FCC Approves WattUp Long-Range Wireless Charging

[Lucian Armasu]

WattUp is now the first long-range wireless charging technology to have been approved by the FCC. WattUp can charge devices wirelessly at up to three feet, but the technology doesn't come without its own compromises.

FCC Approves WattUp Long-Range Wireless Charging : Read more

 

[rbarone69]

I wonder if this would interfere with pacemakers etc...

 

[derekullo]

Tesla would be proud.

Although his long range was much farther than 15 feet.

 

[bit_user]

I'm open-minded, but skeptical. Can anyone explain (with references, if possible) why we think this is safe? Otherwise, I plan to play it safe and stick with inductive charging. Something about microwaving my phone in my pocket just seems like a Bad Idea.

As nice as it'd be to have wireless keyboard and mouse that never needed either charging or battery replacement, I won't be an early adopter of this tech.

BTW, as far as I know, the mandate of the FCC doesn't include health & safety concerns. In which case, their approval is merely a statement concerning interference with other devices and radio transmissions.

 

[tigerwild]

And now we run into issues where too much power is put into the air of your household and people end up going blind or otherwise mildly cooking their bodies...worse than we already are. Imagine the average person putting their charger base station 6 inches from their arm chair to charge a device 15 feet away (with human body in between). It would be about as dangerous as leaving the microwave oven door open while cooking...

 

[derekullo]

I'm open-minded, but skeptical. Can anyone explain (with references, if possible) why we think this is safe? Otherwise, I plan to play it safe and stick with inductive charging. Something about microwaving my phone in my pocket just seems like a Bad Idea.

As nice as it'd be to have wireless keyboard and mouse that never needed either charging or battery replacement, I won't be an early adopter of this tech.

BTW, as far as I know, the mandate of the FCC doesn't include health & safety concerns. In which case, their approval is merely a statement concerning interference with other devices and radio transmissions.

Low energy microwaves are fine.

Most people see the word radiation and instantly start thinking of nuclear bombs and skin cancer.

The reality is radiation is all around you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_radiation#/media/File:EM_spectrumrevised.png

Radio Microwave Infrared Visible Ultraviolet X-Ray Gamma Ray

All of these are made of photons with increasing frequency as you go down the line.

When you are low in the list, below X-Ray, the property of light that is most damaging is its amplitude.


Think of it as waves hitting the shore.

Millions upon millions of waves hit the shore every day at a pretty high frequency, but nobody really cares.


And so if you are scared of low amplitude microwaves than you must be absolutely terrified of low amplitude visible light.

Visible light has a higher frequency than microwaves.

Your microwave at your house simply bombards your food with high amplitude microwaves.


On the low end you have low energy radio waves, such as RFID, being the occasional ripple on a glassy smooth pond.

On the high end you have gamma rays.

A low energy gamma ray would be a bunch of 50 foot tsunamis hitting the coast at a highly unrealistic 10^20 times a second.

A high energy gamma ray would be like the shore getting hit with 1000 foot tall tsunamis at a highly unrealistic 10^20 times a second.

 

[photon123]

I have been following this company for some time and my impression is that this is a total scam done only with the intention of selling shares to the public. Their approved transmitter is not an actual product. They say it themselves. It was only built with the intention of getting FCC approval. This transmitter is unsafe. It requires a motion sensor that detects breathing with 100% reliability. If there is a human or an animal in front of the device, it shuts down. What happens if the motion sensor fails to detect you? Are you willing to take the risk? The charged device also needs to be positioned in a small region and oriented towards the charger. It probably also needs a large antenna. Despite all this, the power delivered is minuscule. This will not charge your phone in any reasonable amount of time.

 

[lorfa]

This transmitter is unsafe. It requires a motion sensor that detects breathing with 100% reliability.

Citation please.

 

[photon123]

You can read the documents they submitted to the FCC:
https://fccid.io/2ADNG-MS300
The device they got certified is quite useless, yet it is still shocking it was approved by the FCC. I don't understand how the FCC approved a device based on its motion detector being 100% reliable in detecting nearby humans. Maybe the FCC decided that consumer protection is overrated. First net neutrality. Now this.

 

[bit_user]

Low energy microwaves are fine.

Please quantify "low energy" and "fine" in terms of W and cumulative exposure vs. effects.

And so if you are scared of low amplitude microwaves than you must be absolutely terrified of low amplitude visible light.

Define low-amplitude. If someone shot a 4 W laser at me, I'd be pretty unhappy. If someone bathed me in 4 W of UV light, I'd also be upset.

Your microwave at your house simply bombards your food with high amplitude microwaves.

And how does it relate to the amplitude needed for practical wireless charging @ 15' or even 3'?

A low energy gamma ray would be a bunch of 50 foot tsunamis hitting the coast at a highly unrealistic 10^20 times a second.

A high energy gamma ray would be like the shore getting hit with 1000 foot tall tsunamis at a highly unrealistic 10^20 times a second.

Why are you talking about gamma rays?

That post was entirely unhelpful.

 

[bit_user]

This transmitter is unsafe. It requires a motion sensor that detects breathing with 100% reliability. If there is a human or an animal in front of the device, it shuts down. What happens if the motion sensor fails to detect you?

Assuming this is true, we should also be concerned about hackers and malware.

"Please send 0.1 BTC to the following address or I'll fry your brain".

...worse yet, if it were installed in a self-driving car and the hacker could lock the doors. Some people might not be strong enough to break the windows.

The device they got certified is quite useless, yet it is still shocking it was approved by the FCC. I don't understand how the FCC approved a device based on its motion detector being 100% reliable in detecting nearby humans. Maybe the FCC decided that consumer protection is overrated.

I doubt their mandate includes assessing either usefulness or safety.

 

[photon123]

This transmitter is probably not powerful enough to easily do serous damage, so hacking it would not be effective like hacking a weapon. Still it outputs a significant amount of energy and focuses it. This is not your average cellphone, but something much more powerful and is well beyond the FCC exposure guidelines without this motion detector(which FCC decided to trust). This thing is in the gray zone. Maybe it is dangerous or maybe not. It is however certainly not powerful enough to charge anything useful. If they ever make something powerful enough to charge a smartphone, then that thing will be truly dangerous.

 

[ambitz7890]

“Qi,” an inductive charging technology that requires the device that needs to be charged to stay in a fixed location. You wouldn’t need to “plug” anything into the device,
charger and the device that needs to be charged, the less efficient the charging is. Plus, Rezence appeared a little later compared to Qi,<a href="http://foundstone.org">????????????????????</a>More recently the “AirFuel Alliance” was formed, which supports both the Rezence charging standard, as well as Qi-like inductive charging. The alliance was formed so it could compete more directly against the Wireless Power Consortium, the group behind the Qi standard.
but it doesn’t look like that deal was made in the end. Energous said that it will demo its technology at the next Consumer Electronics Show (CES), between January 9 and 12, in Las Vegas. cant.I'm open-minded, but skeptical. Can anyone explain .<a href="http://nccommunities.org">????????</a>their approval is merely a statement concerning interference with other devices and radio transmissions.

 

[mihen]

Wouldn't this just be a Tesla coil 100 year old technology. Wrap the coil 5.8 billion times and you get 5.8 ghz.

 

[bit_user]

Wouldn't this just be a Tesla coil 100 year old technology. Wrap the coil 5.8 billion times and you get 5.8 ghz.

Sounds like it has some beam-steering capability. I don't know if Tesla ever got that far. He did some impressive things, in his time, but that was long ago.

On a possibly related note, he also did things like forge photographs, like this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#/media/File:Nikola_Tesla,_with_his_equipment_Wellcome_M0014782.jpg

I think I've heard it conjectured that he was trying to downplay safety concerns with wireless power transmission, but perhaps this was just a more general bit of self-promotion.

 

[dark_lord69]

I would like to know how much electricity is lost with wireless charging vs wired charging.

 

[photon123]

I find it extremely troubling that the FCC certified this device based on the manufacturer's claim that its motion detector can detect humans reliably and thus there is no need to do any safety testing close to the device. What would prevent them from certifying a device 1000 time more powerful, that will actually be able to charge a smartphone across the room, but also kill its user. The device from the illustration is a death ray in your living room. Would you feel comfortable to fall asleep on your sofa?

 

[photon123]

Or maybe they can sell it as a fitness device. You need to be constantly moving to trigger the motion detector. If you stop, you are struck with a microwave beam and experience severe pain. That will get you moving.

 

[hdmark]

Or maybe they can sell it as a fitness device. You need to be constantly moving to trigger the motion detector. If you stop, you are struck with a microwave beam and experience severe pain. That will get you moving.

or sell it to netflix. "Are you still watching?" .... "I said... are you still watching?" ..... *ZAP*

 

[derekullo]

Low energy microwaves are fine.

Please quantify "low energy" and "fine" in terms of W and cumulative exposure vs. effects.

And so if you are scared of low amplitude microwaves than you must be absolutely terrified of low amplitude visible light.

Define low-amplitude. If someone shot a 4 W laser at me, I'd be pretty unhappy. If someone bathed me in 4 W of UV light, I'd also be upset.

Your microwave at your house simply bombards your food with high amplitude microwaves.

And how does it relate to the amplitude needed for practical wireless charging @ 15' or even 3'?

A low energy gamma ray would be a bunch of 50 foot tsunamis hitting the coast at a highly unrealistic 10^20 times a second.

A high energy gamma ray would be like the shore getting hit with 1000 foot tall tsunamis at a highly unrealistic 10^20 times a second.

Why are you talking about gamma rays?

That post was entirely unhelpful.

You asked if microwave radiation was safe.

I said the frequency isn't the problem.

The amplitude of the wave is what kills you / causes cancer.

Higher frequencies (ultraviolet and higher) are cause for concern due to those rays tending to ionize atoms, but you still need the amplitude to deliver the energy.

Phone makers would never choose anything above visible light for that reason.

You also don't want to use visible light due to its inability to penetrate solid objects.

This leaves radio waves and microwaves.

Even radio waves, the lowest frequency of them all can be damaging if its amplitude is high enough.

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/cell-phones-fact-sheet


Your analogy of microwaving your phone in your pocket was entirely unhelpful.

 

[chris.newsmail]

This will totally mess up the 5cm ISM and ham radio bands...

 

[alextheblue]

Or maybe they can sell it as a fitness device. You need to be constantly moving to trigger the motion detector. If you stop, you are struck with a microwave beam and experience severe pain. That will get you moving.

or sell it to netflix. "Are you still watching?" .... "I said... are you still watching?" ..... *ZAP*

Just sell them the STORY of Netflix buying and deploying the devices, instead.

"Netflix, you're greenlit."

 

[bit_user]

You asked if microwave radiation was safe.

No, I didn't. I asked about this device, and I asked for specifics you utterly failed to provide.

A bad answer earned you no points. Arguing over it just earned you a down-vote.

 

[dalauder]

I wonder if this would interfere with pacemakers etc...

I'm pretty sure it could, but that would depend on what sort of radio frequency sensitivity they have.

Tesla would be proud.

Although his long range was much farther than 15 feet.

Link?

I'm open-minded, but skeptical. Can anyone explain (with references, if possible) why we think this is safe? Otherwise, I plan to play it safe and stick with inductive charging. Something about microwaving my phone in my pocket just seems like a Bad Idea.

Non-ionizing radiation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation

Basically, low power electromagnetic radiation (radiowaves, microwaves, visible red & green light) doesn't carry enough energy to do much to molecules. If it did, sunlight would REALLY screw you up. That's the range of power these are operating in and why cell phones can't cause cancer. The radiowaves we're talking about are literally at a billionth the frequency, and therefore energy of, visible light (I think that's some sort of Planck's law?).

Now once you get to some blue light, towards ultraviolet, you get closer to ionizing radiation and damage due to non-ionizing effects is well-documented, such as sunburns.

 

[dalauder]

And now we run into issues where too much power is put into the air of your household and people end up going blind or otherwise mildly cooking their bodies...worse than we already are. Imagine the average person putting their charger base station 6 inches from their arm chair to charge a device 15 feet away (with human body in between). It would be about as dangerous as leaving the microwave oven door open while cooking...

Your math is flawed. You'd need 100,000 radio transmitters at the same distance to produce the effect of a microwave...roughly.