JAPAN: Sony develops wireless power system for TVs
Ahead of the CEATEC Japan 2009 show, which opens on Tuesday, Sony has announced details of a wireless power transmission system said to be suitable for TV sets.
The prototype system is able to transfer up to 60W of electrical energy over a distance of 50cm, with 80% efficiency, or 60% including the high speed rectifier used.
And the company says this can be extended to 80cm with the use of passive extender units, without any loss of efficiency.
The Sony system uses "a form of contactless electrical energy transmission technology based on magnetic resonance.
'Electromagnetic energy is only transferred to recipient devices that share the identical resonant frequencies as the energy source, so energy transfer efficiency is maintained, even when misalignment occurs.
"Furthermore, even if there are metal objects located between the transmitter and receiver, no heat induction occurs."
The company says that the system is well-suited to powering devices such as PCs and TVs, and adds that "although relatively large transmitter and receiver units are generally required for transferring energy over long distances, passive extender units can be used to relay power between small-sized transmitter and receiver units."
We'll be reporting from the CEATEC Japan 2009 show next week – look out for our reports, starting on Tuesday.
Comments
There's a good demonstration about this on ted.com. It does talk about the safety concerns and the efficiency.
However, it only removes the need for the mains - so if you have to hide the HDMI, Scart, etc, couldn't you hide the mains lead too?
TV's with built in freesat, pvr and dvd (blu-ray?) would work very well indeed.
There's no way a system that reduces efficiency in this way will get adopted - more likely to be banned by EU legislation! Surely this is nothing more than a gimmick. When manufactures are struggling to reduce standby power consumption to a watt or two, Sony are suggesting wasting a 10s of watts with this system - mad! Keep this for 1st April.
So will this wireless technology be directional or do I have to worry about my children receiving radiating energy if they get close to it?
Looking forward to dumping around 7 mains cables from my glass/metal equipment rack!
80% efficiency is amazing compared to batteries, let's hope they extend some of this to the higher end of remote controls. Even better will be the use of this technology to power wireless rear speakers. Kef please note...
80% or 60% efficiency? Are those figures in comparison to using a cable? If so, that's shocking. Huge companies like Sony should be looking for ways to make their products more, not less, energy efficient.
Not unless they're tuned to the specific frequency, apparently.
(Thinks: Surely the Sony engineers have thought of that one...)
Presumably this electromagnetic enery won't corrupt the hard disk in my Sky box and HD/DVD recorder!