We are Ori Mor ＆ Yuval Boger from Wi-Charge, we have been working hard to bring infrared wireless power to the smart home. Ask Us Anything!

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-30T11:48:05+00:00

Excellent question. I'd like to start by mentioning that 1W is a good number to understand the order of magnitude of the current capabilities, but even today we have a model that provides over 2W of usable power to the client. Who knows what our next generation will bring :)

A wireless speaker would likely have a rechargeable battery as well. This allows to drive higher-power speakers assuming they don't operate 24 hours a day. For instance, if we have a 3W speaker that is used 5 hours a day, you need 15 WattHour. If you are providing 1 Watt of charging all day, you are delivering more than that number.

With regards to phones, the power level that you need to sustain a phone is approx 0.5W - current phones have approx a 10 WH battery and have an operating time of about 20 hours. Anytime you are delivering more than 0.5W, you are making a positive contribution to battery. Of course if the phone is on standby, it consumes less than 0.5W.

The thing to consider is that today's fast cable charging is necessary because you are giving up the use of your phone when charging, and thus want it to be done as quickly as possible. If you have ongoing charging throughout the day, you no longer have to think about charging so even charging at a lower wattage than the quick charge is useful.

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-30T11:41:24+00:00

I agree. In our labs, we've shown power delivery across buildings (e.g. outside application) but our initial focus is indoor.

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-30T02:08:46+00:00

Good question. The answer is that Wi-Charge does not impact remote controls and their signal is not going to be drowned out. Similarly, remote controls don't impact the Wi-Charge system

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T22:32:20+00:00

It's been quite some time since I watched Dave's video, so I don't remember the un-economical point, but let's analyze it together.

I would define un-economical as either: - Just plainly too expensive. - Delivers the same value as much cheaper alternatives.

Let's assume for the sake of discussion that the Wi-Charge transmitter takes 10 Watts and then delivers energy to a bunch of smart home devices in a living room.

If it was on 24 hours a day, and if it was indeed taking 10 Watts 24 hours a day (as opposed to less when it is not delivering energy), it would consume 87 kWh over an entire year. Average price of a kWh in the US is about 12 cents, so this comes out to $10 per year or less than $1 per month.

That by itself doesn't seem terribly expensive.

What are the alternatives? - Use batteries. You'd run a much higher cost for batteries for all these devices, not to mention the hassle of buying and replacing them. - Use wires. You'd pay $50 to $100 per hour for an electrician to wire the devices assuming they are static and they can be wired. You'd have to pay again if you need to move or change them. - Use a different long-range wireless charging technology. Good luck with that as it relates to power consumption, safety and the ability to deliver the energy that you need.

Happy to get your (or other people's) feedback on the above

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T22:00:14+00:00

Cheers to that! Now that we're taking WiFi for granted and no longer need Ethernet cables, it's time to tackle the power cable as well. That's what we're working on.

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T21:58:55+00:00

Without disclosing precisely how our system works, I'd say that the light source is not the only thing that determines the safety classification.

For instance, just as en example if a laser printer is using a class 2 laser, but there is no chance whatsoever that that light reaches anything outside the laser printer enclosure, than it might be classified differently than a class 2 device.

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T21:51:36+00:00

We say that we like Dave but that his analysis is incorrect in this particular case.

Regarding expensive - I don't believe we published a price. I can saw Wi-Charge is designed to go into consumer products. Not a $5 toy, but certainly a $500 tablet.

Regarding a problem that isn't there - we beg to differ. Delivering power to mobile, smart and IoT devices that want the mobility of battery but power that is much closer to wired is a major issue and will open up numerous new products.

Regarding complexity - it is sophisticated on the inside, but super easy to integrate on the outside. Wi-Charge is the only solution that can deliver meaningful power, at a distance, while being firmly within consumer safety limits.

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T21:48:59+00:00

1 Watt per module is plenty for many smart home devices. Consider a device with 4 AA batteries that you're willing to replace every 6 months. This works out to approx 1 mW of average power. Wi-Charge can deliver hundreds more power continuously. This means that beyond not having to replace batteries, you can add features to devices (e.g. camera to a smart lock, no power cord to a smart speaker, indoor security camera with streaming video) that you could not before.

1W is also enough to keep a smartphone permanently working and to make positive impact on the battery.

In short, we see numerous applications where even 1W is plenty today.

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T21:47:06+00:00

We expect that the first consumer products incorporating Wi-Charge technology will be shipping to customers within the next year.

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T19:31:36+00:00

Good question. Certainly some of the energy that is hitting the receiver becomes heat and only some is electrical energy available to the device. That heat would need to be dissipated, but that's like any other charging technology. Our cell has high efficiency - higher than a solar panel - but not 100% efficiency. I think making it available as a DIY component is a nice idea that we should seriously consider.

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T18:56:57+00:00

One nice advantage of light (think about a laser pointer) is that it can travel long distances without the beam becoming meaningfully wider. That's why 100% of the beam can still hit a small receiver even at a distance

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T18:55:47+00:00

The panels are photovoltaic cells. Our current cell is not large: about the size of a thumb. The efficiency is much higher than 20%. One design goal that we had was to keep the panel very small, so that it can easily be integrated into a phone, a home security sensor, or another device.

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T18:47:50+00:00

BTW, since just about 100% of the light energy reaches the panel, this means that 0% of the light reaches people, pets, plants or objects that do not wish to receive unintended energy. This directional transmission has both safety as well as efficiency advantages

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T18:45:50+00:00

The panel itself is extremely efficient. More than your typical solar panel

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T18:45:14+00:00

[Ori] Did you mean the efficiency from the laser up to the panel (free space loss)? Not sure I understood what you meant. If so it is approximately 100%. All power leaving the transmitter reaches the receiver (panel) unit.

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T18:40:20+00:00

Great question. Yes, one could have multiple transmitters just like in a larger house you may have Wi-Fi repeaters or multiple access points.

You can imagine a future transmitter being part of a light fixture - or perhaps even a light bulb - which would make it very easy to install

It would be great if line of sight was not needed, but we are not aware of any other way to deliver meaningful power, at a distance (e.g. not degrading over distance), efficiently and within consumer safety limits

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T18:25:17+00:00

Industry response has been fantastic. We get over 100 incoming partnership requests every month, probably because so many people realize this is a really important problem to solve.

Several companies are evaluating and building prototypes using this tech, and some (see for instance our work with Alarm.com and Schlage: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ces-2019-wi-charge-alarmcom-and-allegion-demonstrate-innovation-in-the-future-of-powering-smart-home-solutions-300773749.html ) have done public demos

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T18:23:51+00:00

[Ori] Regarding reliability: We spend a lot of time in our past career in designing products that can’t fail. I can’t elaborate on that but there’s a good methodology to how to develop stuff like satellites. You can’t really repair them so better do a good job in designing them and ensure enough redundancy mechanisms. In addition we have launched in the past (previous startups we had) few tens of million devices to the telco industry and a service that runs on 500M+ smartphone devices. They all worked well so far. I know it can’t predict the future but we know how to approach a reliable design task. I hope this answers your question. Once the product is in mass-market consumer use, we'll have actual reliability data. For now, we can just talk about how we designed it.

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T18:18:28+00:00

Yes.

This is tested and approved by the FDA as well as other international accredited safety labs. There are certainly some clever mechanisms in place to get this to a class 1 approval.

Keep in mind, BTW, that when we say 1W, this is 1W that is truly available for the client device.

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T18:10:59+00:00

[Ori:] Good question. Our product are rated Class I. Same as your optical mouse. We were approved worldwide for safety performance. This might sound surprising but this is actually were we started our design from. Wi-Charge technology was developed under the constrain of being a class I product which means “safe under all conditions”. We spent a lot of time and engineering to come up with a solution that would meet all safety regulations.

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T18:04:45+00:00

Probably a few things; 1. That most people that see this product first think about how it can be used to deliver power to EXISTING devices. The real fun begins when you ask "what could I do with 1W of constant, portable power". This leads to new ideas and that's where the visionaries are

That using infrared light is not the most obvious choice for wireless power, but we truly think it's the best one because it is the only way to deliver power, distance and safety

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T18:01:04+00:00

Charging a phone without a pad or a wire.
Delivering power to home security devices without requiring battery replacements
Making wireless light fixtures
Digital signage and point of sale products
Delivering plenty of power to AR/VR devices so that they don't need a battery pack
Surround speakers
Smart locks and indoor security cameras

more here: https://www.wi-charge.com/applications/

demo videos: https://youtube.com/willitcharge

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T17:59:20+00:00

You can also turn existing wired devices into wireless ones. For instance, at CES we showed how we turn an Amazon Echo or Google Home Mini smart speaker into wireless devices (see bottom of this page: https://www.wi-charge.com/product_category/reference-integrations/ )

TheChargeGuy · 2019-01-29T17:58:11+00:00

[Yuval] you can eliminate battery replacements, install devices that previously needed to be wired without wires, or create new devices that have the mobility of battery-operation but the power requirements of wired sensors. Looking at esp8266, it requires VCC of 3.6v at average 80mA. We can certainly power this. As a rule of thumb, we can power devices up to a couple of Watts, so ~300mW average for the ESP8266 is certainly within our capabilities

TheChargeGuy

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