Apple's supplier Dialog Semiconductor recently made a $ 10 million investment in Energous, a company that is developing long-range techniques for wireless device recharging and has been the subject of rumors about having worked with Apple on the past, according to information from Fast Company.
According to Energous CEO Steve Rizzone, from now on all Energous technology will be sold under the Dialog brand. Dialog produces the power management chips and is said to get three-quarters of its business from Apple.
Energous has developed WattUp, an emerging wireless charging technology that uses radio frequencies to recharge devices from a distance of four and a half meters. There has been no concrete proof that Energous has partnered with Apple in any way. However, in 2015 Energous signed an agreement with an unidentified consumer electronics company and there is speculation that it could be Apple. The agreement between Energous and Apple's well-known supplier Dialog does not add further evidence of an alliance between Apple and Energous. However, as Fast Company points out, Dialog's resources would make such a partnership more viable. Through Dialog, Energous now gains access to Apple, knowledge of how its supply chain works, and an internal starting point when it comes to establishing a direct agreement with the Cupertino company.
Rumors suggest that Apple is planning to integrate some form of long-range wireless charging into the technology of the future iPhone 8, which will debut in 2017. Long-range wireless charging is superior to many other existing wireless charging methods, as it does not it requires the device to be close to a charging source, but there are also challenges to overcome. With long-range charging, there is a loss of energy transfer efficiency that occurs as the distance between the transmitter and receiver increases. That means devices recharge more slowly the further away they are from the source, and Apple is trying to figure out how to overcome that limitation.
Apple has been hiring engineers with wireless charging experience, putting wireless charging modules to the test, and has been looking for a supplier of wireless charging chips. All signs point to the imminent application of this method in their new devices. However, it is still unknown how it will be implemented and if Apple is going to partner with a company, such as Energous, to implement the function.
The CEO of Energous states that the company's technology should be ready for remote wireless charging to be a reality on anyone's devices from the second quarter of 2017, but did not comment on whether the partnership with Dialog will be he made an attempt to secure some kind of deal with Apple.
Remote charging of mobile devices will be a breakthrough for the world of mobile telephony. One of the main problems that users face on a daily basis is the poor battery life of their mobile phones, for example. The manufacturers of mobile devices try to implement batteries with more and more capacity, but at the same time the requirements of the daily use that are given to the devices are increasing, so that each time they also need more energy to run with all the devices. processes. The problem is like the whiting that bites its tail; Mobile phones require more and more use of the battery and it is increasingly difficult to evolve the charge of these batteries, so the fact of getting mobile phones to recharge wirelessly and at a significant distance from the source could allow them to be recharged every a short time without having to search for a socket to connect the charger.