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Apple may have struggled to get its AirPower multi-device charger to work, but just above the horizon is new technology that promises to make wireless charging truly wireless, and Xiaomi is the last business to promise a world without charging cables – we just don’t know when it will actually happen.
Wireless charging in its current form is really handy as it allows you to simply place a device like a smartphone or headphones on a pad to recharge its battery without having to search for a cable. But at the same time, it is also restrictive, forcing you to do anything but ditch a device on a desk or side table until it’s loaded. True wireless charging is the perfect solution because as long as you’re in the same room as a wireless power transmitter, your phone will charge no matter where it is, even if you always use it in your hand.
It sounds like total science fiction, but the technology is out there, and in 2016 a company called It is demonstrated working prototypes of its Cota wireless charging system at CES. A smartphone (updated with a special case) could be carried anywhere in the company’s booth and would continue to charge indefinitely. Today Xiaomi announced its own wireless charging ecosystem called ‘Mi Air Charge Technology’ which appears to offer similar features (and limitations) to Ossia’s Cota technology.
Instead of wires or a pair of aligned magnetic coils, Mi Air Charge uses a transmitter (it’s about the size of a portable air conditioner) packed with antennas that accurately determine the location of a device. , then use beamforming to broadcast “millimeter-wide waves” toward it. A separate, smaller collection of antennas functions as a receiver inside another device, converting the wireless signals to about 5 watts of power, which the iPhone’s little cube charger provided when plugged into an electrical outlet.
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Xiaomi promises that the system can power multiple devices at the same time, whether it is a smartphone, tablet, headset or even a pair of wireless powered batteries like Ossia also demonstrated a few years ago, this ensures that old devices never need a new pair. Distances are still limited to several meters, roughly the size of an average room, but the technology isn’t hampered by physical obstacles, so the powerful power emitter can potentially be hidden out of sight.
It’s exciting to see more companies announcing wireless charging solutions like this because it helps legitimize the technology, but unfortunately, nowadays all we really have are announcements. Since its debut at CES 2016, Ossia still has not launched a wireless charging product available to consumers. And Xiaomi’s announcement today doesn’t even include vague promises about how long it will take the company to make its Mi Air Charge technology available outside of its own R&D labs.
There are considerable challenges in making this technology both safe and reliable, and unfortunately it is not backward compatible.. In the future, Xiaomi may include the compact antenna receiver array in its future smartphones, but your iPhone will not work with the system. without special charging case, or Apple agrees to play well with Xiaomi. There’s no doubt that wireless charging will one day be common – we might even be able to cover entire cities with wireless power instead of needing a transmitter in every room of a house – but for the time being, there’s nothing more than a tantalizing tech demo left.
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