Beijing, Jan 29: Over the last year or so, Xiaomi has been responsible for a number of advancements made in wireless charging technology. However, the company has today gone ahead and announced a successor to the technology, one which could revolutionise the way we charge our phones in the future. Called Mi Air Charge, this is a remote charging technology which according to the company, can wirelessly charge multiple devices simultaneously without connecting any cables or placing your devices on a wireless charging stand.
As explained above, this futuristic technology allows the process of charging to not be local and instead uses the “self-developed isolated charging pile” to throw energy beams at the device to be charged even if it’s at a distance of a couple of meters from the charger. For now, the company claims this technology is capable of delivering 5W of power, however, we can expect this to improve as the technology matures in the future.
How does Mi Air Charge work?
Talking about the charger or the charging pile as Xiaomi calls it in an official blog post, Xiaomi explains that at the core of the technology is a charging pile that uses space positioning and energy transmission to first determine the device’s position and then charge it.
Xiaomi’s explains that its self-developed isolated charging pile has “five phase interference antennas built in, which can accurately detect the location of the smartphone. A phase control array composed of 144 antennas transmits millimeter-wide waves directly to the phone through beamforming. These waves are then picked up by the receiving device which will need a miniaturized antenna array to be charged remotely. As Xiaomi explains, the receiving antenna array is composed of 14 antennas which convert the millimeter wave signal emitted by the charging pile into electric energy through the rectifier circuit “to turn the sci-fi charging experience into reality.”
Currently, Xiaomi remote charging technology is capable of 5-watt remote charging for a single device within a radius of several meters. Interestingly, Xiaomi claims multiple devices can also be charged at the same time (each device supports 5 watts), and even physical obstacles do not reduce the charging efficiency.
While Xiaomi has announced this feature only for smartphones at the moment, in the near future, it claims the charging technology will also be able to work with smartwatches, bracelets and other wearable devices.
