“Can I borrow your charger?” is a common question we’re all asked. In our ever growing mobile and connected world we almost feel naked if our phones, tablets or laptops die. Here at Echo, we all have multiple devices covering our work stations and sometimes separate chargers for each. Unfortunately those chargers take up quite a bit of real estate in our briefcases, purses and backpacks. If only we didn’t have to lug around all these darn cords!
Well, according to this article, next month ,Samsung will showcase their new Galaxy S6 and wireless charger at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Acording to a post on their blog, Samsung would like to mainstream wireless charging in 2015.
“With our upcoming Galaxy smartphones, users will be able to enter a new wireless world like never before,” wrote Seho Park—Samsung principle engineer.
While wireless charging isn’t new, it’s not yet the norm. Take the electric toothbrush, it technically is charged wirelessly but involves placing the toothbrush on a docking station. The same goes for some electric shavers. Portable chargers and charging cases are also quite popular. Overall though, the market is largely fragmented.
So how will Samsung’s Galaxy S6 be different? There are three organizations that standardize wireless charging, and devices aren’t generally compatible with all of them. Samsung, on the other hand, belongs to all three organizations and boasts a chip that can support multiple standards. The wireless charging that Samsung provides will also be twice the speed of current wireless chargers. In general, wireless charging is only about 20-30% as fast as wired charging. They’ve also been able to cut the size and cost of components drastically over time. Currently, the cost of the main components involved in developing this technology is one tenth of what it was ten years ago.
Samsung is calling 2015 a “landmark year for the growth of wireless charging deployment,” as they expect more and more public places such as restaurants to offer this improved technology in the form of wireless charging stations.
Have we come a long way since 1891—when Nikola Tesla successfully demonstrated the wireless transfer of energy—or what?! Maybe soon we can sell that extra real estate in our bags to better things—like snickers bars, butterfingers and twizzlers…MMM!
