Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi has introduced new Mi Air Charge technology that it says can power up your smartphone from across the room – as soon as you walk into a room with the system installed, your handset battery level starts rising.

It’s worth noting that this kind of tech has been in the pipeline for years now, and no one has yet brought it to market, but Xiaomi’s demo looks intriguing. Xiaomi says wireless room-scale charging is now “closer to reality” with its new system, so you’re not going to be able to rush out and buy it just yet.

The Mi Air Charge box that Xiaomi has shown off looks like a small coffee table. Inside there are five phase interference antennas, which are tasked with locating your smartphone in the room. A phase control array made up of another 144 antennas then sends millimeter-wide waves to the phone.

This is done through a technique called beamforming, a way of directing wireless signals towards a specific device, rather than scattering them in all directions around a room. The current incarnation of the tech offers 5-W charging over a range of a few meters, and can work through other objects (like your living room sofa).

Link

Spiny Norman said:

Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi has introduced new Mi Air Charge technology that it says can power up your smartphone from across the room – as soon as you walk into a room with the system installed, your handset battery level starts rising.

It’s worth noting that this kind of tech has been in the pipeline for years now, and no one has yet brought it to market, but Xiaomi’s demo looks intriguing. Xiaomi says wireless room-scale charging is now “closer to reality” with its new system, so you’re not going to be able to rush out and buy it just yet.

The Mi Air Charge box that Xiaomi has shown off looks like a small coffee table. Inside there are five phase interference antennas, which are tasked with locating your smartphone in the room. A phase control array made up of another 144 antennas then sends millimeter-wide waves to the phone.

This is done through a technique called beamforming, a way of directing wireless signals towards a specific device, rather than scattering them in all directions around a room. The current incarnation of the tech offers 5-W charging over a range of a few meters, and can work through other objects (like your living room sofa).

Link

The Mi Air Charge box that Xiaomi has shown off looks like a small coffee table.

_What’s more, the futuristic-looking box can wirelessly charge up multiple devices at the same time. _

Yep, that’s a sure winner.

sibeen said:

Spiny Norman said:

Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi has introduced new Mi Air Charge technology that it says can power up your smartphone from across the room – as soon as you walk into a room with the system installed, your handset battery level starts rising.

It’s worth noting that this kind of tech has been in the pipeline for years now, and no one has yet brought it to market, but Xiaomi’s demo looks intriguing. Xiaomi says wireless room-scale charging is now “closer to reality” with its new system, so you’re not going to be able to rush out and buy it just yet.

The Mi Air Charge box that Xiaomi has shown off looks like a small coffee table. Inside there are five phase interference antennas, which are tasked with locating your smartphone in the room. A phase control array made up of another 144 antennas then sends millimeter-wide waves to the phone.

This is done through a technique called beamforming, a way of directing wireless signals towards a specific device, rather than scattering them in all directions around a room. The current incarnation of the tech offers 5-W charging over a range of a few meters, and can work through other objects (like your living room sofa).

Link

The Mi Air Charge box that Xiaomi has shown off looks like a small coffee table.

_What’s more, the futuristic-looking box can wirelessly charge up multiple devices at the same time. _

Yep, that’s a sure winner.

If 5G causes covid, I dread to think what this system will do to us all.

The Rev Dodgson said:

If 5G causes covid, I dread to think what this system will do to us all.

Yes, in the event of war breaking out, a chappie in Beijing flicks a switch and your wireless charging device becomes a Chinese death-ray.

captain_spalding said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

If 5G causes covid, I dread to think what this system will do to us all.

Yes, in the event of war breaking out, a chappie in Beijing flicks a switch and your wireless charging device becomes a Chinese death-ray.

excellent sign us up now thanks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6JDOXjvKAI&ab_channel=EEVblog

Dave over at the EEblog has bothered to answer all your questions and has put up a video on this product. About 20 minutes.

TLDW – stupid, stupid idea.

I wasn’t sure what the efficiency of something like this would be and neither did Dave, so he got a millimetre wave expert involved. They came to the conclusion that the efficiency, at best, would be 1%. So you’d be drawing a minimum of 500W to charge your phone at 5W. That really cannot be improved upon unless they make the box much, much larger with a greater number of antennas.

You’re not going to be able to market a very expensive box which has an efficiency of 1%; even diehard, coal loving. dinosaurs would balk at promoting one of these.