We love being cable free, our earphones, our chargers and other peripherals have all gone wireless in the past few years but Ossia has just revealed its freakishly cool wireless charging system that lets you charge a device in mid-air – making wireless Qi chargers look lazy and obsolete.
Dubbed the Cota transmitter, this cool hub is reminiscent of Google’s OnHub, albeit a little larger. Founded in 2008, Ossia wants to hit the ground running this year by announcing that their transmitter will be in store shelves and homes by Winter of 2016 – making REAL wireless charging a thing.
This won’t stop at phones, it’ll extend to other household electronics too: remote controls, security systems and even battery operated devices.
The wireless charging system is rather complex and really smart at the same time. So you’ll have to place a Cota base station near the device you’d like to charge. Inside the base station is packed with tiny antennas and to get your device charging, it’ll have to be “tweaked” to include a built-in RF receiving chip. In other words, Cota transmitter plus RF receiving chip equals mid-air charging.
You don’t NEED to have the chip installed inside your device and for most people Ossia’s wireless charging case lets you do the same, despite adding size. Though you should know that Ossia is trying their best to downsize the chip to make it easier for OEMs and manufacturers to place them inside devices.
RF signals are sent wirelessly through the Cota chip one hundred times every second while the base stations’ tiny antennas pick them up. Detecting those signals from different angles, the base station then relays wireless RF power in the same trajectory. When the two signals meet on the same “path”, they’ll match up and wala! Wireless charging.
So far Ossia envisions that by year end, they’ll get a transmitter working with a range of 10 feet. They’ll continuously work on this and the plan is to eventually release larger base stations that will be able to support charging for larger spaces.
Now the tradeoffs:
Charging devices at one watt through the air will make charging times four times as long compared to using a cable
Only one device can be “wirelessly” charged at a time
Ossia’s tech makes a big step but it’s only the beginning, hence don’t expect Quick Charge 3.0 or VOCC-like speeds. Yet it’ll be really amazing to think that while you can’t see it, Cota is beaming power to your devices.
We can already hear people making implications about these “waves” potentially causing health problems for humans and animals. Studies and research on the effects of micro/radio waves are out there and before we start mass producing something that’ll likely be everywhere, there should be some sort of testing done.
