This Gizmo Charges Your Phone Using Nothing but Light

It sounds like science fiction. It looks like science fiction. But an Israeli startup claims it has developed technology that can safely charge virtually any device using beams of light.

(Thinkstock)

Wi-Charge says its technology can charge a mobile phone or portable speaker as quickly as if you had plugged it into a wall outlet and can charge multiple devices at the same time at distances of up to 30 feet.

The Wi-Charge technology relies on the same type of infrared light found inside your TV remote, only “a million times stronger,” says Victor Vaisleib, CEO of the Tel Aviv-based startup.

This video made by Wi-Charge explains how the technology works.

Light industry

The idea behind Wi-Charge is fairly straightforward. The technology uses mirrors to bounce a beam of light back and forth through an LED. Each time the beam passes through the LED it picks up more photons, increasing its energy level, like a laser, but with a key difference (watch the video). The energy beam is collected by a photovoltaic cell — the same type of cell found on any solar-charged device — on a Wi-Charge adapter plugged into a device’s charging port. The cell converts the photons into electricity, which is fed into the device.

Related: Wireless Charging May Not Be Doomed to Irrelevance

Normally, a beam of light strong enough to generate power could at least cause a wicked sunburn, if not bore an actualhole into your body. But the Wi-Charge is perfectly safe, says Guy Michrowski, VP of marketing. If an object — like your hand or abeloved family pet — comes between the transmitter and receiver,the concentrated photon beam instantly stops.

Guy Michrowski demonstrates how the Wi-Charge can charge multiple devices at the same time using infrared light. All photos courtesy of Wi-Charge.

We witnessed a demonstration of a Wi-Charge prototype at the offices of the company’s PR agency in San Francisco, and it appeared to work as advertised — no smoke, mirrors, or midgets hiding under the conference table holding a power switch. It was even able to send current to a small portable speaker whose batteries had been removed, suggesting that this technology could one day be a direct wireless power source for any kind of device.

When Michrowski passed his hand in front of the beam, it stopped — with no apparent injury to him.

Inductive reasoning

Wireless charging is already being adopted for smartphones and some electric vehicles, but these rely on either inductive or magnetic resonance technology, both of which require the devices to be in very close proximity to the charging signal. The war between these opposing standards is one of the things that has kept wireless charging from becoming mainstream.

Here are mockups of a Wi-Charge wall transmitter and a receiver-equipped iPhone case.

The idea here is that you’d plug a Wi-Charge transmitter into a power outlet in your home and it would begin to recharge your devices automatically whenever you were within 15 to 30 feet of the transmitter. As more homes adopt intelligent thermostats, smoke detectors, wireless security cameras, and other smart home devices, the Wi-Charge could theoretically power them, too. It could also be a solution for Wi-Fi cafés and airport lounges. Eventually, says Michrowski, receivers could be integrated directly into smartphones and other devices, with transmitters built into standard LED lights.

An LED light like this one might one day come with a Wi-Charge transmitter inside.

But don’t bother heading down to Best Buy looking to buy this. Wi-Charge expects its first products to appear sometime in 2016. It also says it has made a deal with a major manufacturer to build its technology into smart home products (but declined to name the manufacturer).

Related: Got a Phone Charger? No, Just a Wireless Pad on a Desk

Steve Ohr, a research director at Gartner who’s also been briefed on Wi-Charge, says the technology is promising but there are still a lot of unanswered questions, including what it will cost and whether consumers will ultimately be interested in it.

“There are a lot of wireless charging proposals out there, and each one seems to be more complicated than the last,” Ohr says. “So one question is, how complicated will it be? Infrared is a line-of-sight technology; if you’re in a crowded room, will it still work? Will they succeed in getting it inside phones? There’s a lot we still don’t know. But I’d be interested to see what this technology looks like in a year or two.”

Wireless takes charge

This may be the year wireless charging takes off, says David Green, research manager for power supplies and wireless power at IHS Technology, but it will be thanks to older, closely coupled charging technologies like inductive and magnetic resonance.

At last month’s Mobile World Congress, Samsung announced two new handsets, the Galaxy 6 and Galaxy 6 Edge, that employ inductive charging technologies. McDonalds and Starbucks are currently building wireless charging stations into hundreds of their franchises; companies like Ikea are building them into furniture.

Infrastructure challenges like these mean it’s likely to be far longer before uncoupled charging technologies like Wi-Charge’s will be widely available, Green adds.

In other words, more mature wireless charging technology will dominate for the foreseeable future. One day you may be able to charge your phone just by walking into your living room, but that day is still a long ways off.

Editor's note: This story was updated to correctly identify the charging technology inside the Samsung devices.

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