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Comment by joering2 | Hacker News Reader

> Displaying that it's charging is very different from actually charging. It could look like it's "charging" but may actually take all day to finish charging, in which case the technology is completely useless.

Absolutely not! Give me a thin mat that I can put next to me at my office desk, in the kitchen, on the night lamp stand, and on my car console between seats, and I can guarantee you you have billion-dollar in sales!

Don't forget the common nature of us human is laziness! If something can be done simpler (not reaching out for cable and plugging it into device 3 times a day) then you will find people to buy it! It doesn't have to charge my phone to full, enough to get me going for a while until next stopping/charging point.

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If you want to charge your phone while it sits on a mat you can use an induction charger where is an entirely different technology from what uBeam is promising.

Absolutely. It's probably not going to be a replacement for cables but rather a whole new way of using a phone charger. Right now my phone's sitting on my desk. I didn't bother to check the battery level and decide if I should plug it in. Wouldn't it be great if it was automatically charging without me having to make any decisions. Even if only a little bit, that's going to extend the battery life between deliberate charges, or even indefinitely.

Maybe I should have clarified the context. I said "useless" considering the competitive landscape. If you're building something that directly competes with Apple you better have a technology that's 10 times better.

And it certainly doesn't seem that way. Apple is already rumored to be planning to launch a wireless charging (that actually works) feature with iPhone 8 http://bgr.com/2017/02/02/iphone-8-specs-energous-wireless-c...

The reason I am harsh about ubeam is because there are other companies that are actually making things happen while this company seems to be all about raising money and getting attention in silicon valley. I root for companies that actually get shit done over companies that are all show.

Give me a thin mat that I can put next to me at my office desk, in the kitchen, on the night lamp stand, and on my car console between seats, and I can guarantee you you have billion-dollar in sales!

That's available, and it's not selling. Qi charging pads are available for about $20, and many Samsung phones will charge from them. They're available in wood, bamboo, and built into tables.

There's also MagMIMO, a startup which is using RF beamforming to get a range of about 30cm. That doesn't seem to be getting much traction.

And if it's operating at <10% efficiency that will be a disaster for the environment too.

In any case, it sounds like you want one of the inductive charging mats that are already available. My guess is that in real life the performance will be similar.

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