Consumer technology is moving stupider and stupider directions, now working against physics for the sake of convenience at the cost of efficiency.

[oali24]

So today I watched this video uploaded by MrWhoseTheBoss about xiaomi air charging, and after watching I have gotten a feeling that the direction technology is moving in, at least on the consumer level is getting worse and worse, and I'm just focusing on hardware here, not about software, that's its own can of worms, but unfortunately the problem I've noticed with hardware is that the strive for increased convenience has taken on an unhealthy attitude were things must be more convenient no matter how this affects things like endurance, efficiency and reliability, to the point were these product ideas have to work against the laws of physics and be absurdly inefficient. Like really? sending electricity through the air? Hello? We already tried that back in the late 1800s and we found out pretty quickly that it was a stupid idea that was absurdly inefficient because air is a garbage conductor of electricity, and no innovation and technological expertise is going to change that, its just a fundamental law of physics. Then there is the fact that this is just an absurder version of wireless charging which is already kind of bad as it is also inefficient but exists because people somehow find it so tiring to just plug in their phone to a connector that they would rather waste electricity and raise their devices environmental impact by a good amount if used regularly over the devices lifetime. I know that this is just a concept that is likely just going to disappear from their marketing materials and it may be like as if everyone forgot about it, and I sure hope so, but this shows to me that companies will go for convenience over common sense at this point, the video also mentions the port less iphone rumor which I sure hope doesn't happen because of efficiency concerns but if it does happen then it will be a clear sign to me at least that governments will need to build standards and frameworks stating what features a device like a smartphone requires that are common sense like physical charging ports just to ensure that the companies don't force on ridiculous nonsense that is truly just convenience at any costs. Sorry if this seems like just rambling, but I can't be the only one thinking this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvWMeo1tcgQ

[Master Disaster]

People want convenience, companies exist to make what people want, if people want convenience then its no surprise that companies make convenient products.

 

Its a side effect of capitalism and consumerism.

[oali24]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

People want convenience, companies exist to make what people want, if people want convenience then its no surprise that companies make convenient products.

 

Its a side effect of capitalism and consumerism.

But I don't think people want to needlessly waste huge amounts of energy, if you touch a wireless charger that's charging a phone, all that heat is waste energy, the problem is that people are uneducated and don't understand these impacts, the capitalism and consumerism has lead to this horrific excess and waste where consumer electronics are meant to be disposed of at the cost of the environment and people's wallets while electronic products are thrown out after a few years even if they work fine, a handheld radio and a cd player are likely to still work I have both and they work great, hype in consumer technology is a seriously detrimental thing as it seems to make everyone forget that their previous item worked fine and exaggerate how much better their new things are.

[Kisai]

34 minutes ago, oali24 said:

But I don't think people want to needlessly waste huge amounts of energy, if you touch a wireless charger that's charging a phone, all that heat is waste energy, the problem is that people are uneducated and don't understand these impacts, the capitalism and consumerism has lead to this horrific excess and waste where consumer electronics are meant to be disposed of at the cost of the environment and people's wallets while electronic products are thrown out after a few years even if they work fine, a handheld radio and a cd player are likely to still work I have both and they work great, hype in consumer technology is a seriously detrimental thing as it seems to make everyone forget that their previous item worked fine and exaggerate how much better their new things are.

Unless governments step in and regulate wireless charging on a "energy waste" / "environment" concern, don't expect any change here.

 

Wireless charging falls directly into the entire "5g gives you cancer", "wireless utility monitors gives you cancer" spectrum of silly notions. Convenience will always rule over better/faster/smarter options. For example, look at how many countries still use swipe cards, oh wait, that's ONLY the US. The better option, tap-to-pay is more convenient, the more secure option chip+pin is better. Yet Americans largely have not bothered with chip+pin, and only get tap-to-pay if they have an iphone and their retailer isn't clinging to their 1980's swipe POS system. For example, in Canada, Walmart, and BestBuy have the chip terminal enabled on their systems, in the US? exact same POS hardware, chip slot is turned off. That hardware doesn't support tap-to-pay at all. Most stores in Canada support tap-to-pay.

 

Wireless charging is the same issue. It may be more convenient to wirelessly charge, but because it has a much higher environmental cost (unlike say Chip+pin) and offers nothing else, you'd wonder why anyone would want to waste two-to-three times as much energy just to charge the phone 10 times slower.

 

[oali24]

5 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Unless governments step in and regulate wireless charging on a "energy waste" / "environment" concern, don't expect any change here.

 

Wireless charging falls directly into the entire "5g gives you cancer", "wireless utility monitors gives you cancer" spectrum of silly notions. Convenience will always rule over better/faster/smarter options. For example, look at how many countries still use swipe cards, oh wait, that's ONLY the US. The better option, tap-to-pay is more convenient, the more secure option chip+pin is better. Yet Americans largely have not bothered with chip+pin, and only get tap-to-pay if they have an iphone and their retailer isn't clinging to their 1980's swipe POS system. For example, in Canada, Walmart, and BestBuy have the chip terminal enabled on their systems, in the US? exact same POS hardware, chip slot is turned off. That hardware doesn't support tap-to-pay at all. Most stores in Canada support tap-to-pay.

 

Wireless charging is the same issue. It may be more convenient to wirelessly charge, but because it has a much higher environmental cost (unlike say Chip+pin) and offers nothing else, you'd wonder why anyone would want to waste two-to-three times as much energy just to charge the phone 10 times slower.

 

Here in Jordan we have chip+pin, I don't think I've seen much tap to pay but maybe I'm just not paying attention, although really, most people just use cash because most Jordanians are dirt poor, especially post pandemic.

[Middcore]

Other technologies that work against physics for the sake of convenience: powered flight. 

[SeriousDad69]

24 minutes ago, Middcore said:

Other technologies that work against physics for the sake of convenience: powered flight. 

Air travel has the advantage of being much faster than ground travel lol. Wireless charging on the other hand is worse than regular charging.

[Zodiark1593]

22 hours ago, oali24 said:

But I don't think people want to needlessly waste huge amounts of energy, if you touch a wireless charger that's charging a phone, all that heat is waste energy, the problem is that people are uneducated and don't understand these impacts, the capitalism and consumerism has lead to this horrific excess and waste where consumer electronics are meant to be disposed of at the cost of the environment and people's wallets while electronic products are thrown out after a few years even if they work fine, a handheld radio and a cd player are likely to still work I have both and they work great, hype in consumer technology is a seriously detrimental thing as it seems to make everyone forget that their previous item worked fine and exaggerate how much better their new things are.

Wired charging isn’t free either, as it costs energy to make and replace cables and connectors, and the repair of devices with worn connectors tends to be fairly difficult. 

[oali24]

20 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Wired charging isn’t free either, as it costs energy to make and replace cables and connectors, and the repair of devices with worn connectors tends to be fairly difficult. 

The difference is that wireless charging has much more costs to build already compared to the tiny cost of metals for connectors, and the point is that we already have a very efficient way of charging devices and that is through a metal wire.

[oali24]

1 hour ago, Middcore said:

Other technologies that work against physics for the sake of convenience: powered flight. 

Powered flight is a useful technology, and it doesn't, powered flight uses a well designed wing and flight surfaces to create lift and engines to go forwards so that it can fly, when I say works against physics I mean when the product is doing something in an absurdly inefficient wasteful way that could be done in a much easier way that physics allow, like using the electrically conductive materials like metal to power an electrical device.

[RejZoR]

44 minutes ago, oali24 said:

Powered flight is a useful technology, and it doesn't, powered flight uses a well designed wing and flight surfaces to create lift and engines to go forwards so that it can fly, when I say works against physics I mean when the product is doing something in an absurdly inefficient wasteful way that could be done in a much easier way that physics allow, like using the electrically conductive materials like metal to power an electrical device.

Well, I wouldn't call airplanes inefficient by any measure. They get to that point when you're starting to trade cargo capacity to the edge of actual physical limitations. Ultralights can basically soar without any engine, but can carry 1 or 2 people. Airbus A350 can carry 331 passengers, but it's basically a flying brick which can't soar at all without engines (not in way ultralight can). You could make bigger wings to give it more lift, but then you're also adding more drag and the wing span can't just go into infinity because then you'll have structural problems when airplane is on the ground and wings will just hang down to the ground. Airplanes are designed for maximum carrying capacity with minimal required wing span and redundancy good enough that it basically has to lose both engines in order to fall from the sky. They are always engineered in a way that 1 engine still makes it possible to land relatively safely.

 

Now, back to wireless charging... Wired charging is pretty much 100% efficient from energy transport standpoint. Qi chargers have a moderate loss because we're still talking electricity over distance, but phones are meant to be placed on top which means it adds up convenience of not having to stick a cable on the port, but is still fast enough to be usable and it's not really that wasteful. This is basically the aircrafts level of efficiency. It's a good balance of convenience and efficiency.

 

The high distance Xiaomi's wireless charger that's floating around news these days is equivalent of a Saturn V rocket where 95% of the whole thing is fuel and the carrying capacity is actually very low. It's highly inefficient as a result, but still has a place, because it's really the only way to send shit to space. It's not meant for mass transportation. I'm sure tech used in Xiaomi's thingie will be perfected with time and it'll find use in very niche use cases where cables or even batteries can't be used, but you need to power the device at short distance. I can't think of such scenario right now, but there might be one. It just won't be for use in every home to charge smartphones. Just like rockets aren't used to grab a cup of coffee and a burger at nearby McDonalds...

[Mihle]

Could argue that a phone doesn't use much energy in reality compared to other things.

 

You would have a stronger case if you argued against wireless headphones, when it comes to how good it is for the environment.

Wireless headphones have batteries, wireless module and electronics that wired ones don't. Those batteries and stuff pollute more to produce, but more importantly, with a good designed headphones, the battery probably wear faster than what the wire do, and even it's too worn, people won't get them replaced, they will throw them away and get new ones.

[oali24]

14 hours ago, Mihle said:

Could argue that a phone doesn't use much energy in reality compared to other things.

 

You would have a stronger case if you argued against wireless headphones, when it comes to how good it is for the environment.

Wireless headphones have batteries, wireless module and electronics that wired ones don't. Those batteries and stuff pollute more to produce, but more importantly, with a good designed headphones, the battery probably wear faster than what the wire do, and even it's too worn, people won't get them replaced, they will throw them away and get new ones.

you have a point, although wireless headphones can be plugged in and used wired, which coincidentally the apple airpods max cannot so yeah, although a wireless headphone will have a battery, the battery will last much longer as it is being recharged less due to having better battery life in general.

[kucharczykt]

On 1/30/2021 at 1:36 PM, oali24 said:

So today I watched this video uploaded by MrWhoseTheBoss about xiaomi air charging, and after watching I have gotten a feeling that the direction technology is moving in, at least on the consumer level is getting worse and worse, and I'm just focusing on hardware here, not about software, that's its own can of worms, but unfortunately the problem I've noticed with hardware is that the strive for increased convenience has taken on an unhealthy attitude were things must be more convenient no matter how this affects things like endurance, efficiency and reliability, to the point were these product ideas have to work against the laws of physics and be absurdly inefficient. Like really? sending electricity through the air? Hello? We already tried that back in the late 1800s and we found out pretty quickly that it was a stupid idea that was absurdly inefficient because air is a garbage conductor of electricity, and no innovation and technological expertise is going to change that, its just a fundamental law of physics. Then there is the fact that this is just an absurder version of wireless charging which is already kind of bad as it is also inefficient but exists because people somehow find it so tiring to just plug in their phone to a connector that they would rather waste electricity and raise their devices environmental impact by a good amount if used regularly over the devices lifetime. I know that this is just a concept that is likely just going to disappear from their marketing materials and it may be like as if everyone forgot about it, and I sure hope so, but this shows to me that companies will go for convenience over common sense at this point, the video also mentions the port less iphone rumor which I sure hope doesn't happen because of efficiency concerns but if it does happen then it will be a clear sign to me at least that governments will need to build standards and frameworks stating what features a device like a smartphone requires that are common sense like physical charging ports just to ensure that the companies don't force on ridiculous nonsense that is truly just convenience at any costs. Sorry if this seems like just rambling, but I can't be the only one thinking this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvWMeo1tcgQ

I don't think there should nessicarly be a law stating that companies should have usb-c charging or even a charging port at all. What I do think should happen is that governments should implement efficiency standards for certain consumer electronics e.g. smartphones, tablets mabey things like tv's, pre-builts and laptops too. This would allow consumers to get what they want but companies would have to create more efficent ways to wirelessly charge.

[LAwLz]

I bet that if OP had been living in the early 19th century then he would have been opposed to the idea of computers as well.

 

Nobody who has been opposed to technological progress throughout history has been right, and I don't think OP will be either.

 

 

 

17 hours ago, RejZoR said:

I'm sure tech used in Xiaomi's thingie will be perfected with time and it'll find use in very niche use cases where cables or even batteries can't be used, but you need to power the device at short distance. I can't think of such scenario right now, but there might be one. It just won't be for use in every home to charge smartphones. Just like rockets aren't used to grab a cup of coffee and a burger at nearby McDonalds...

A lot of the things we take for granted today were thought of as useless or bad at the time of their invention. 

The lightbulb was thought of as being useless when it was invented. I mean, clearly candles were far superior right?

The telephone was called a toy when it was invented.

The television was expected by many to be a failure because surely nobody would want to just sit and look at a screen without doing anything.

People thought the airplane was useless, and the current behemoths of airplanes were thought to be impossible because it "went against physics".

 

I think the cellphone is a good example of how terrible OP's logic is.

Motorola's director of research once stated that cellular phones will absolutely not replace local wire systems. The idea was that why would you replace a cheap, simple and working wired system with really expensive, power hungry and complicated wireless systems? Sounds familiar?

[oali24]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

I bet that if OP had been living in the early 19th century then he would have been opposed to the idea of computers as well.

 

Nobody who has been opposed to technological progress throughout history has been right, and I don't think OP will be either.

 

 

 

A lot of the things we take for granted today were thought of as useless or bad at the time of their invention. 

The lightbulb was thought of as being useless when it was invented. I mean, clearly candles were far superior right?

The telephone was called a toy when it was invented.

The television was expected by many to be a failure because surely nobody would want to just sit and look at a screen without doing anything.

People thought the airplane was useless, and the current behemoths of airplanes were thought to be impossible because it "went against physics".

 

I think the cellphone is a good example of how terrible OP's logic is.

Motorola's director of research once stated that cellular phones will absolutely not replace local wire systems. The idea was that why would you replace a cheap, simple and working wired system with really expensive, power hungry and complicated wireless systems? Sounds familiar?

The point I was making wasn't that technological progress is useless, my point was that this product exists to solve a nonexistent problem, and does it in a way that just does not make sense due to the laws of physics, no one thought that candles were superior to lightbulbs when they were invented because the lightbulb was superior in every imaginable way at the time, the only problem was the need for electrical infrastructure.

People thought flying cars were the future, but that never turned out, because the cost of fuel and the increased difficulty of flying vs driving stopped and you know what the reason for those drawbacks? Physics.

Quote

I think the cellphone is a good example of how terrible OP's logic is.

Motorola's director of research once stated that cellular phones will absolutely not replace local wire systems. The idea was that why would you replace a cheap, simple and working wired system with really expensive, power hungry and complicated wireless systems? Sounds familiar?

This is a terrible analogy, the capabilities of a mobile phone could be expanded and it could become more efficient as transistors got smaller, the idea with wireless charging is literally to send electrical energy through the air, that is not something that can be developed more efficiently because in this universe. air is a bad conductor and it cannot somehow be made into a good conductor without doing something to it, this will always be incredibly inefficient no matter what anyone tries to do unless our understanding of physics changes. Unlike everything you just mentioned wireless transmission of electricity isn't new or novel, we've literally been looking into doing this almost as long as electricity has been able to be directly harnessed by humans, look it up, but then they realised that it was horrifically inefficient and they dropped it, this isn't innovation, this is just wasting a lot of energy for no significant improvement.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, oali24 said:

The point I was making wasn't that technological progress is useless, my point was that this product exists to solve a nonexistent problem, and does it in a way that just does not make sense due to the laws of physics

A non-existing issue? Wireless transfer of power is a very big and very real issue. There are a ton of devices that potentially could use wireless power, most of which are probably not even thought of yet. Just because you can't think of a use case for it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or won't ever exist.

Also, in what way does it not make sense due to the laws of physics? 

 

 

1 hour ago, oali24 said:

no one thought that candles were superior to lightbulbs when they were invented because the lightbulb was superior in every imaginable way at the time, the only problem was the need for electrical infrastructure.

No, people legitimately thought lightbulbs were a useless invention.

People said it wouldn't work and according to some sources people did not think it would be a replacement for candles. I mean, by your own logic wouldn't a lightbulb just be a "solution for a nonexistent problem which doesn't make sense due to the laws of physics"? I mean, lightbulbs are horribly inefficient, and it doesn't really solve an issue because candles could already create light.

 

2 hours ago, oali24 said:

People thought flying cars were the future, but that never turned out, because the cost of fuel and the increased difficulty of flying vs driving stopped and you know what the reason for those drawbacks? Physics.

People also said planes were impossible because the cost of fuel, difficulty stopping, having to fight "physics" etc. By your logic we should never have invented airplanes either. Besides, airplanes probably "solved a nonexistent problem" as well right? We were living and working just fine without airplanes as well. Why fight the law of gravity when we don't have to?

[Kisai]

On 1/31/2021 at 9:01 AM, Zodiark1593 said:

Wired charging isn’t free either, as it costs energy to make and replace cables and connectors, and the repair of devices with worn connectors tends to be fairly difficult. 

That's a different scale. Wireless things also have batteries that typically wouldn't need it.

 

Wireless charging is basically the thing Nikola Tesla had been trying to do in 1896. Before dry-cell batteries. Lead-Acid batteries were still a new invention, and are still basically unchanged since 1859. The amount of energy required to radiate from a wireless energy transmitter is immensely wasteful, even if it uses beam-forming types of tech to reduce the waste directions. You also have the problem of what happens if you move the device being charged. Radiating energy also has to be of a very low rate and only at certain frequencies because otherwise it goes into things like clothing, food, pets and humans.

 

There is a reason why there are massive danger signs outside cellular and microwave towers. People who work in television broadcast stations also tend to suffer from psychological effects as long as they are in/nearby the transmission equipment.

 

Like there are plenty of reasons to not adopt wireless charging tech, and the biggest one is all the evidence that already exists regarding existing exposure to RF energy. Here's an example of one https://mmrjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40779-017-0139-0

 

It's already silly to make everything wirelessly communicate, but at least they communicate at relatively low energy levels, as long as you're not near the transmitter, it's also fairly safe. Wireless charging however has to push a lot of energy in order to charge anything, and we're no longer talking about the 200mw peak of 802.11 tech. Qi is 5-30W, an increase of 25x to 150x that of WiFi. And we already know the consequences:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/is-the-heat-from-wireless-charging-damaging-your-phone/ , so what happens when the device is meters apart? Does the air between the device and the transmitter suddenly become uncomfortably hot?

 

[Zodiark1593]

6 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Does the air between the device and the transmitter suddenly become uncomfortably hot?

 

Radiative emission of heat tends will not heat the air, but liquids will be heated, including the water in a living person. Greater wavelengths penetrate deeper,  potentially putting heat in areas of the body that wasn’t designed to absorb and disperse it, such as the brain. 20 watts if output in a small area is a lot of heat. 

[LAwLz]

27 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Radiative emission of heat tends will not heat the air, but liquids will be heated, including the water in a living person. Greater wavelengths penetrate deeper,  potentially putting heat in areas of the body that wasn’t designed to absorb and disperse it, such as the brain. 20 watts if output in a small area is a lot of heat. 

20 watts of heat isn't as much as you could think. Incandescent light bulbs typically output about 55 watts of heat, and it wasn't uncommon to have 3-4 of them in a single room. 

 

But I think we should withhold judgment of technology in its infancy. We don't know how it will advance or how it can potentially be used. 

Maybe the future of this technology isn't in smartphones but rather in things like surveillance cameras, digital signage, factories, drones or other embedded devices where running a power wire is impractical? Or maybe we manage to make it power efficient enough to be practical? 

Transistors used to be horribly power efficient, and then we found a way to stuff billions of them into a square centimeter. 

[Letgomyleghoe]

On 1/30/2021 at 11:42 AM, Kisai said:

Yet Americans largely have not bothered with chip+pin, and only get tap-to-pay if they have an iphone and their retailer isn't clinging to their 1980's swipe POS system. For example, in Canada, Walmart, and BestBuy have the chip terminal enabled on their systems, in the US? exact same POS hardware, chip slot is turned off. That hardware doesn't support tap-to-pay at all. Most stores in Canada support tap-to-pay.

just an fyi, most stores in the US use a chip+pin now. I haven't been to a store in probably 4 years that doesn't have a chip. even run down gas stations have a chip now. 

[Zob]

57 minutes ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

just an fyi, most stores in the US use a chip+pin now. I haven't been to a store in probably 4 years that doesn't have a chip. even run down gas stations have a chip now. 

same here every card that u swiped has expired by now.

[oali24]

14 hours ago, LAwLz said:

20 watts of heat isn't as much as you could think. Incandescent light bulbs typically output about 55 watts of heat, and it wasn't uncommon to have 3-4 of them in a single room. 

 

But I think we should withhold judgment of technology in its infancy. We don't know how it will advance or how it can potentially be used. 

Maybe the future of this technology isn't in smartphones but rather in things like surveillance cameras, digital signage, factories, drones or other embedded devices where running a power wire is impractical? Or maybe we manage to make it power efficient enough to be practical? 

Transistors used to be horribly power efficient, and then we found a way to stuff billions of them into a square centimeter. 

its not new technology, that's the point, this is just doing it in the least power efficient way possible, some technologies just can't really be improved because they just conceptually have flaws, the incandescent lightbulb could not be made significantly more efficient because it literally worked by producing light through heating a metal wire, the design was just inherently inefficient, which is why we replaced them, and how xiaomi expects to make something that's inherently inefficient efficient, I would like to see, this is just nonsensical hype over something that isn't novel or new and will just waste energy, this device may literally be too inefficient to be legally sold as their are efficiency standards that they must comply by.

[papajo]

On 1/30/2021 at 8:36 PM, oali24 said:

So today I watched this video uploaded by MrWhoseTheBoss about xiaomi air charging, and after watching I have gotten a feeling that the direction technology is moving in, at least on the consumer level is getting worse and worse, and I'm just focusing on hardware here, not about software, that's its own can of worms, but unfortunately the problem I've noticed with hardware is that the strive for increased convenience has taken on an unhealthy attitude were things must be more convenient no matter how this affects things like endurance, efficiency and reliability, to the point were these product ideas have to work against the laws of physics and be absurdly inefficient. Like really? sending electricity through the air? Hello? We already tried that back in the late 1800s and we found out pretty quickly that it was a stupid idea that was absurdly inefficient because air is a garbage conductor of electricity, and no innovation and technological expertise is going to change that, its just a fundamental law of physics. Then there is the fact that this is just an absurder version of wireless charging which is already kind of bad as it is also inefficient but exists because people somehow find it so tiring to just plug in their phone to a connector that they would rather waste electricity and raise their devices environmental impact by a good amount if used regularly over the devices lifetime. I know that this is just a concept that is likely just going to disappear from their marketing materials and it may be like as if everyone forgot about it, and I sure hope so, but this shows to me that companies will go for convenience over common sense at this point, the video also mentions the port less iphone rumor which I sure hope doesn't happen because of efficiency concerns but if it does happen then it will be a clear sign to me at least that governments will need to build standards and frameworks stating what features a device like a smartphone requires that are common sense like physical charging ports just to ensure that the companies don't force on ridiculous nonsense that is truly just convenience at any costs. Sorry if this seems like just rambling, but I can't be the only one thinking this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvWMeo1tcgQ

Your thinking has gaps. 

 

1) These chargers (if they get into production) will not enforce anything, it is an additional accessory that is up to you if you buy it or not, your phone will work without needing it to be bundled with that air charger (it is not like apple removing the minijack and that if you want to buy an iphone you have to accept that) 

 

2)Is it innificient ? Yes sure, but you have to understand that the meaning of inefficiency changes with context in other words inefficient doesnt mean not viable e.g burning wood to warm you house is inefficient compared to burn diesel that doesnt mean that wood is not a viable solution or that it is wasteful. This charger will essentially use 5G it is not like it will consume 3000 watts to charge your phone with 5 watts... it will consume about as much as a wifi router since it is essentially a 5G antenna, (each wave has a tiny charge but the frequency these waves are propagated per second is tremendously high so you get e.g just  0.00000005 milliwatt per wave but you get blasted with 26,214,400 (26 million) of them per second (assuming 25Ghz frequency) leading to a 5watt/hour charge yes compared to what you can do via a copper wire its not much to write home about but it doesnt mean that it is not good enough. (since you can roam freely inside your house without the need to wait next to the plug until the phone charges)  so time to reach 100% doesnt matter unless you have to meet somebody in a few minutes in which case use the wired supercharger. 

 

Having said that we didnt stop in 1800s to transfer electricity wirelessly because we thought it was stupid, actually "we" didnt anything Tesla did

 

Tesla didnt do it because he run out of money before being able to conduct his experiment of transferring energy via the earths crust, other than that we did and do transfer energy wirelessly it is just that for certain applications it makes more financial and/or practical sense to do it otherwise (like by wire hoho) 

 

We use magnetic induction for example in many appliances the issue with that is that the distance cant be long, we plan to use satellites to harvest solar energy and beam it back to us with microwaves. (https://spacenews.com/navys-solar-power-satellite-hardware-to-be-tested-in-orbit/)

 

So why didnt we use microwaves to transfer energy over a city? well the answer is cancer. (having a particular satellite to beam from space to a particular 0 population spot is safe but beaming microwaves horizontally passing through life forms is hazardous. 

 

So why didnt we use 4G or 3G and suddenly now with 5G we are thinking about transferring energy ? 

 

the answer is wavelength with 5G you transfer 5 watts because you get tiny portions of charge e.g 26 million times per second with 4G that would be like 2.6 million times per second which would be roughly  0.5 watt/hours  in that context, 3G even worse..

 

In other words we didnt have the tech to make high frequency(to the 5G level) transmitters but now we have and you will see many more applications taking advantage of that 

 

Btw 5G frequency can go as high as 100GHz which means it could/can reach 20 watts  

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, papajo said:

-snip-

Are you trolling? Where are you getting any of these ideas from!?

 

 

4 hours ago, papajo said:

This charger will essentially use 5G it is not like it will consume 3000 watts to charge your phone with 5 watts...

What do you mean by 5G? 5G as in, the cellular standard? That's not what is being used, and it doesn't even make any sense.

This does not use 5G.

 

 

4 hours ago, papajo said:

it will consume about as much as a wifi router since it is essentially a 5G antenna

WiFi and 5G are not the same thing, and the thing Xiaomi showed is not a 5G antenna.

 

4 hours ago, papajo said:

(each wave has a tiny charge but the frequency these waves are propagated per second is tremendously high so you get e.g just  0.00000005 milliwatt per wave but you get blasted with 26,214,400 (26 million) of them per second (assuming 25Ghz frequency) leading to a 5watt/hour charge

Where are you getting these numbers from?

 

5 hours ago, papajo said:

So why didnt we use 4G or 3G and suddenly now with 5G we are thinking about transferring energy ? 

Again, this is not 5G...

 

5 hours ago, papajo said:

the answer is wavelength with 5G you transfer 5 watts because you get tiny portions of charge e.g 26 million times per second with 4G that would be like 2.6 million times per second which would be roughly  0.5 watt/hours  in that context, 3G even worse..

That's not how it works... In any way shape or form.

1) I have no idea where you got "26 million with 4G" from. It's not the frequency because 4G operates at between 400Mhz to 5.9GHz, not 26Ghz or whatever.

2) 3G operates in mostly the same frequency band as 4G. Even most of what you said was true, you would be arguing against yourself. 

3) The frequency is not related to power transmitted. Radiation power is. A microwave for example usually operates at 2.5GHz and it can output hundreds of watts of radiation power. My 5GHz access point however, outputs something like 200mW of power.