Automatically Charge Smartphones Using A Light Beam

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Automatically charging your phone using a beam of light is a great idea.

Microsoft researchers Yunxin Liu, Zhen Qin, and Chunshui Zhao in Beijing describe AutoCharge as an approach that automatically locates a smartphone on a desk and charges it. Their prototype charger, which you can mount on a ceiling, works in two ways: a detection mode that uses a Microsoft Kinect camera to scan for smartphone-like objects, and charging mode that uses an UltraFire CREE XM-L T6 Focusing LED Flashlight torch.
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Why not use invisible IR light, who wants to have a huge beam of light pointed on your phone.
 
Expensive robots, requires PV panel twice as large as the phone itself. Man, people come up with the dumbest research ideas.
 
joblo37pam said:
Neat concept, but seems like a terribly inefficient transfer of energy.
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And if its going to be horribly inefficient, it should look really cool! What I'd like to see is some kind of roaming smart robot that like a roomba will wait on its charger scanning the room, and then when it detects your cellphone will try to crawl and climb its way toward it and hug the phone, charging it with a Qi charger in its chest.

Bonus points if you could shape the bot it like a face-hugger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PQ5Oy4FWDs
 
I just don't understand how people think plugging a phone in once a day when you go to bed is SUCH A HUGE INCONVENIENCE that new inventions costing a lot of money and all inherently less efficient than a direct plug are needed.

I mean, REALLY? White people problems I guess...

This is just as dumb as inductive charging.

640px-Facepalm_facepalm.png
 
Charging heats the battery, light on a phone heats it up due to excess splash on the phone + surrounding area and inefficient solar cells only use a small % of the energy for electricity.
Waste of energy put to a good use shortening the devices life :)
This assumes the charge rate is worthwhile. If not, theres not much point anyway.
 
I agree, this is getting dumb.
Inductive charging is stupid too, you still have to place it somewhere.. how much harder it is to just plug it?
I think the one thing that would make sense it to have a more universal plug with the capacity to sense the needed voltage and amps.. this has been invented, but never adopted.
 
Forgot to mention.
The cost of every device goes up because it has to have a solar cells.

A solar cell wallet isnt a bad idea as you can choose whether its a good idea for the way you live.
But this idea is poor.
 
Nenu said:
Forgot to mention.
The cost of every device goes up because it has to have a solar cells.

A solar cell wallet isnt a bad idea as you can choose whether its a good idea for the way you live.
But this idea is poor.
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Makes me wonder how much more expensive and thick my Droid Turbo is because some idiot had to go include Qi charging compatibility in it... :rolleyes:
 
Uvaman said:
Inductive charging is stupid too, you still have to place it somewhere.. how much harder it is to just plug it?
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We live in a world where people refuse to use the shift key on their keyboards to capitalize letters at the beginning of a sentence. Do you really need to ask that question?
 
Qi charging is insanely thin on the receiving end these days, like construction paper thick.
 
I'd like to see inductive charger built into pants pockets and powered by my crotch. Otherwise, when it's not in pocket it can sit on a desk inductive charger mat.
 
It's true! Icpiper doesn't even have one of those crazy little wooden mallets that pretty much every judge uses as an AOE crowd control weapon.
 
yeesh. companies are going to stupid lengths to replace the usb mini.


the should just connect the kinect to a robotic hand that picks up the cord and plugs it in for you.
 
I have a flashlight with a T6 LED. It is HELLA bright. Like blind you for a while if it just flashes your open eyes bright.
I wouldn't want that bright a beam in a room with me.
 
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