EEVblog 1495 - Quaze Wireless Power (AGAIN!) but for GAMING!

Yes, wireless power is BACK! And this time they are targetting gaming rigs.
Quaze want to power gaming rigs up to 500W with 15MHz resonant RF wireless desktop power. Let's take a look! How much is marketing hype? Place your bets now...

Patents:

00:00 - Quaze desktop wireless power. We've heard this before.
02:38 - Targetting the gamer market through Maingear
05:49 - Laptop mag interview and demo
08:41 - What's that plugpack?
16:16 - Is it safe?
17:08 - Zu Focus demo day video
18:24 - The rules are hard coded in our mind (for a reason)
20:18 - It's all thanks to gravity!
22:45 - Do gamers actually need or want this?
25:07 - Are you with me? Are you seeing it? No, not really.
26:18 - Phone charging
27:55 - Astonishing isn't it. Walls, floors, ceilings! Yeah, nah.
30:37 - Unlimited potential!
32:46 - A look at the patents and the efficiency numbers
39:41 - Conclusion

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#ElectronicsCreators #wirelesspower #Quaze

[longjohn]

Go look at the FCC rules for a 500W 15MHz transmitter and safe operating distance from the antenna According to the FCC an amateur 20M station (14 MHz) operating at 500W you need to be 3.4 meters away from the antenna at a minimum Which means you cannot have the antenna anywhere in the average sized room without subjecting humans and pets to dangerous levels of RF power. This also assumes a 0 db gain antenna (omni-directional). If you are using a gain antenna such as forming it into a beam or making it directional the the safe distance increases to 4.8M for a 3 db gain, 6.8M for a 6 db gain, etc.

There is no way you are going to develop 500W of power at 15 MHz and get it past the FCC .... If you drop it to 100W you'd still need a 1.5M safe operating distance so you'd be lucky to get 5W at 15 MHz approved for something sitting under your desk .... And that doesn't even take into account RFI problems if you don't have a clean Sine wave and are radiating harmonics and perhaps jamming your neighbor's garage door opener

[Thesignalpath]

Of all possible applications of wireless power, they went for PC ON THE TABLE?!

[wtmayhew]

Someone should tell Quaze that people are OK with wiring power to objects that don’t move around on a regular basis - like monitors.

[AttilaTheHun]

I already have this in my kitchen and it can deliver way more than 500 watts…my induction stove. Didn’t change my life but it’s nice to have.

[jkobain]

— _The world is getting dangerously efficient, we should fix that!_
— _What? Why would one ever do that? It sounds stupid!_
— _But we can raise money in the process._
— _Ah, alright. Count me in._

[TheCodr]

Don't knock it until you try it Dave. I'm using this to charge my Tesla in my living room, albeit it's going to take 54 years but at least I won't trip over the charging cables any more

[beskamir]

I don't understand people that don't like cables. Absolutely everything from data to power transmission just works so much better when there's a physical connection than when things are wireless.

[anthonydiiorio]

Nothing like wireless power for your monitor but still using a DisplayPort cable for video!

[tiefensucht]

Imagine the life improvement by not having one small power cable on the back of your desk for your monitor, but instead having a cable on the side of your desk to power the desk itself.

[Mr_Meowingtons]

As a guy that likes to use his Amateur radio this would be a freaking nightmare dumping unwanted RF in to the air

[dana]

By the time they're transferring 500W - this is going to be a really nasty radio frequency interference generator. They will probably have the radio regulator in whichever country it is plugged in eventually track them down and mandate it be shut off or confiscate it.

[remotepeak]

Few years ago I work at some device with Qi charger, so I went deep into this rabbit hole. I have few thought about it and yours (viewers) commnets. I did not read patent papers about it, but I suppose I get idea.
1. You can't compare it with 500W radio transmitter. This will only transmit energy when and where it will detect receiver. Like in Qi, here also probably it will exchange digital data between TX and RX
2. There will will be a lot of coils under table. They can not be large, because size of TX and EX coil must be similar. Otherwise k factor will drop significantly. Many coils equal many copper, plus many electronic stuff connected to it. Yes, they probably will improve it by adjusting resonance (LC), but there wil be no mirracle, no huge improvements.
3. In Qi there is protection agains leaking power. TX know how much power it sent, RX reporting back to TX (in digital manner, by power modulating) how much it get. If TX will see that what he sent is significantly differ than what RX get, then transmission is stopped. Once I cheat this protection and put on TX coil some RX receiver and nut M12. After 30 seconds nut was very, very hot. Imagine what will happen if something odd will happen, and you will heat up i.e. pen or spoon.
4. From same reason you cannot get large TX coil. Lets imagine coil 30x30cm. You put in this area phone and spoon. TX will negotiate with RX on phone. If somehow will be success, then phone will be charging and spoon will also be heated. If negotiate will fail, then user will complain bout poor quality of his new, shiny wireless table.
There is many other doubts, hard to write them all. There is no revolution in this solution. Qi with larger charging area (3 coils) you can buy for years.

Like Dave said. They now making huge mumbo jumbo to promote this. Finally, they will end up at most, with expensive, niche solutions for snobs.
By the way I have for them new slogans: "NikolaTesla would be proud of us" or "Buy it! before government will prohibit it". 😀

[tekdragon]

as a casual PC gamer that spent way too much time on cable management, I am offended by this company 😁 jokes aside though, as a legit ham radio operator, I do NOT want a world where everything is transmitting garbage at 15 MHz and probably harmonics all over the rest of the HF spectrum. there's way too much RFI in the modern world as it is IMO. thanks for always being a practical voice of reason on this subject!

[atkelar]

Regulatory bodies are all up in arms again about "standby power" - i.e. TVs and such may be forced to a hard turn off soon to "conserve sooo much power!", and yet wireless charging and similar things are not even mentioned. I am willing to bet that ANY cable for phone charging will provide a much larger improvement than any standby device would ever use (well, at least semi modern ones, I'm not talking about the space heater TVs of the 70s, 80s or even 90s here.)

[xjet]

How the hell do they get regulator permission to have a 500W 15MHz transmitter? I'm pretty sure there are FCC and other regulations to limit that sort of thing. There is an ISM band around 13MHz but I'm pretty sure there'd be power limitations.

[theondono]

So their target audience for a “tech to remove cables” is the kind of people who refuse to use wireless mice and keyboard. That’s going to be fun!

[JW-uC]

An LED computer monitor draws about 15W active. A laptop about 15-30 depending on its battery level. Those things are shockingly frugal in comparison to a fully stocked PC.

[triangle]

Love the wireless power for industrial applications. Waiting for a wireless arc furnace.

[littleshopofelectrons]

Great stuff Dave. I have a few observations.

120 years on and people just can't let go of Tesla's pipe dream of wireless power. They just can't accept that range squared inverse power law. I moderate a Tesla coil and high voltage FB group and we constantly have to debunk these claims from dreamers. Unfortunately, engineering arguments don't seem to sway them. Its the dream that seems to count.

I am not a gamer but many of the serious gaming PCs that I have seen draw much more than 500 watts so even if their claim is true it would be insufficient power for a serious gaming rig.

[tedmich]

My company gave us all "wireless charging disk" with a cable, tossing the disk and just plugging the cable into your cell phone charged 2x faster. Most "un-green" product ever.