Wireless Charging for the iPhone and iPod Touch

[MacRumors]

A company called WildCharge yesterday announced that it is set to begin offering the first wireless charging cases for the iPhone and iPod touch. This allows the devices to be charged by simply placing them on a special charging pad without the need for any cables. The iPod touch skin is available for order immediately, while the iPhone skin, compatible with all iPhone models, will be available starting in early July.

The WildCharge Skins are durable, protective, form-fitting cases that when placed on the WildCharger Pad, transfer wire-free power from the Pad to the device inside the skin. The soft cases provide the same protection consumers already enjoy from traditional skins, but have the added value and convenience of enabling a wire-free charge. The WildCharger Pad, used in conjunction with the skins, delivers full power to multiple devices, allowing them to simultaneously charge together on the Pad while eliminating the clutter caused by multiple chargers and power cords. The iPod touch skin is available for order today and the iPhone skin will be available in early July.

Wireless charging has seen increased attention in recent months with the deployment of Palm's Touchstone system for use with the new Palm Pre. Palm's $70 Touchstone system includes both a charging dock and a separate back case for the Pre that is required to allow it to charge wirelessly.

Both WildCharge skins are individually priced at $34.99, or $79.99 for a bundle including both the WildCharge skin and the WildCharger Pad. The WildCharger Pad can also be purchased separately for $49.99.

Article Link: Wireless Induction Charging for the iPhone and iPod Touch

[iMacmatician]

This looks very interesting!

[Trix]

Wireless FTW!

[TheShinyMac]

Take that PRE

[RKilbane20]

I think ill save the money and just plug it in.

[iOrlando]

meh....whatever is easier to bring traveling and the go....so probably not this....


moving on....

[macduke]

How does this fit the iPhone 3g / 3gs and the first gen iPhone? My Incase Contour and Slider don't fit on my old iPhone...

It must be magic.

[Edunwody]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

How do they fo that?
Magic?

[Shake 'n' Bake]

Now we just need to have real wireless power for iMacs.

[segers909]

That's not wireless!
The case has metal dots. The plate is designed so that one dot always has the negative pole, and one dot the positive.

[Darkroom]

Originally Posted by RKilbane20

I think ill save the money and just plug it in.

seriously... besides, the official dock takes up much less space and doesn't require a case for it to work.

[julianewus]

thats awesome!

[jsupetran]

Wow thats ugly.

[jmorrison0722]

re-tard-ed

So, someone is going to be so lazy that they don't want to plug the thing in that they'll put an ugly ass case on it and have to set it on a pad. Where is the advantage here?

[FIJIGabe]

good idea, but if you plug your phone into the car, or when you need to plug the phone in to sync with your computer, you have to remove the cover, which i would imagine, will lead to breaking covers after a while.

however, if they can design a pass-through cover, where there's still a port at the bottom of the cover to plug the phone into the PC or the car port, then this is a great item (place it on your night stand, or your dresser, and when you get home from work, put the phone on there and you don't have to worry about plugging it in).

I'll give it a 6.5/10. work in a pass-through port, and that rating will jump up!

[gt1948]

Originally Posted by RKilbane20

I think ill save the money and just plug it in.

Same here....just modified three old docks to fit the 3GS.... beside that case could overheat my Baby

[mavfan11]

When they make one that will sync wirelessly as well as charge w/o needing to plug in I'd think about it.

[chr1s60]

Originally Posted by RKilbane20

I think ill save the money and just plug it in.

This.

Plugging the phone in has never been an issue for me and it certainly isn't worth $70 to make a little bit easier.

[RMo]

Originally Posted by Edunwody

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

How do they do that?
Magic?

I don't know how this particular charger works, but my Sonicare toothbrush does this, too. Basically, the charging base and the toothbrush itself form two parts of one transformer; when put together (it even works up to a couple inches away), a transformer is created, and the toothbrush can charge, even though there is no phsyical/metal contact between the two. They both have plastic surfaces.

I'd imagine this case+charger use a similar method of inductive charging.

[Jaredcwood]

i'm glad this is out just so pre users will shut up... but i dont really see a need for this unless it'd be sorta cool in the car but I'm holding out for TOMTOM's dock and charger should be great

[oldwatery]

And the point of this pointless piece of equipment is what

[Makindosh]

Wireless Electricity will be here soon! Bye-bye wires...

Actually, most of my gadgets are charged with solar chargers. I have a backpack with a solar charger on it and I just plug it in and go!

[-LD]

It's not wireless nor is it induction.

It's wired conduction. WildCharge even states it's' conduction on their website, though they do push "wire free" which isn't exactly true. It still requires direct metal to metal contact between the phone and the pad. I call that a "wire" still.

[-LD]

Originally Posted by RMo

I don't know how this particular charger works, but my Sonicare toothbrush does this, too. Basically, the charging base and the toothbrush itself form two parts of one transformer; when put together (it even works up to a couple inches away), a transformer is created, and the toothbrush can charge, even though there is no phsyical/metal contact between the two. They both have plastic surfaces.

I'd imagine this case+charger use a similar method of inductive charging.

Nope. Regular old conductive. Sonicare uses true induction, as does the Pre.

[jbernie]

While at this level of integration the system isn't perfect, this sort of technology has a lot of potential if it licensed to the manufacturers. Think of all the devices we have which have different types of connectors for the chargers. It might be gen 2 or 3 before this is really something, but as always you have to start somewhere.

As to the "just plug it in crowd", granted, I don't see me wanting to spend $70-80 on this, but at the same time, rest the device on the charging pad, when you get a call just pick up the iPhone and you can move around and not worry about ripping the cable out of the laptop etc .

Also, when I think about it, I have my iPod Touch connected to my computer 98% of the time to charge it, 2% is need to synch data as it doesn't change much. So in reality my need to have the dock port available is minimal.