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back to article Guidelines issued for Qi wireless gadget charging in cars

The Wireless Power Consortium has published its recommendations for plugless in-car charging, primarily aimed at ensuring key fobs don't warm up and that phones don't become projectiles. Guidelines (pdf, as dull as one would imagine) from the custodian of the Qi wireless-charging standard require physical restraints on the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Iphone embedded in his head after the accident, but hey he can go wireless and hands free now.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Slow news day....?

    Might actually have to do some real work today....

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  3. solidsoup

    Planes?

    Now what about guidelines for wireless charging in planes? By the time this gets anywhere near wide adoption, we're going to have flying cars, so plane guidelines will be more apropos.

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  4. frank ly

    Loads of room

    In a modern car, there is lots of room on the passenger side of the 'dashboard', so some kind of slot (with sprung pressure restraints, or whatever) could easily be accommodated, either central or off toward the passenger side. They could even make a special receptacle inside the glove compartment with Bluetooth interface for calls when driving.

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  5. An ominous cow herd

    What's the point?

    What's the point of having wireless charging if the phone must be clipped to anything? Might as weel be clipped to a wired charging station...

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    1. Mage Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: What's the point?

      It's all pointless

      A dock or plug makes more sense.

      The chargers need plugged in somewhere anyway.

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  6. The Mole

    Impossible requirements

    This seems to have created impossible requirements for any cars that have keyless ignition (many Fords etc) as the key fob can pretty much be anywhere in the car. In fact many people will probably take their phone and keys out their pockets and place it in the same place so there is a good chance the key fob will be in the recharging bay..

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  7. kwhitefoot
    WTF?

    Why should a key fob be a problem?

    Are they seriously saying that this thing pumps out energy without any kind of handshake to make sure that what goes out is actually being delivered to a suitable sink?

    Or is it that it generates so much interference to keyfob transponders that the car will suddenly think that they key has disappeared and disable the car while belting down the autobahn at 200kph?

    Or what?

    A couple of extra lines in the article would have made it a lot more informative for those of us who haven't been close following developments in wireless charging.

    I suppose I'll have to go and read the pdf.

    Well, now I've read it. It looks to me as though it is going to interfere with pretty much everything in the car even when installed correctly. I'll make do with USB.

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    1. Ragarath
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      Re: Why should a key fob be a problem?

      I am not totally up on wireless charging, but as it is an induced current surely there is no way to "handshake" as you would with data.

      If the object acts as a receptor like and active or passive transmitter (or whatever they have in fobs) then surely the current that is induced from the coil can affect it. This could be by overheating (to much charge etc) too much current or other things I have no idea about.

      Although as I said I am not totally clued in on all this stuff so I may be wrong, if so please correct me.

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      1. kwhitefoot
        Reply Icon

        Re: Why should a key fob be a problem?

        I'm not that well informed on the specifics but as a onetime designer of hardware I would certainly include some kind of control channel so that it would only broadcast when a suitable receiver were in range. Otherwise it will be very wasteful.

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        1. Ragarath
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          Re: Why should a key fob be a problem?

          But that would still intefere with other objects even if it were only braodcasting when a receptor was available would it not?

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