There's no real point pushing Qi in my opinion when there's short range and long range RF.
I have a problem with the term wireless charging, because it still has to be plugged in and the phone rested on the charger.
A mat is not real wireless charging.
I get the point that mat induction charging isn't true wireless charging.
The distinctions people are drawing are getting kind of silly. Qi goes into the hundreds of kHz which can be considered RF. A mat is just as "wireless" as WiFi is. I think some people are trying to say a mat isn't wireless because you need a wire to the mat and want to contrast that with something like Energous-- but the Energous base stations need wires too.
There are three categories of technology that I see being discussed: those that transfer power by conduction, those that rely on reactive (or near) fields, and those that rely on radiated (or far) fields. If it isn't powered by conduction, it's wireless.
It's pointless to try and change, narrow or distort the meaning of words like "wireless" and "RF" to mean something special here. There are plenty of words already in existence that distinguish the different technologies-- can we just use them?
Qi charging is not very healthy for the batteries, since they are being constantly blasted with radiation. Many Note7 failures happened while on a Qi wireless charger. Personally, i will take take the time to plug my phone in if it reduces the chance of me having to buy a new house.
Wireless charging produces unnecessary long term heat and stresses your battery, in an Iphone with a sealed battery that's bad.
what you want is QUICK CHARGE....
This doesn't really make sense. Magnetic fields aren't radiation. If the battery itself is susceptible to the magnetic fields it is a combination of bad luck and bad design.
If you're worried about heat and stress, then quick charging sounds like the worst possible thing to do-- more current in less time means more heat buildup and more stress.
Lithium Ion battery life is measured in charge cycles so whether you are discharging and charging, or constantly topping off doesn't make a difference-- a typical battery can pass so many coulombs in its life regardless of how many times it was plugged in. If you are plugged in to the charger and the device powers itself from the line voltage rather than the battery (which would make more sense that constantly charging and discharging the battery) then the battery will receive less wear.
Long range or it isn't happening
"Long range" isn't happening if long range means out of the near field.
Long range isn't happening. That is a year or two off. The tech just isn't at a practical level yet. Inductive charging is tried and true. Long range will be great but inductive is welcome.
Can anyone explain to me how long range charging is meant to work? I'm assuming they're trying to operate in the unlicensed ISM bands. Current ISM band restrictions in the US limit power to 1W of conducted power through a maximum 6dBi antenna.
Basically that means if you capture all of the energy transmitted, you get 1W at your device. But to capture all of the power, you need an enormous antenna. As a rough estimate, if you want to capture that full 1W at a distance of 5m from the source, you need an antenna with an aperture of about 20 square meters. Not something that will readily fit in your pocket.
If you make the transmit antenna more directional, the FCC requires you to also reduce the conducted power meaning that you might be able to make the receive antenna smaller but then your best case power recovery becomes much less than a Watt.
Am I missing something here?
