Wireless charging isn’t just a pipedream – 26-year-old Californian inventor Meredith Perry has predicted it’s going to happen pretty soon.
Her company uBeam has already begun looking into the technology, in a bid ‘to introduce the concept of wireless charging to the world.’
‘There will be no more wires and ultimately, there will be no more electrical outlets. You won’t need electrical outlets when all devices are powered by uBeam,’ Meredith told the BBC.
She’s not spouting hot air either. Meredith already impressed in a 2011 contest where she unveiled a prototype to beam ultrasound waves through the air to create an electric charge. As a result, uBeam was created and since then it has attracted around $23 million from investors. So not a small amount.
The downsides of wireless charging is that the charge would be too directional – and it may harm animals. ‘Ultrasound is just higher in frequency than what humans can hear. We send that sound through the air, it vibrates the air particles and then it hits a receiver, which you can think about like a microphone,’ Meredith explains.
‘It vibrates that receiver at a frequency too fast for you to feel, and it converts that vibration into electricity and it charges your device.’
Despite criticism, there are many who are behind the idea, including Robert Scoble, a ‘technical evangelist’ in Silicon Valley (basically, he knows his stuff). He hasn’t seen it firsthand, but knows people who have, and reckons it’s a great concept provided it’s efficient.
‘How many receivers do I need to make this system work? How expensive is it? What’s the efficiency? If it takes two hours to charge my Apple watch plugging in and it takes 20 hours to do it using this system, then obviously people won’t do it,’ h says.
If uBeam nails it though, imagine a world without tangled wires and asking people if they have an iPhone 5, no, 6, no, 4, charger. Bliss.
Like this? You might also be interested in...
Follow Stevie on Twitter: @5tevieM
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.