Have you ever thought about the charger, that could wirelessly recharge your phone and tablet at once? This device may help you.
Ability to charge multiple electronic devices at once, from the same power source would be very convenient. And what if that could be done with the wireless method?
Cool, right? All you would need to do is place your device (tablet or phone) on a dedicated charging pad and put it near the charger. ”Pi” company’s team of engineers is working to make that possible.
Pi device can automatically sense nearby device’s low battery level and adjust its magnetic field based on where the device is placed to wirelessly recharge it, rather than requiring to place it on a specific charging pad or station. Company wants to expand device’s abilities to wider variety of applications such as automobile and medical implant industries in the following years.
The two, friendly looking men (shown in the picture below) were part of a team that pitched a wireless power project during a class competition. While they didn’t win the faculty judges’ favor, they did earn an audience choice award, that gave them the confidence to try building a commercial version of the wireless charger. In the summer of 2015, the team decided to try for a first round of funding.
Pi co-founders Lixin Shi and John MacDonald. Credit: MIT Sloan School of Management
An industry shift
The past three years have brought the new experiences and ideas to the Pi team. They realized that they should make their charger as a separate product, which supports many devices. Nowadays, electronic devices such as phones or tablets focus on a one-to-one charging model, which means that chargers are shipped with phones not as a separate product, but as an accessory dedicated to the specific model.
Pi is waiting for the next industry shift after Apple’s announcement that it’s devices will be compatible with wireless chargers, specifically with the “Qi” standard. Pi’s system was built around a different standard called AirFuel, which (at the time of the first prototype) was supposed to be Qi’s successor. But when Apple announced its choice, it kind of made Qi the norm at least for another few years. Pi team is already prototype testing its redesigned charger.
Source: techxplore.com
