Xiaomi’s new Mi Air Charge tech can remotely charge your phone in the air
- Xiaomi has introduced a new wireless charging technology called Mi Air Charge.
- It can charge your smartphone remotely via radio.
- Mi Air Charge currently supports 5W charging.
Xiaomi has made great innovations in the field of wireless charging. The company recently unveiled its 80W wireless charging technology, but nothing compares to the new Mi Air Charge technology announced today. Mi Air Charge, the first of its kind to be officially launched, allows you to remotely charge your mobile devices over the air.
With this technology, you no longer need to plug your electronic devices into a wireless charging stand or plug into cables. Instead, smart room positioning and energy transfer are used to spice them up.
How does Mi Air Charge work?
Mi Air Charge delivers 5W of remote power to a single device within a several meter radius. It uses the “isolated charging stack” developed by Xiaomi itself with five integrated interface antennas. Xiaomi claims that these antennas can accurately detect the location of a smartphone and that even physical obstacles will not affect charging efficiency.
A phase control array of 144 antennas then beamforms millimeter-wide waves directly to the phone.
So that the telephone can receive these millimeter waves and convert them into electrical energy, the company has developed a miniaturized antenna array consisting of a “beacon antenna” and a “receiving antenna array”.
The former sends the position of the device, while the latter converts the millimeter wave signal emitted by the charging stack into energy for charging.
According to Xiaomi, Mi Air Charge will also be able to remotely charge smartwatches, bracelets and other wearable devices in the future.
“In the near future, our living room devices, including speakers, desk lamps, and other small smart home products, will be based on a wireless power design that is completely wireless, making our living rooms truly wireless,” the company writes on its blog post.
There’s no word on when Xiaomi will commercialize Mi Air Charge, but it will be a tipping point for wireless charging whenever it does. The technology has been around for a while, but no company has yet been able to bring it to market.
