uBeam Ultrasonic Wireless Charging – A Familiar Fish Smell

[EEVblog]

Wasting 90% of the power might be Ok in their minds if it's intended to be used in a place where you pay over $10 for a cup of coffee.

So, I'm wondering, because, you know, I have thoughts... 
how does the coffee shop scenario work anyway?
This thing needs an intelligent receiving dongle, presumably still with battery in it. Does everyone have to own and carry around this dongle?
Or do you have to go to the counter and ask for one? What if you buggered off with it?
Or if it's on the bench then why not just have an inductive pad or charge cable there and keep it simple.

 

[TimNJ]

Or if it's on the bench then why not just have an inductive pad or charge cable there and keep it simple.
 

Because that wouldn't be thinking outside of the box Dave! Silly silly. Thats far too practical and economically feasible anyway.

[coppice]

Wasting 90% of the power might be Ok in their minds if it's intended to be used in a place where you pay over $10 for a cup of coffee.

So, I'm wondering, because, you know, I have thoughts... 
how does the coffee shop scenario work anyway?
This thing needs an intelligent receiving dongle, presumably still with battery in it. Does everyone have to own and carry around this dongle?
Or do you have to go to the counter and ask for one? What if you buggered off with it?
Or if it's on the bench then why not just have an inductive pad or charge cable there and keep it simple.

 

Even if she can get something to market, she'll be bankrupted by the class action law suit from dog owners. 

[miguelvp]

Wasting 90% of the power might be Ok in their minds if it's intended to be used in a place where you pay over $10 for a cup of coffee.

So, I'm wondering, because, you know, I have thoughts... 
how does the coffee shop scenario work anyway?
This thing needs an intelligent receiving dongle, presumably still with battery in it. Does everyone have to own and carry around this dongle?
Or do you have to go to the counter and ask for one? What if you buggered off with it?
Or if it's on the bench then why not just have an inductive pad or charge cable there and keep it simple.

 

I'm not defending them, but same with witricity or whatever they are called, last I've heard only 15% made it to the receiver. At least that one used electromagnetism by extending the induction range by magnetic resonance.

But giving uBeam the benefit of the doubt, It's no different than transmitting from a tunning fork to another. Sure there will be losses but some energy will make it there as long as it's tuned to the resonant frequency.

Maybe using two frequencies and the receiver operating at the right harmonic frequency? don't know and don't really care how or if they'll solve it.

At the end it's useless since an induction coil as you mention is way more efficient, and it could communicate with your phone so they can charge you for the refill.

It doesn't matter anyways since HAARP can transmit 3.6 MW wirelessly so it's been done already.

Edit: Also, microwave GigaWatt beams have been used bouncing them off satellites.

And I guess Japan is soon to have solar freaking power in Space!!!!
4 square kilometer solar panel in orbit transmitting the power with 1-gigawatt microwave back to earth! (in 30 years)

[coppice]

I'm not defending them, but same with witricity or whatever they are called, last I've heard only 15% made it to the receiver. At least that one used electromagnetism by extending the induction range by magnetic resonance.

I don't think waste of energy is a big drawback here. They aren't looking to power high power devices, where the waste would run into megawatts. The problem is where that wasted energy goes. Just a watt or two of acoustic energy is very loud. The fact that it is inaudible doesn't mean it won't damage your ears, or drive your dog insane.

It doesn't matter anyways since HAARP can transmit 3.6 MW wirelessly so it's been done already.
/quote]
Does HAARP wirelessly power anything? I though it was just another high power transmitter.

[eneuro]

Does HAARP wirelessly power anything? I though it was just another high power transmitter.

Here is something about HAARP project " HOLES IN HEAVEN - SECRET TESLA TECHNOLOGY "but posted by... UFOTV 

Who knows what kind of experiments really are made using this technology, while public information must be far from reality only to hide what is inside this kind of projects.

[EEVblog]

I don't think waste of energy is a big drawback here. They aren't looking to power high power devices

Mobile phones, maybe not. But laptops which they also claim, then yeah, I'd say that's "high power" in the context of this technology at the consumer level in the home and public/work spaces.

[coppice]

I don't think waste of energy is a big drawback here. They aren't looking to power high power devices

Mobile phones, maybe not. But laptops which they also claim, then yeah, I'd say that's "high power" in the context of this technology at the consumer level in the home and public/work spaces.

Fair point. A 50W charge of a laptop at 10% efficiency starts to look bad.

[sunnyhighway]

The video shot at the consumer trade show convieniently stops at 2:02, just when she wanted to show off the iPhone actually charging.

[daqq]

I don't think waste of energy is a big drawback here. They aren't looking to power high power devices, where the waste would run into megawatts.

With a single device (assuming charging a phone with, say, 2.5W) it's a fair amount of power just lost. With hundreds, tens of thousands of devices world wide it's a LOT of power wasted. Strive for efficiency in your designs.

Basically this whole concept can be summed up as a replacement of a proven, well understood, widely available system with near 100% efficiency (cables) by a Rube Goldberg solution with a low efficiency system with tons of potential issues (health, reliability, cost...) that sounds nice on paper for about five seconds, then an engineers mind goes  for the sake of looking cool until everyone gets the same tech... I wasn't particularly fond of wide spread induction charging (lower efficiency, stray magnetic fields etc.) but this wins in WTF by several orders.

[bfritz]

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and agree with her, to some extent....   

Many times in my 30 year career, I have seen engineers say it couldn't be done, simply because their thinking was stuck with certain limitations.  I myself have been caught stuck.  For years I'd tell people that accurate fuel gauging couldn't be done with only voltage information, and I myself have now proven this wrong, I was highly involved with developing a product used in many mobile devices that gauges based on voltage and how that voltage changes with time.

It's easy to look at a demo from someone who admits they don't understand all the details, and poke holes in it.  Let's look at a technology that I think is similar and draw some parallels.

How many here have seen the demos of Cota by Ossia?

Company Website:  http://www.ossiainc.com/
TechCrunch Video:  http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/09/cota-by-ossia-wireless-power/

The Cota product uses an array of antennas to performing the aiming to handle the issues with safety.  It is possible that uBeam could perform similarly.  The real trick is telling when energy is being received by which antennas, and how much is being received, and therefore calculating how much is being lost.  When too much is lost, you assume that something else is getting the energy, and look for alternate paths.  This is a tricky problem, but not impossible.

Just because uBeam is not telling you all the details, does not mean they don't have more to show.  Showing too much, too early, can be a problem for a startup.  If they have funding that is adequate for the present, disclosing too much publicly, can simply give the competition the information on how they've been stuck in their thinking, and allow them to beat you to market.

Yes, I have an Engineering Degree.  I worked hard to get it.  But I've learned a lot over the years.  Those with degrees, don't always have the best ideas.  Sometimes, being encumbered with the knowledge of why something won't work, gets in the way of finding the way to make it work!

uBeam could be total hogwash, but it is an interesting direction, on something that could radically change the way we use and power devices.  I'm not ready to totally denounce it.  Given the right talent, this might take off... or the safety and regulatory issues could eat them alive... but you need to take the journey to determine for sure!

[Richard Crowley]

The efficiency of all air-coupled transducers is desperately horrible compared to the kinds of efficiency required for reasonable power transfer.

[eneuro]

How many here have seen the demos of Cota by Ossia?

Whatever it means, Zeine from COTA said:

“Cota is the only wireless power technology that can deliver one watt of power at a distance of 30 ft safely,”

What about 1kW/m2 from the sun every day in space? It looks like PV panels are forgotten technology at those meetings 

"Zeine showed an iPhone 5 being charged remotely from his version one prototype wireless power transmitter, which was greeted by plenty of applause from those in attendance."

Did he showed how much time it will take to charge this device? 

But forget about all those wireless power transfer prototypes while here it is real free wireless energy device: TPE - TESLA Power by Eneuro 

It uses free lighting LF 350kHz frequency and receives its energy from hundreds of kilometers/miles !!! 
It has infinity efficiency while its input power is 0.000000000 W (0 nW) 

[bfritz]

How many here have seen the demos of Cota by Ossia?

Whatever it means, Zeine from COTA said:

“Cota is the only wireless power technology that can deliver one watt of power at a distance of 30 ft safely,”

What about 1kW/m2 from the sun every day in space? It looks like PV panels are forgotten technology at those meetings 

"Zeine showed an iPhone 5 being charged remotely from his version one prototype wireless power transmitter, which was greeted by plenty of applause from those in attendance."

Did he showed how much time it will take to charge this device? 

Yes he did.  There is a watt being received by the device.  So, even with losses, a 5.5Wh battery should easily charge from empty in 8 hours.  I've talked with Zeine, and talked with OSSIA regarding the technology... it is not only possible, it is being demonstrated.  The real next leap for them is producing a product, that hits the price targets.

The idea is that this is in your home, and your device is always charging.  Can you imagine how different your home might be, if a lot of the devices that require a wall wart today, were always fully charged, and ready to go?  Can you imagine not having to worry about plugging in your alarm clock... or other small power consumers?  This is a real change to the way we use things.

[eneuro]

The idea is that this is in your home, and your device is always charging

Tesla's idea was free wireless energy, and using small PV solar panel one can charge all his gadgets using wireless energy from the SUN.
If someone do not want plug it into the wall socket, can glue small solar cells and light on 100W light bulb-efficiency will be much better than with this hi-tech new age wireless useless technology 

Can you imagine not having to worry about plugging in your alarm clock... or other small power consumers?

I don't have to imagine that while my alarm clock is triggered by rising sun and charges during the day using small old 1inch2 garden solar panel worth 1$ or less at average current 10mA 
I don't have to even setup its clock while it is synchronized and adjusted by the  sun...

[bfritz]

eneuro,

Yes solar power and PV works for some things, but is not going to be viable for charging a cell phone at a watt, indoors, without wiring to the phone.  You can denounce what is being stated here, but you're only showing how you don't get what the value of these devices are.  A PV panel generates electricity.  Neither of the devices being talked about by me, or the original posting is generating electricity.  It is simply providing a transmission method.

You are so busy laughing at how "idiotic" the idea is, that you've failed to see, Cota has been demonstrated, and actually works.  It is able to transmit power from an array of antennas, determine which have a path to the device, that aren't blocked by losses (a human in the path), and utilize the best path to get the greatest power transfer, while keeping the power transfer to levels that if a human is subjected to them for a small time, is not a problem.  (Yes, there are environmental, health and safety regulations on this.)

Lots of people laugh at new ideas.  There are plenty of famous quotes by technologists who stated why would they ever need more than a certain amount of memory.  There are plenty of quotes about what could anyone possibly want a personal computer for?  These people lacked vision.  This is what you have done, demonstrate a lack of vision.

[EEVblog]

Many times in my 30 year career, I have seen engineers say it couldn't be done

No one says it can't be done. It can be. That's not to point. The point is it's never going to be practical enough when an existing solution exists that is cheap, practical, efficient, low power standby, and already built into many phones.
No matter how clever the technical solution, the fact remains that this technology does not add enough value to overcome the inevitable cost and practical limitations.
But well, good luck to her and her investors, I hope they get something useful out of it.

[TimNJ]

The product is interesting and while it seems like it doesn't have a place in the current day, it might in the future with significant refinements/discoveries.

But more than anything I'm just not a fan of her attitude. You can't be too smug or act like you just invented the wheel when you didn't...yet.

[EEVblog]

But more than anything I'm just not a fan of her attitude. You can't be too smug or act like you just invented the wheel when you didn't...yet.

She didn't even invent ultrasonic wireless power transfer, nothing new there at all I'm afraid.
Although she seems to be the one one trying to pioneer it's use for consumer product charging.

[SirNick]

There are plenty of famous quotes by technologists who stated why would they ever need more than a certain amount of memory.  There are plenty of quotes about what could anyone possibly want a personal computer for?  These people lacked vision.  This is what you have done, demonstrate a lack of vision.

Those quotes are fun, and illustrate a point, but they're also totally valid within a limited scope of time.  In the early 80s, how many people WOULD use a personal computer?  And how many really needed >1MB of RAM?  Sure, now computers are ubiquitous and have GBs of RAM.  Technology had to change for that to be feasible though.

Vision is not the process of ignoring reality.  Vision is having a goal and finding a way to achieve it.  OTOH, daydreaming is just saying "gee it would be nice if..."  They're not the same thing.  Anyone can daydream, but vision takes some skill -- at least enough to distinguish the difference between "hasn't been done" and "can't be done (at least right now)".

This wireless charging thing is a daydream ("imagine being able to charge all your devices transparently") because the driving forces behind it (as far as anyone knows, currently) have not found a way to overcome the fundamental limitations that have prevented the adoption of what is already a fairly well-understood phenomenon.

[coppice]

You are so busy laughing at how "idiotic" the idea is, that you've failed to see, Cota has been demonstrated, and actually works.

Plenty of unworkable things get demonstrated, and the demonstrations actually work. Demonstrations are easy when you focus on the primary goal, and ignore the collateral effects. I can melt your cell phone with 2.4GHz or 5GHz RF transmissions, so supplying 1W to charge it is no big deal. Is that going to be acceptable in daily use, though?

In write-ups about power by Wi-Fi I keep seeing comments like "This is Wi-Fi so its safe, unlike transmitting energy by microwaves". Are those made up by the journalists, or are the people behind COTA actually saying this?

[vk6zgo]

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and agree with her, to some extent....   

Many times in my 30 year career, I have seen engineers say it couldn't be done, simply because their thinking was stuck with certain limitations.  I myself have been caught stuck.  For years I'd tell people that accurate fuel gauging couldn't be done with only voltage information, and I myself have now proven this wrong, I was highly involved with developing a product used in many mobile devices that gauges based on voltage and how that voltage changes with time.

It's easy to look at a demo from someone who admits they don't understand all the details, and poke holes in it.  Let's look at a technology that I think is similar and draw some parallels.

How many here have seen the demos of Cota by Ossia?

Company Website:  http://www.ossiainc.com/
TechCrunch Video:  http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/09/cota-by-ossia-wireless-power/

The Cota product uses an array of antennas to performing the aiming to handle the issues with safety.  It is possible that uBeam could perform similarly.  The real trick is telling when energy is being received by which antennas, and how much is being received, and therefore calculating how much is being lost.  When too much is lost, you assume that something else is getting the energy, and look for alternate paths.  This is a tricky problem, but not impossible.

Just because uBeam is not telling you all the details, does not mean they don't have more to show.  Showing too much, too early, can be a problem for a startup.  If they have funding that is adequate for the present, disclosing too much publicly, can simply give the competition the information on how they've been stuck in their thinking, and allow them to beat you to market.

Yes, I have an Engineering Degree.  I worked hard to get it.  But I've learned a lot over the years.  Those with degrees, don't always have the best ideas.  Sometimes, being encumbered with the knowledge of why something won't work, gets in the way of finding the way to make it work!

uBeam could be total hogwash, but it is an interesting direction, on something that could radically change the way we use and power devices.  I'm not ready to totally denounce it.  Given the right talent, this might take off... or the safety and regulatory issues could eat them alive... but you need to take the journey to determine for sure!

I'm sorry,but nothing about Cota convinces me.

The video is of some kind of "soft" popular science program like the old "Inventors" show we used to have on Australian TV.

None of the the "judges" gave  evidence of having any knowledge of Electronics (or any other Engineering discipline),& mainly just asked questions about the commercialisation of the device,as if its practicality was a foregone conclusion.

Why was his hand covering the "receiver" all the time during the "demonstration"?
The applause when he supposedly made the iPhone charge was a  particular "red light" for me---most real people when confronted by something like this reserve their judgement,so it was probably "canned applause".

The website says something like:-"never have to replace the batteries again"
Well,yeah,you do have to,as rechargeables eventually die,whether they are being charged or not,& if the batteries are smaller because you have to fit the Cota stuff in,they will probably die earlier.

[vk6zgo]

You are so busy laughing at how "idiotic" the idea is, that you've failed to see, Cota has been demonstrated, and actually works.

Plenty of unworkable things get demonstrated, and the demonstrations actually work. Demonstrations are easy when you focus on the primary goal, and ignore the collateral effects. I can melt your cell phone with 2.4GHz or 5GHz RF transmissions, so supplying 1W to charge it is no big deal. Is that going to be acceptable in daily use, though?

In write-ups about power by Wi-Fi I keep seeing comments like "This is Wi-Fi so its safe, unlike transmitting energy by microwaves". Are those made up by the journalists, or are the people behind COTA actually saying this?

While I agree with the general thrust of your comments,"melting" a mobile phone,as distinct from damaging the front end would require a quite profound amount of power,if you are referring to "transmissions",not "chucking the thing in a microwave oven".

Remember,"gain" antennas don't produce an increase in actual power---otherwise they would be an "over-unity" device!

[coppice]

You are so busy laughing at how "idiotic" the idea is, that you've failed to see, Cota has been demonstrated, and actually works.

Plenty of unworkable things get demonstrated, and the demonstrations actually work. Demonstrations are easy when you focus on the primary goal, and ignore the collateral effects. I can melt your cell phone with 2.4GHz or 5GHz RF transmissions, so supplying 1W to charge it is no big deal. Is that going to be acceptable in daily use, though?

In write-ups about power by Wi-Fi I keep seeing comments like "This is Wi-Fi so its safe, unlike transmitting energy by microwaves". Are those made up by the journalists, or are the people behind COTA actually saying this?

While I agree with the general thrust of your comments,"melting" a mobile phone,as distinct from damaging the front end would require a quite profound amount of power,if you are referring to "transmissions",not "chucking the thing in a microwave oven".

Remember,"gain" antennas don't produce an increase in actual power---otherwise they would be an "over-unity" device!

I started out in radar. I'm used to profound amounts of power, and of melting things at quite a few paces by accident.  Microwave ovens are for wimps.

[eneuro]

Yes solar power and PV works for some things, but is not going to be viable for charging a cell phone at a watt, indoors, without wiring to the phone. 

Imagine World full of light charging whatever you want (not only crappy cell phones) by Wireless TESLA Light Power (WTLP) by Eneuro 
 
It's real and works- just disconnected 230VAC 40W <1$ light bulb from the wall socket a few minutes ago, but cell phone and other things can be charged at rates > 1W without wires only just putting such things on the table, than light sensors can detect that something is above and adjust output power to it size.
Dead simple and it works.
All you need to do this is a few PV pannels and voltage regulator under cell phone.

Even my old crappy Siemens cell phone which I like because of it is quite small <8inch2 can be charged using this bilions years old wireless light technology and everybody with basic electronics skiils can make simple circuit to use it at everyday basis, not only for marketing presentations 
While its bottom area is about 5cm*10cm (2in*4in), it is about 0.5*10^(-3) m2.
Now lets add reflectors and more efficient 100W light bulb than this used here where more then 90% of its energy is converted not into the light by heat-if we concentrate 100W power at a distance even of 0.1m (10cm) from glass table cover into 10cmx10cm box we have maximum input power 10kW/m2, than multiply by cell phone size we get 5W. While we do not need big PV' pannels we could try to glue there more efficient used in satellite systems with lets say 20% efficiency, so we get

5W*0.20= 1W

BTW: In this photo multimeter shows only 0.51V on 100R resistor in pararell to this small crappy garden solar panel worth <1$, but when this reflector is in other position than it goes to 0.75V-most of input power is lost in heat and not concentrated at all, but it easy to improove overall energy transfer and HERE IT IS 100% safe while we use everyday light to transfer wireless power 

Update:
Sharp Solar Cell Efficiency Record — Another One (44.4%)

"A research team at Sharp Corporation has announced that it has created a solar cell capable of converting 44.4% of incoming sunlight into electricity."

One year ago

Build your own DIY solar powered mobile phone

Future is now