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My understanding, though, is that all of these wireless charging solutions are significantly less efficient that wired power. Even if it's, say, 10% less effici
by adevine 10y ago
My understanding, though, is that all of these wireless charging solutions are significantly less efficient that wired power. Even if it's, say, 10% less efficient, that's a huge, huge waste of energy on a large scale if this technology becomes popular.
- agumonkey 10y agoDepends, how much energy is used in making cables that break, get lost ? Even though building the wireless adapter endpoints will also be costly ... hmm
- samstave 10y agoAlso, count how many failed/shitty cables you have had in your history- I've had literally hundreds of cables for charging only purposes. Fuck all that plastic and material waste when the cable only lasts N months... Further, it pisses me off that every device has a diff charging interface. Fine, go ahead and have a diff data delivery cable for high speed file trans but fuck you to every manufacturer where the charging interface is unique... I'm looking at you every laptop manufacturer ever...
- comex 10y agoWaste is relative. A smartphone uses around 1% the electricity per year of a refrigerator; I don't know if upping that even to, say, 10% would make all that much difference in the grand scheme of things.
- mikeyouse 10y agoBecause I'm slow at work.. If we say the new generation iPhones have a 3,000mah battery, batteries are charged fully once per day, and that 100 million people in the US have iPhones: 3,000mah x 3.8v = 11.4 watt-hours to fully charge a phone -- at $0.15/kWh, this equates to a daily expense of ~$0.002 to charge your phone. Annually, this is $0.62. If wireless charging were 50% efficient, it would still cost under a dollar annually to charge your phone. On a bigger scale: 11.4Wh * 365 days * 100M phones = 416 billion watt-hours annually to charge all the iPhones in the US. A 50% efficiency loss would equate to a difference of 208 billion Wh. Enercon makes a monster wind turbine called the E-126 that has a 7.6mW generator attached. With a modest 40% capacity factor, you would only need 8 additional wind turbines to make up for every iPhone user in the US switching to wireless charging.
- simcop2387 10y agoActually a 50% efficiency loss would double the energy requirements to 800+ billion watt hours. Your original calculation is right for 100% efficiency in charging over wires.
- mikeyouse 10y agoAh! Good point. I can't edit but double the turbines.
- antocv 10y agoHow much to make up for all the cancers people would get with increased radiation all around them?
- adevine 10y agoNon-ionizing radiation does not cause cancer
- raverbashing 10y ago10% less efficient? I think charging my phone loses about 5% in thermal losses at the connector (because it gets warm) 10% is both not important (in this context) and unfortunately optimistic
- MrQuincle 10y agoAnd this does not even consider the counterfeit adapters many people use. I think wireless might be more efficient than many badly designed adapters.
- duaneb 10y agoWhy would it not be absorbed by proportional savings in heating?
- hyperpape 10y agoDepends where you live. We spend more of the year running AC here.
- duaneb 10y agoVery good point.
- g52oevr0in 10y agoThis is true only if your home is running an electric heater. Burning hydrocarbons like natural gas, oil, and wood to heat your home directly is more efficient than using them to run a turbine to generate electricity, then run that electricity many miles to your home, then turn it into heat.
- tooFastFuckYou 10y agoWireless charging is also a pointless gimmick. You have to put the device on a mat anyway, so you might as well simply plop it into a dock. And you'll save the space inside the device that would've been needed for inductors. You don't need a wire or even a socket on the device; flat contacts on the bottom would be fine. Apple probably will implement this crap, more hypocrisy and another step in their war against usefulness. First they remove the audio output from their best-selling music players. Actually, not first... they've been removing battery capacity for years, in an idiotic and embarrassing campaign to make already-too-thin devices "thinner." But not really thinner, because the camera sticks out. Think of how good the camera would be if the phone were thick enough to provide reasonable battery power? The problem is that spineless consumers vote for products that call them stupid.
- mtgx 10y agoI think it's more than 10%. At least 20%. Maybe even 50%.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ProAm 10y agoNot only is it inefficient but I believe the heat produced while charging seriously degrades the battery and reduces it's expected lifespan.
- eridius 10y agoInduction charging is definitely less effective, and loses a lot of energy to waste heat. This is why, when you take an Apple Watch off of its charger, the back is very warm.