Powermat Ships: Charging Your iPhone Without Wires

Ed Sutherland ()

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We’ve written about all sorts of ways to charge your iPhone or iPod. Except solar devices, all chargers have one thing in common: they use wires. That might be ready to change as Powermat announces it will start shipping its wireless charger. The Powermat uses inductive coupling to transfer energy to any device placed on the mat.

There are two versions: the Powermat Home & Office (which looks something close to a skateboard without wheels) and the folding Powermat Portable. Both versions let you recharge up to three devices at least as quickly as the traditional plug-in rechargers.

The Powermat works when you place a device on the mat, and attach a receiver. (No energy is used when the mat is empty, unlike standard rechargers that will consume energy whether or not a phone is attached.) When you take the device away or unplug the receiver, the Powermat stops sending a charge.

The Powermat is available for the iPhone and iPod, as well as the BlackBerry, Nokia, Samsung and LG handsets. Nintendo DS and Sony PSP units can also be charged.

The Powermat costs $99 and additional receivers costs $39.99.

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[Via Company and Engadget]

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About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • Edgar Rios

    o yea, i saw those on bestbuy like a week ago.
    they are really cool. i want one =p

  • http://www.toxicspark.com Andrew Macdonald

    A brilliant idea, but ill hold off on buying one until it has the ability to transfer files to and from your iphone / ipod in iTunes etc.

    When it offers the exact same ability as a cable, i.e. charger and allows the transfer of files, is when ill splash out on the device.

  • salsa

    Pretty clunky receiver on the iPhone– looks like it doubles its thickness. Built-in would be very cool though.

    Re: “No energy is used when the mat is empty, unlike standard rechargers that will consume energy whether or not a phone is attached.”

    This is inaccurate. Standard rechargers consume very, very little energy when not charging. The Powermat surely uses at least as much energy in standby mode.

  • Edgar Rios

    yea i really hope apple makes a “dock” like this one that would also get synced to itunes/ wooah. think big.

  • geetmala

    Yet another utterly useless gadget. Think about carrying a bulky coil on the back of your device all day and remember the money you could have saved yourself.

  • http://www.giery-na-telefon.pl gry na telefon

    My favourite phone is nokia e65, it has greate screen and working for 2 weeks with one charge. Greetings