Recharge cellphones without wires?
The search for the ability to recharge our laptops and cell phones without plugging them in may be one small step closer to success.
Nokia has developed a prototype that harvests ambient radio waves from the air. It then turns that energy into usable power, just sufficient to keep a cell phone from running out of juice.
Nokia’s system will draw its wireless waves from TV, radio, or other mobile phone systems, much of which is wasted and just bouncing around the air.
Nokia’s prototype can pick up all the bits and pieces of these waves in order to use the collected electromagnetic energy to create electrical current, then uses that to recharge the phone’s battery.
A huge range of frequencies can be utilized by the system (there’s no other way, really, as the energy in any given wave is infinitesimal).
Tesla was exploring this idea 100 years ago but on a larger scale.
You may never be able to power your house with this technology, but you may keep your cell phone operating.
Nokia is able to harvest all of 5 milliwatts from the air and their goal is to increase that to 20 milliwatts in the short term and 50 milliwatts down the line.
It’s not enough to keep the phone alive when making a call, but be enough to slowly recharge a cell phone’s battery while it’s in standby mode, theoretically offering infinite power — provided you’re not stuck deep underground where radio waves can’t penetrate.
Nokia hopes to commercialize the technology in three to five years.
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