Wireless charging stretches the friendship by 45mm

The Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) has boosted the range of its Qi wireless charging standard, which can now deliver electricity to devices 35 millimetres away from a charger.

Most of today's wireless chargers assume that devices will be placed quite carefully onto a charging station. Yet at Computex, your correspondent beheld prototype chargers that resembled posh bowls into which one would casually toss devices.

Such devices will obviously work rather better if a direct hit between charger and device isn't required, so stretching version 1.1 of the Qi standard to 30mm with receivers present in existing devices will obviously be welcome. The Consortium is also suggesting the extra distance will make it possible to place chargers inside things like “furniture and desktops”. Another innovation is a single inverter capable of charging multiple devices at a time, which again will help devices like the buckets sighted at Computex.

The WPC says a recent meeting also saw some members show off version 1.2 devices capable of injecting juice to devices over a 45mm gap.

The Consortium has also signed off on low power transmitter designs destined for automotive applications, and specs that will make it possible to deliver up to 2000 watts “for kitchen applications”. ®