No Wires, No Worries

Recently I have seen a couple of short programs on wireless and new sources of energy and these have got me thinking a little. Having had to replace my laptop charger again this year a different power source would be a welcome idea. Not only would it look better without all those wires making the back of my desk look as unwieldy as my hair, but one day it could give you the ability to place your tech virtually anywhere in the house. However putting a 42” plasma TV in the bathroom would probably be an exception.


Two of gadgets which can be made to charge wirelessly are mentioned in this interview from the BBC, wireless phone charging and electric car charging: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8165928.stm. I guess an actual on/ off switch would be needed to televisions otherwise they would never turn off standby. On that subject of power switches I saw the other day that it was actually made into a selling feature to have a power button on a TV! A few years ago I don’t think you could buy one without, maybe it’s because standby mode has become more energy efficient, allowing people to be lazy and not get up and turn the TV fully off.

Currently they are able to transmit small amounts of power over a small distance but when this technology evolves will you have to secure your local wireless power network?! Especially if you live, like I do, in a block of flats. A number of people could just be living off your power supply. It’s like letting someone run an extension lead from your living room to power their electric massage chair.

This obviously combines nicely this with the trend that everything else is becoming wireless. A computer in future may be in separate parts, if components like graphics cards were made wireless components would be easily to upgrade and interchangeable. I’m not sure how many wireless network channels there are but if everything becomes wire free could cause quite some interference problems. Wouldn’t want the family television to switch over to what the 17 year old boy is watching on his laptop up in his room would we now?!

Wireless Power is not entirely a new thing however, this video talks about wireless power transfer over a distance of 1.5km in 1975. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O44WM1Q9H8. I’m not sure how comfortable I would feel however, with that large amount of power in the air. You can see on the video they were testing it in somewhere which looked like a military explosive testing ground. I wonder how sensitive these devices are to rain, or if it works though walls or if a piece of paper can stop the power transfer.

Still could be a little while before this tech becomes commonplace but if it means I don’t have to buy yet another charger or battery bring it on!