Can you Charge your phone with light? The next Big thing

 Mind-blowing Charging technologies

-Raghunath B

The current Method of QI-wireless charging

You are probably aware of wireless chargers, even if you are not I am here to explain you. Till today, we are using a technology called as Qi - wireless charging. How it actually works is, your phone contains a copper coil, and your charger contains a coil, when both of the coils are aligned correctly it creates an electromagnetic field, and that charges your phone.

But this type of charging is inefficient, that is mainly because, the coils are on the inside of your smartphone, so there are several layers of plastic and aluminum components in between them, so the magnetic field gets distorted which makes this charging inefficient as there is a lot of power not being used, and moreover it generates a lot of heat.

But future got you covered. These are my collection of new technologies that brighten the future of wireless charging. 

CHARGING WITH LIGHT

This may seem SCI-FI at the beginning but let me break it down to you

WHY DO YOU NEED IT?

If you see, batteries that are in your phone lasts 2-3 years, and this is the main reason why people want to change their device, so if this light charging gets matured and once it gets readily available everywhere, you don’t need batteries anymore, even for mobile devices you can keep batteries as a backup instead of a main power source so, phones can get thinner and have more space for other things as a result of the removal of batteries. All of a sudden devices like smart contact lenses and cordless VR headsets, which is impossible will be made possible. Devices can be made to be built from ground up without batteries.

WHEN IS THIS GOING TO HAPPEN?

To reassure you, this disappearance of batteries or the emergence of light charging is not going to happen within a few years, it will at least take a decade before we start seeing this technology come to life. Wireless power will first start with low power gadgets. To assure that, Samsung has already made a TV remote for their new NEO- LED TV’s that can charged with natural and artificial light. So This technology is going to build up over time before you see in laptops and smartphones.

So, I basically have no idea when or if it will come.

WHO IS GOING TO TAKE THE FIRST STEP?

After you reading all of this, it sounds like a long windy path which takes a lot of time to happen, of course it is not going to happen overnight. But preparations are on the way. It is rumored that Apple will be launching their first phone with no ports within a couple of years. Just like how Apple ditching headphone jack in their iPhone 7 led to a whole new market for truly wireless earbuds, this is going to be the first turning point. And if this idea succeeds then the whole smartphone market will launch their own models of port-less smartphones, this means the only way of charging becomes wireless charging. This will open a new market for wireless chargers. Companies like the WI charge have already started creating chargers for a port-less phone. So it is sooner than you would expect.

So lets see some of the concepts of chargers that use light to charge

1. The mother box- radio charger

There is a concept called as the mother box, which shoots radio frequencies all around it, so any smart electronic around it will start charging.

This means that there is no contact required between the mobile phone and the charger itself, it can charge multiple devices simultaneously and it can charge different brands of smartphone.

If you keep your phone near enough, this can charge at a rate of 10 watts, which is already considered as a low speed according to 2021 standards, but things get worse, even at a distance of 10 inches, the charging speed of 10 watt will lower to 4 watts, and at a range of 20 inches, the charging stops. Which is a major flaw of this technology. To give you an example, your phone with WI-FI and Bluetooth turned on needs 2.5 watts of power just to keep your battery level constant so even if you are 15 inches away from the charger you will still be losing charge, at a lower rate of course, which is opposite of what a charger should do. But the next one fixes few of these problem.

1. The WI - Charge - infrared charger.

The next technology is from a company named as Wi-charge(The wireless charging company). This is a small power puck which you need to fix it on to a  wall socket. There are 2 stages of operation involved in its working. First the transmitter scans your environment and finds all the devices that needs to be charged, then it starts shooting beams of infrared light to the recipient. Which means it is not shooting at all random directions, it targets your phone and charges particularly to that device, so no wastage of power. Moreover, unlike radio frequencies which loses the speed instantly once you are few inches away from it, this infrared does not, so all the power it is creating for your phone ends up on your phone. So this is nearly 100% efficient. But this is also just a concept and it also has a few disadvantages.

This technology means that you have to you have to clip an external receiver onto your device to charge your phone, and moreover Light needs a direct line of sight to pair up and charge the device so if you or anything is in between your phone and the flow of the infrared light, the charging stops. The amount of charge that it gives is 100 MW which is 1 tenth of a watt which means you need 25 of these power pucks to keep your phone’s battery level constant. 

TO CONCLUDE

This technology may or may not happen because when talking about technology of the future, there is actually an infinite number of ways in which the tech world may go, this depends on tiny things which are unpredictable, light charging may come, or Qi- charging itself could become more efficient or a new technology may appear, we do not know, but for now if you liked my article comment and share it to anyone who is interested in knowing future technologies. Till then This is Tech passion and  I am your tech enthusiast, signing off.