Wi-Fi waves can charge batteries for electronic devices in the future

The amount of 1 watt power generated from the router is very small, so it is still not suitable for phone charging, but the technology is still applicable for charging low-power devices.

The future of humans can use Wi-Fi waves to charge electronic devices

Everyone knows that Wi-Fi allows the transmission of network signals through the air, but can Wi-Fi be used to charge devices? Scientists at the University of Washington are currently working to bring this idea into reality.

PoWiFi , which stands for "Power over Wi-Fi ", or power via Wi-Fi, is the process of deceiving devices that send signals that are constantly being absorbed and converted into AC power by a receiving device.

In fact, Wi-Fi emits an amount of power equivalent to 1 watt enough to transmit data, and for an Android or iPhone device, the output is 5 watts. The technology of this group of scientists is to collect the amount of electricity that has been emitted and use it for their goals.

"We have a huge Wi-Fi infrastructure here, " said Vamsi Talla, Ph.D. at the University of Washington and a researcher for the project. "If you can change the traditional purpose of Wi-Fi to make it transmit electricity in the air, we will transmit wireless power to households and offices."

Researchers have used PoWiFi to charge a super capacitor connected to a small camera placed 5.2 meters away from the router. Every 35 minutes, this supercapacitor collects enough power from the WiFi wave to start the camera to take a photo. They also succeeded in charging a health monitoring device to 41% of the battery after 2 1/2 hours.

According to Dr. Mehdi Kiani, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Pennsylvania State University, the power of 1 watt emitted from the router is very small, so it is still not suitable for phone charging, but the technology is still available. Applicable for charging low power devices .

This technology is really not new. Previously a company called Energous had launched a product capable of transmitting power via Wi-Fi and they were committed to charging the phone. However, the PoWiFi feature is the ability to harness the power of hardware available and the team of scientists at Washington University said their router can transmit both power and Wi-Fi data in the end. a frequency wave.

In the near future, can people use Wi-Fi waves to charge electronic devices?

To test the effectiveness of Internet speed , the researchers installed PoWiFi routers at six homes in Seattle and asked family members to use the Internet as usual. Four of the six households used it without any problems, and one said the Internet quality improved significantly, indicating that their PoWifi router was more advanced than previous routers.