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Cellphones Power Technology

Ikea Unveils Furniture That Charges Your Smartphone Wirelessly 95

Posted by samzenpus from the power-up dept.
pbahra writes Swedish furniture maker Ikea unveiled a new range of furniture that it says can wirelessly charge some mobile devices. The Swedish furniture giant made the announcement on Sunday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Ikea's introduction of wireless charging functionality on some of its new furniture heats up the battle for a global wireless charging standard, of which there are currently three, all struggling to become the global leader.
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Ikea Unveils Furniture That Charges Your Smartphone Wirelessly More

Ikea Unveils Furniture That Charges Your Smartphone Wirelessly

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  • Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)

    by ArcadeMan ( 2766669 ) on Sunday March 01, 2015 @07:17PM (#49160757)

    http://xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zm ( 257549 )
      while that xkcd is funny, it does not apply in this scenario:

      Ikea will equip its new range of furniture with Qi-certified wireless chargers from the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) and has also joined the organization.

      • It may not add one, but still...

        Ikea's introduction of wireless charging functionality on some of its new furniture heats up the battle for a global wireless charging standard, of which there are currently three, all struggling to become the global leader.

        • Alabama and Oklahoma have orgasm.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by jrumney ( 197329 )
          Are there really 3 struggling to become the global leader though? From what I can see, there's Qi, which is widely supported by devices, and there's a couple of competing standards which don't want to die, occasionally announcing agreements with restaurant/cafe chains to put their unused charging devices into stores.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

            In fact one of the competitors has already agreed to become Qi compatible, so basically given up and started concentrating on just delivering turn-key solutions rather than its own standard that no-one uses.

            Qi is the only one anyone uses or cares about. The others had the dubious "advantage" of requiring a two-way link between the charger and device, exchanging serial numbers and other data. The public justification was to allow charging money for the service, but it was marketed to business as a way to tra

        • There might be three standards, but if the article is to be believed they aren't exactly competing.

          One (Qi) is supported by several major handset manufactorers. Another is in bed with Starbucks (USA?). The third doesn't even get a mention beyond that it exists. Given that Starbuck's products don't need wireless charging it would seem any war has already been won by Qi.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shados ( 741919 )

      QI chargers, already used across the Nexus line, and I _think_ some Samsung phones?

      Im personally happy, since all my phones/tablet support Qi.

  • I am sure this line of furniture will get some name like Nokaard (with two dots over the o).

    • Nokaard (with two dots over the o).

      Maybe just 'Discard ' - at least the electronics will fail about the same time as the joinery.

      • You get what you pay for with IKEA. In fact, if you compare their stuff to similarly priced stuff you get a lot more than you pay for.

        You can buy real wood furniture from them and it lasts far longer. It's not even that much more expensive. Especially if you cheat and glue the pieces in addition to screwing them together with the included stuff. The main disadvantage to gluing is that you can't take it apart to move it but you can't do that too often anyway.

        Old IKEA furniture can often have a new lease on l

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by torkus ( 1133985 )

          Just be careful when assembling particleboard furniture with gorilla glue (aka polyurethane glue) ... it will NEVER come apart. You will need to smash the particleboard itself if you ever want to break it down as the glue is far stronger than the wood.

          What this means is...if you build it and it does't sit perfectly flat while the glue cures then your furniture will forever be wonky and crooked. I'm careful when I build and have ikea furniture that's lasted close to a decade through 5 or 6 moves without an

          • Just be careful when assembling particleboard furniture with gorilla glue (aka polyurethane glue) ... it will NEVER come apart. You will need to smash the particleboard itself if you ever want to break it down as the glue is far stronger than the wood.

            Indeed. polyurethane glue is just for a second lease on life. As with most wood glues it is stronger than the particle board.

            What this means is...if you build it and it does't sit perfectly flat while the glue cures then your furniture will forever be wonky and crooked. I'm careful when I build and have ikea furniture that's lasted close to a decade through 5 or 6 moves without anything coming loose.

            Good point. Having said that, I haven't had an IKEA thing being wonky. Even those given a second lease on life. May be just luck, may be that I take my time when assembling them.

            Oh, and good luck if get it on your hands of clothes *sigh*

            Hands: it forms a hard coating on your skin. That coating will come off because it isn't as flexible as your skin. You'll be shedding it for a day or two.
            Washing doesn't help. Anything I know of that dissolves

        • I have put together IKEA like furniture a lot, took them apart and reassembled it.

          The most important thing to remember is the back cardboard thing that closed the shelves and stuff is not a purely decorative item. It is not for aestherics. This provides the torsional rigidity needed to keep the shelf square. Make sure it is maintained right. The nails go into the soft exposed particle board and comes loose. Make sure it is nailed back in.

          Get some 1inch x 1 inch steel L clams and lots of M5 or M6 nuts a

  • I read the title and thought "Gee, why would I want a sofa to charge me for sitting down? How much does a nap cost at IKEA?" I must be tired.

  • Butt Cancer (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Does sitting on a superfluous electromagnetic field for eight or more hours a day really a good idea?

    • You do that already. Unless you spend your days in a Faraday cage in the dark.
      You do KNOW that light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum right ?

      Not to mention the fact that the earth itself generates a massive magnetic field ? You are aware that this magnetic field is actually electromagnetic right ?

      You may as well ask if it's "really a good idea to spend 8 hours a day at the bottom of a large gravity well".

      • You may as well ask if it's "really a good idea to spend 8 hours a day at the bottom of a large gravity well".

        Oh gawd - now you did it. As if we didn't have enough to worry about. We must eliminate this gravity substance.

    • Does sitting on a superfluous electromagnetic field for eight or more hours a day really a good idea?

      Probably not. I'd be more concerned about the effects of spending that much time sitting on me arse.

  • I'd like to see some figures on the amount of energy lost when these devices aren't being used. Then to compare them to the energy wasted by wall transformers when they are idle.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Bartles ( 1198017 )
      In the Qi system, the transformer isn't energized unless a compatible device is present.

      • This is a good thing. I'm glad to see that there are engineers who think better than my assumption of just plain induction coils.

        Thanks.

      • In the Qi system, the transformer isn't energized unless a compatible device is present.

        So there is something using power while it is constantly searching for a device, right?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )
      Well, to quote the summary: "Ikea's introduction of wireless charging functionality on some of its new furniture heats up the battle for a global wireless charging standard"

      Although you can get up into the 80% range (short distance between emitter and receiver, good axial alignment, well-tuned resonance frequencies, and proper shielding), you are more likely to be in the 50-75% efficiency range. That's for the inductive portion; there is also a loss in converting the 120/220V power from the wall. [I sp

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hawguy ( 1600213 )

        Well, to quote the summary: "Ikea's introduction of wireless charging functionality on some of its new furniture heats up the battle for a global wireless charging standard"

        Although you can get up into the 80% range (short distance between emitter and receiver, good axial alignment, well-tuned resonance frequencies, and proper shielding), you are more likely to be in the 50-75% efficiency range. That's for the inductive portion; there is also a loss in converting the 120/220V power from the wall. [I speak from professional experience developing a Qi-charged medical device. It was a good solution for the problem, as it allowed the case to be fully sealed, but turned me off the idea of using it for everything that needs charging.] For 5-10 W of actual charge power in the device, your losses from grid to device will be close to that amount This is about as bad as the 50-60 Hz wall wart transformers that we have recently gotten away from.

        My phone battery has around 8 watt-hours of capacity. Round it up to 10 watt-hours, and that's around 3.6KWh/year to charge my phone every day, so even if I'm wasting another 3.6KWh/year, that's only costing me around 50 cents/year of electricity, which is well worth the convenience of just putting my phone on the side table when I go to bed and not having to fumble with wires in the dark to connect it to a charger.

    • it's not wasteful when it's not being used but it sure is wasteful when it is. The efficiency is something like 50% of the radiated energy actually making it to the device in usable form, I'll stick with copper for now.

  • Can't vouch for Ikea's new couches, but their Karlstad line was designed by idiots. 99% of the skeleton of the couch is made out of real wood (pine I think), EXCEPT the parts that hold the legs, where most of the stress occurs, which are made out of particle board.

    • Ikea is designed for cheapness. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Always has been. And it's been getting 'worse', given the economic realities of the world.

      If you're looking for quality, long-lasting furniture and you're in an Ikea, you're doing it so very, very wrong.

    • I dunno. I had a home stocked with IKEA, and now have a lab full of cabinets (several types, over 50 units in total). This has survived one said lab relocation between buildings, in a truck. No breakages. The only problem was with one (out of 100+) drawer cabinet's bottom that fell through when we loaded it with HEAVY metal parts, but I fully understand these cabinets were not designed to handle this load. I have fixed it in half an hour usung a bracket from another IKEA drawer, anyway.

      I don't know what

      • In any case, if something breaks in normal use, email IKEA. They have a customer service that works. At the very least they can mail you broken parts.

        And spare parts are available even years after you bought the cabinet. That's what I like about IKEA. Their stuff is custumizable and even after years I can get teh stuff that I need to extend or reconfigure my wardrobe. And about durability.... check the uproar that their announced change in Expedit caused. That thing seems to be the only shelv that could be loaded fully with records (or a fish tank) without bending. (Compared to more expensive and more sturdy looking stuff)

        On the other hand, I have to agr

  • Wireless charging is fantastic-- it eliminates effort and wear and tear on all my devices' historical weakness, the mechanical stress on the charging port. I've replaced all chargers I can with Qi chargers.

  • A4WP and PMA have merged [rezence.com] to form Rezence [rezence.com], which should become the prevailing standard as it's better technology than Qi. So it's really too bad that Ikea is supporting WPC - which will probably not emerge as the winning standard. Ikea can always make next year's furniture with Rezence, but it's not clear first gen customers that got Qi would be able to upgrade. Also the article is misleading in that it suggests Samsung is completely in the WPC camp when they are also involved with and helped found A4WP (Rez

    • A wireless standard that nobody integrates is not that useful. Qi is on a lot of devices now, the low end supports 5w of power and medium 120w. People are already hacking qi charging stations into their keyboards and desks. You can add qi charging into nearly anything with a USB port and a flat space.

      Now that said something in the 10-20w range would be nice.

      The competitors standard relies on bluetooth and thus generally the ability to communicate with the device CPU. Do you trust a random wireless chargi

  • Ikea proudly announces the first induction-heating sofa.

  • Great balls of fire.

  • When the furniture comes from Ikea, you have to solder the components of the power controller together yourself.

  • Question: Does it work when the lamp etc is turned off (but plugged in)

    Also, I really hope they come up with a better design, because while the feature may be desirable, the lamps are butt-ugly!

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