2015: The Year of the Wireless Charger?
Got a phone
charger you can lend me? No, I need the new type... Oh, forget it."
To ease the
stress of a dying mobile phone battery and the hassle of bundling wires into
your bag, designers are hoping to make 2015 the year of the wireless charger.
Companies at
the Mobile World Congress, a top telecom fair which wrapped up Thursday in Barcelona,
Spain, promised that soon you will just place your phone on a table or lamp
stand for it to absorb electricity through a wireless surface.
South Korean
giant Samsung included wireless charging capability in its new flagship
smartphone, the Galaxy S6, unveiled on March 1 in Barcelona.
Swedish
furniture-maker Ikea meanwhile announced a line of bedside tables, lamps and
desks equipped with wireless charging spots to be launched in Europe and North
America in the coming weeks.
"This
is probably the year of the wireless charger," said Kevin Curran, a senior
member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, ahead of the
mobile fair.
"A lot
of the top-end phones now by default are coming with a wireless charger. You
just have to put the phone onto a mat or onto a stand."
If a phone
has a wireless charging receptor, just placing it over the charging pad on one
of these items will transfer power to it.
The piece of
furniture itself is not wireless, drawing its power from the mains, but no wire
is needed to plug into the phone.
Standard
adapters
Different
rival technologies for wireless charging have emerged over recent years.
For their
devices, Samsung and Ikea opted for the Qi standard -- a system developed by
the Wireless Power Consortium, an alliance of some 200 different companies
founded in 2008.
The Qi
consortium claims its standard is the most widely used in the world with charging
points in 3,000 hotels, restaurants, airports and public spaces. It says its
system can be used in 80 models of mobile phone and various types of car.
The product
announcements at the Barcelona show "will allow a big step forward,"
eventually freeing users of cumbersome charging wires, said Inge Tauber of the
German company L&P Automotive, part of the Qi project.
"People
have no need to fear that their chargers will become obsolete, because these
bases will be compatible with the new generations of smartphone."
Even
smartphones that were not made with a wireless charging receptor can be fitted
with adaptors in the form of an outer case or other minor accessory costing
from about 10 euros ($11).
Wireless
charging race
Qi is
competing with two other standards, PMA and A4WP, which between them group some
200 other telecom, computing and electronics firms.
The PMA and
A4WP camps will merge in mid-2015 "to accelerate the growth of this
nascent market," they said in a statement.
Tauber
denied this competition would hold back the industry from developing a common
standard for compatible charging pads. She reckoned it would drive it towards a
"homogenous standard".
Makers of
smartphones have so far failed to find a common standard for any kind of
charger, despite attempts such as the European Union's bid to impose universal
chargers by 2016.
Analysts
said it was tricky to estimate the potential value of the market for wireless
chargers.
The Wireless
Power Consortium estimates that 50 million chargers were sold in 2014.
According to
technology consultancy Gartner, in that year consumers bought 1.8 billion
handsets - which typically come with a charger included.
"In the
next few years they will all have wireless chargers in-built,"
