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RE: The Next Big Thing: Wireless Charging From Across The Room

in #technology8 years ago (edited)

Cellphones only output around 500-600mW of power. The Energous/WattUp device transmits 15W @5.8gGHz for 5ft distance; Ossia Cota 8W @2.4GHz for 1 device; Wi-Charge 10Watts of Infrared using a Class 1 laser (which sounds the safest).

The standard CB radio transmitter thats in every truck has up to 12-16 watts of power. Ham radios (which you need an operators license for) broadcast in the 2.4ghz band at up to 1500 watts.

What youre forgetting about is the inverse square law. The power of the RF signal thats actually hitting your body is inversely porportional to the square of your distance from the source. WHat makes cell phones potentially dangerous (though theres nothing really conclusive) is that they are typcially kept so close to the body. For example, your cell phone transmits at .5 watts, and you carry it so that the transmitter is around .5 inches from your body (my personal estimate).

A wireless charger in the ceiling transmits 15W power, but its always at least 1 foot from you (unless youre really tall, or have low ceilings).

The 15w power is 24 times as far from you (.5 inches compared to 12 inches), which means the sigmal power has 1/(24*24)=1/576 as much power. So though the signal starts out with 30x more power, but by the time it actually hits you, its only has about .05 times the power as the signal hitting you from your cell phone.

In order to give you comparable exposure to having a cell phone in your pocket, you would to need to have something transmitting at around 250w in the ceiling.