Cota By Ossia Offers Wireless Power Using Same Spectrum As Wi-Fi

Wireless power, the dream of many and something that has yet to fully take off in the public domain. Sure there are ways of cutting the wires and using charging stations, power pads and more, but what if you could just use something like a router that broadcasts power to your local devices? Well that’s exactly what the Cota by Ossia does.

The brainchild of physicist Hatem Zeine, Cota by Ossia can deliver wireless power, something that has taken them 10 years to achieve effectively, a mission that raised $3.2 million along the way to make is possible. This week at Disrupt, Zeine will be ready to show a world first public demo of the Cota wireless prototype, which can charge power devices at a distances of around 10 feet, delivering around 10% of the total original source power to devices using the same unlicensed spectrum used by Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee and other communication standards.

“What we’re doing uses the same frequencies as Wi-Fi,” he explained. “It’s the unlicensed spectrum that’s used by Wi-Fi, and many phones, Bluetooth and Zigbee devices and so on in our lives. The nice thing about this frequency is that it’s just the sweet spot for our technology for distance, safety, for the size of the antennas and the hardware that we use, it’s just a perfect level. Also it’s well understood, since people have had Wi-Fi in their homes for a long time now.”

The technology clearly has a way to go just yet, but it is an exciting start. While at this time only 10% power is provided, that would likely be enough to keep your phone from going flat between uses, or to slow charge it throughout the day, enough to keep your hand held games consoles, controllers, Bluetooth speakers and many other devices ticking away nicely. If the tech can be improved and offer more power over a greater distance, then we could be in for a charging cable free future.

Thank you TechCrunch for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of TechCrunch.