Researchers from Microsoft offer to charge smartphones with a light beam

Automatic wireless charging of smartphones using a light beam is offered by a team of researchers from Microsoft. Researchers suggest using light - but not diffuse indoor lighting, which has very little power. Instead, the device-emitter should be fixed somewhere on the ceiling, and automatically find and recognize the smartphone in place. Then the device should switch to charging mode and emit a beam of light (which, in principle, can be in the infrared range) charging the phone. The phone can signal the end of charging using a special LED-indicator, the signals of which the device should recognize.

In the absence in the foreseeable future of batteries with a cardinally larger than the current capacity, the question of the constant charging of smartphones remains relevant. In an effort to make life easier for gadget owners, various companies are attempting to create wireless chargers. In the future, this should be more convenient to use than connecting a smartphone to a cable.


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A team of researchers rightly notes that too powerful radio emitters can be harmful to health (recall the microwave). The low frequencies used for charging do not allow the energy to be radiated by a directional beam, which leads to losses and allows energy to be transmitted only over very short distances. Because of this, the chargers are made in the form of special covers or platforms for charging.

In order for the phone to be charged in this way, it will be necessary to release the phones wrapped in a photosensitive film (which must also be transparent on the screen side). The researchers also envisaged the option when an object blocked the smartphone from the emitter - in this case, the device should detect an obstacle and turn off the power supply.

The working prototype was assembled by the Kinect based camera and UltraFire CREE XM-L T6 Focusing LED Flashlight flashlight. An external solar battery was used to charge the phone. While the prototype is far from industrial embodiment.