PowerBeam Demos Wireless Electricity At CES 109
JadedApprentice writes "Caught a mention of this startup yesterday on CNBC while they were reviewing the latest gadgets at CES. In the off chance that there was anything remotely feasible or safe about the wireless power prototypes PowerBeam had on display, I took a quick google and found this nice little write-up on the technology (along with some priceless comments for those that scroll down, and I'm not talking about those on the page below).
Bottom line: while it's possibly safe, it may not be efficient and it sure as hell won't power your 1200W gaming rig, the guys at PowerBeam are hoping the convenience of wireless power delivered through directed IR lasers will not only give you the coolest living room in town, but make them very rich in the process"
This may be the only one using lasers, but there's a fair gaggle of wireless power schemes on the floor at CES. Besides several chargers limited to charging the controllers of specific game consoles, I walked through a working high-concept demo put on by PowerMat (also mentioned in that PC Magazine article), which relies on dedicated per-device sleeves and dongles to power cameras, phones, and other necessary pocket-fillers; the sleeve-equipped devices then sit to charge on one of the PowerMat induction mats. That means that if your gizmo isn't one for which a sleeve or dongle is available, you're out of luck, unless it uses AA or AAA batteries (there's a charger made to fit on the mat) or can be powered by USB (for which the company has hockey-puck sized USB-power sources, which, Yes, sit on the induction mat). Impressive, but at $30 a pop, that would mean a fair outlay to convert many gadgets to use such a system.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Informative)
So you would be powering your cornea? Wouldn't that be even worse?
Skeptical (Score:4, Informative)
Let's think about this for a second. Assume that you want to power a device which draws 200mA at 5V (a number that's the right order of magnitude for small consumer electronics like an iPod). That works out to one watt of power draw.
For the purposes of this calculation, we'll make some extremely generous assumptions:
1) The device has a 100% efficient switching converter and can utilize all of the power it receives.
2) The device's solar cells are 50% efficient, something which has not been attained even in a laboratory.
3) There are no laser transmission losses in the air.
Even under these completely impossible conditions, that would still require a 2-watt laser. For the record, that is four times stronger than a class-3B laser, and those commonly require protective eye-wear to use in the workplace. A 2-watt laser could burn your walls, your skin, or really pretty much anything it wanted.
The only way I would even _consider_ using lasers for powering anything in my home would be if they were:
1) organized in a grid so that the total output power was spread over a couple of square inches instead of a point charge.
2) The emitter had a straight beam pattern with minimal diffusion.
3) The emitter had an auto shut-off that engaged any time one of a ring of surrounding IR beams were broken. These beams would have to be far enough away from the emitter that the emitter would be able to shut off in-between the time something could break the beams and the time that thing could enter the emitter's path.
4) The two devices sat next to each other instead of being across the room. I would not be willing to target high-energy lasers all the way across my living room, but I might be willing to put down a phone with a solar panel on it immediately next to an emitter.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Black paper is opaque to visible light but you can still set black paper on fire with a visible-light laser.
So you might just deposit the energy on your cornea instead of your retina.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)
Aside from eye safety, note that that power beam will happily set fire to things.