Mi Air Charge - Xiaomi introduces technology that allows to charge phones remotely in a ~5m radius

[XenorPLxx]

Summary
Xiaomi unveiled technology that will allow to charge your phones (and other devices in future) not only wirelessly, but truly remotely. It consists of a base station that includes multiple antennas for locating the device and sending energy remotely and a miniaturized antenna array that can be built into the phone to help with locating the device and receive the energy.
 

 

Quotes

Quote

(...) Xiaomi remote charging technology is capable of 5-watt remote charging for a single device within a radius of several meters. Apart from that, multiple devices can also be charged at the same time (each device supports 5 watts), and even physical obstacles do not reduce the charging efficiency. 

 

My thoughts

For now this seems more like a concept than a true device, there's no data on when it will be available and how much will it cost, but they say that technology already works. I definitely want one.

 

Sources

https://blog.mi.com/en/2021/01/29/forget-about-cables-and-charging-stands-with-revolutionary-mi-air-charge-technology/

 

[Stahlmann]

Can't wait for the tinfoil-hatters that claim they get brainwashed with the energy waves.

[NeuesTestament]

I wonder how efficient the end product will be in case it ever comes out.

[XenorPLxx]

5W doesn't seem like a lot, but honestly 80% of the time I'm awake is spent in 5m radius, so if it's charging faster than I'm discharging my batteries, I'm in.

[matrix07012]

Interesting. I would mainly be interested in the efficiency, since even inductive charging is quite inefficient.

[RejZoR]

Linus tested something similar that was ceiling mountable and replaced the light in the room. That one charged devices in a different way by shooting a focused beam from ceiling down and had to be without obstructions (which is why ceiling mount was preferred).

 

Also I hope phones that support this feature have battery charge limiter. I'd hate to have my phone at 100% charge entire time. I'd prefer to lock it to 50% or 80%.

 

It's certainly interesting tech and I wonder how it'll evolve in the future...

[XenorPLxx]

8 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Linus tested something similar that was ceiling mountable and replaced the light in the room. (...)

Oh, I've never seen the video with the ceiling mountable charger, thanks for the info :).
https://www.youtube.com/watch/YeNXRD8eziA

[Sauron]

I wish they would stop pushing wireless charging, it's just a stupid idea. It's wildly inefficient and barely any more convenient than its wired counterpart.

 

Also I would be surprised if this ends up working as intended, the physics are just not in its favor.

[PeachGr]

That will be the future of a smart house. That way, you won't need to charge anything by yourself, so we'll see smart bins ( I know they already exist), smart curtains, doors, light switches (that are not plugged to anything so you can put them everywhere). It is a necessary step forward

[williamcll]

but imagine the amount of popcorn I can bake.

[XenorPLxx]

3 minutes ago, PeachGr said:

That will be the future of a smart house. That way, you won't need to charge anything by yourself, so we'll see smart bins ( I know they already exist), smart curtains, doors, light switches (that are not plugged to anything so you can put them everywhere). It is a necessary step forward

Oh man, I didn't even think about IoT applications. I'm currently struggling with choosing smart shades automation, as it's either 'swap batteries every month' option or 'plug it in a socket and have a cable out' option, both are not optimal. I'd love to just be able to power those remotely.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

35 minutes ago, XenorPLxx said:

Oh man, I didn't even think about IoT applications. I'm currently struggling with choosing smart shades automation, as it's either 'swap batteries every month' option or 'plug it in a socket and have a cable out' option, both are not optimal. I'd love to just be able to power those remotely.

For now, you could rout the cable though the wall and install a outlet into the wall.

You woykdg have to do some work to get the outlet into the wall, but it would be doable.

[XenorPLxx]

5 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

For now, you could rout the cable though the wall and install a outlet into the wall.

You woykdg have to do some work to get the outlet into the wall, but it would be doable.

Oh, I'm in Europe. We have concrete walls here :D. It'd basically mean redoing the whole wall if I want to hide the cables.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

17 minutes ago, XenorPLxx said:

Oh, I'm in Europe. We have concrete walls here :D. It'd basically mean redoing the whole wall if I want to hide the cables.

Oh, well that's not going to work lol. Good luck

[germgoatz]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

I wish they would stop pushing wireless charging, it's just a stupid idea. It's wildly inefficient and barely any more convenient than its wired counterpart.

it might be right now, but that doesn't mean it wont evolve and mature into a much better technology

[Doobeedoo]

Something like this would be neat. Hopefully battery tech evolves already though.

[Sauron]

25 minutes ago, germgoatz said:

it might be right now, but that doesn't mean it wont evolve and mature into a much better technology

No, it won't. It's impossible to get anywhere near the efficiency of a cabled solution. This isn't a technological limit, it's a physical limit.

 

No matter how much you improve cars they'll never reach even a thousandth of the speed of light because that would be physically impossible, even just because of air drag. This is like that. There MUST be significant energy waste for wireless charging to work. There are edge cases where it's necessary to transmit power wirelessly and of course at that point some energy waste is acceptable - phones are not one of those cases.

[Vishera]

It's nothing new,Wireless power transmission has been around since the 1800s.

The reason it didn't succeed was it's extreme inefficiency and cost.

Today we use that technology for the wireless transmission of data,if it's radio,cellular,WI-Fi and more.

Xiaomi can't eliminate the inefficiency since it's a limitation of wireless power transmission.

 

4 hours ago, XenorPLxx said:

It consists of a base station that includes multiple antennas for locating the device and sending energy remotely and a miniaturized antenna array that can be built into the phone to help with locating the device and receive the energy.

This will help with efficiency,but as i said before wireless power transmission is still very inefficient even with all of those antennas.

It may be convenient,but it's wasteful,expensive and slow.

[lostcattears]

Errrr ok.... there seems to be many problems and reasons why this shouldn't be done but ok

[jagdtigger]

 

[captain_to_fire]

Qi/PMA wireless chargers are known to be inefficient, what makes them think that this somehow solves it? This is why Apple is not yet killing the lightning port in this year’s iPhone. 

[WereCatf]

33 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

 

Hah, I was just going to post this same thing since I literally finished watching this like 30 seconds ago

[soldier_ph]

Love that 69% charge on the phone, nice 

[bcredeur97]

On 1/29/2021 at 4:52 AM, NeuesTestament said:

I wonder how efficient the end product will be in case it ever comes out.

only judging by the size of the box, im thinking it'll be stupid inefficient. like 30-40 watts to get 5watts @ the endpoint 

[Vishera]

11 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

 

My previous comment mentioned most of points that Dave mentioned,

But it's good to hear from an engineer about it in detail.