Two leaders in the wireless-charging arena—the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) and the Power Matters Alliance (PMA)—announced they will merge with an eye toward accelerating the global availability and deployment of wireless-charging technology. Expected to close by mid-2015, the merger is the bookend to a separate collaboration agreement announced in February 2014. Under the Letter of Intent, the joint effort will operate under a yet-to-be-announced name.
Speeding the transition to volume economies of scale of wireless-power-transfer technology will not only benefit consumers, but mobile network operators, consumer-facing brands, the consumer electronics industry, and the latter’s semiconductor and manufacturing partners. It will ultimately broaden access to new battery-charging and power-management technologies across a wealth of devices, from Bluetooth headsets to wearables to tablets and laptops.
The A4WP also recently announced that membership has doubled, and that it expanded the applicability of the Rezence technical specification to include the wireless charging of cell phones, smartphones, tablets, notebooks, laptops, and desktop PC peripherals. The Rezence specification, which was previously adopted by PMA, is an industry-sponsored magnetic-resonance technical specification for transmitters and receivers in both single- and multimode configurations.
Watch a video on Rezence wireless power below, courtesy of A4WP:
Rezence technology delivers wireless power solutions in the 1- to 50-W range and supports multi-device charging while preserving freedom of placement. It also supports the charging of multiple devices with differing power requirements—all on the same charging surface. It’s currently the only available industry-sponsored resonant wireless-charging standard.
The joint A4WP and PMA boards will feature a veritable roster of consumer brands and supply-chain and market leaders, including AT&T, Broadcom, Duracell, Flextronics, Gill Electronics, Integrated Device Technologies (IDT), Intel, Powermat, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Starbucks, and WiTricity.