the US for the 5G rollout: although a lot of energy can be sent with it, these types of signals are also blocked by our body or other objects.
Whether Xiaomi experiences the same problems in the development of its technology is still unknown. At the launch of the Mi Air Charge technology, Xiaomi announced that the product is “not yet ready” to be sold to consumers. This means that for the time being it will remain with teasers of products that may be on the market in the near future. Perhaps that is wise, as more consumers are getting used to fast charging techniques – even wireless chargers can often charge at 15 watts or more these days.
Is it safe?
Under the previous article about Xiaomi’s charging technology, quite a few questions arose about the effects of the technology on your health. Exactly how the technology works is unknown. There is some speculation about the use of the mmWave technique mentioned earlier in this article. Such a technique works on frequency bands above 26 GHz. Although that sounds scary, because your WiFi network works at ‘only’ 2.4 and 5 GHz, it is non-ionizing radiation. In practice, it will only be able to warm you, DNA transformation is not possible.
Furthermore, the high frequency band ensures that the radiation can hardly penetrate your body – that is also the reason behind the problems with the charger if one hand is held in front of it. The fact that the radiation cannot penetrate your body means that in theory it can have even less effect than the radiation from WiFi networks: radiation from it can penetrate your body.
via GIPHY
What do you think of these wireless charging techniques that can charge your phone remotely? Is it something you like to see in your home, or do you prefer to stick to ‘regular’ wireless and wired chargers? Be sure to let us know in the comments at the bottom of the article.
