Inductive charging is slowly making its way into the consumer market space and should hit its stride next year. We’ve already seen devices that utilize inductive charging with the Palm Pre and its Touchstone charger as well as Energizer’s Wii Induction Charging System. There are other devices out on the market, but those come to mind right off the bat.
Correction: Qualcomm’s eZone system isn’t the inductive charging technology we’ve already seen in the market place with the aforementioned products. Turns out the technology behind it is actually near field magnetic resonance, which is a form of inductive charging that allows for more efficient wireless energy transfer. That explains why you’re able to hover your device above the charging pad and still have it charge without any sort of physical contact.
So you could just tuck the charging pad in a desk drawer, for example, and set your device on top without anyone ever seeing the charging pad. And eZone allows you to charge multiple devices at once since it’ll be a universal charging pad.
Previously unannounced and forgotten at last year’s CTIA, Qualcomm showed off their inductive chargers and says they’ll be hitting the market sometime in the middle of next year. Three models are in the works that include a charging mat that rests atop your laptop for mobile devices. Another device in the eZone lineup pulls images off your phone or iPod and displays them on a larger display. Unfortunately, it can’t pull images off a memory card. And last but not least is the home base charger for your phones that also acts as a repository for your keys, wallet and loose change. The wireless charging range of the home base (that’s just what I’m calling it) was around 2-feet so devices don’t necessarily have to be resting on the pad.
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