Future Motorola phones could wirelessly charge from up to 30 feet away

By Christian de Looper May 12, 2021

The dream of truly wireless charging has been around for some time now. Companies such as Energous release fresh concepts and information every now and then, while Xiaomi touted its Mi Air Charge tech earlier this year. Turns out, however, the first consumer product to support the tech may come from … Motorola?

The company has announced that it is partnering with GuRu, one of the companies working on truly wireless charging, to bring the tech to future Motorola smartphones. The joint press release, unfortunately, doesn’t note when the tech might become available — so it could still be a matter of years before it’s consumer-ready.

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“At Motorola, we are constantly working to bring innovations to the market that can improve our consumers’ lives. With this solution, we will provide a glimpse of the freedom and flexibility that users can enjoy with a revolutionary over-the-air, wireless power technology,” said Dan Dery, vice president of product at Motorola, in a statement. “With GuRu, we imagine a new generation of wirelessly powered devices.”

Of course, it’s important to not overreact to announcements like this. As mentioned, companies have been working on this kind of tech for years, but it still has yet to really become part of the consumer tech landscape.

GuRu says that its RF Lensing tech is able to power devices from up to 30 feet away, using a propriety millimeter wave technology. This can be used to charge devices with batteries, like a smartphone, but eventually it could also be used to power devices that don’t have or need batteries — like, for example, a TV. It will likely be years before the tech can work like that, though, given the greater power demands of a TV compared to a battery-powered device that really only uses a lot of energy when it’s on.

To actually use the tech, you’ll need to install small base stations in the rooms that you want to wirelessly charge in. In GuRu’s concept, these base stations will be built into things like light fixtures, meaning they’ll blend into their environment. It remains to be seen how that will impact upgradeability — it’s a lot easier to replace a wireless charging pad today that it would be to replace a light fixture.

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Christian de Looper

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Christian’s interest in technology began as a child in Australia, when he stumbled upon a computer at a garage sale that he…

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