New furniture from IKEA will support wireless charging gadgets

On Sunday, the Swedish furniture giant IKEA announced the upcoming release of tables and lamps that will charge gadgets wirelessly. It will be enough for you to put the gadget on the table, and charging the Qi standard will do the rest for you. To this end, the company has entered into a partnership agreement with the Consortium of Wireless Electromagnetic Energy (WPC), which was founded in 2008 specifically to develop the standard.

Those who love gadgets, usually do not like wires. The need to charge every gadget, the number of which is growing every day (laptops, tablets, smartphones, smart watches, fitness trackers, headsets, etc.) requires more and more wires. If you can handle the assembly of new furniture from IKEA, then the problem with charging will be solved.


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The same conclusion was reached in the furniture company. Lighting and wireless charging manager Jeannette Skielmouz expresses confidence that new furniture will help make modern life easier. According to her , the company's research has shown that people do not like to get confused in cables and look for charging for their devices. Furniture will appear in Europe and North America in April, and a little later - in the rest of the world.



Unfortunately, at the moment there are two different standards of wireless charging - the second is being promoted by the Power Matters Alliance (PMA) alliance. The eternal situation with any new technology is repeated when competing firms try to push their standard version, not paying attention to the inconvenience of users (VHS / Betamax, BluRay / HD DVD, not to mention charging for mobile phones). However, the situation is gradually improving - for example, in 2014 there were three standards, but it was decided to merge the third standard A4WP with PMA . Some devices, such as the Samsung Galaxy S6, support both standards.

Qi is a standard for wireless charging of devices based on electromagnetic induction. The name is taken from the mystical energy, according to the ideas of the Chinese, the underlying structure of the universe (in Russian transcription it is called "qi"). Now it is already supported by some devices from Asus, HTC, Huawei, LG Electronics, Motorola Mobility, Nokia, Samsung, Sony, Yota Devices.

The standard has an available free specification. It provides two options for charging power (up to 5 watts and up to 120 watts). The devices receive energy at a distance of up to 4 cm from the charge.

The company IKEA worldwide employs a little less than 150,000 people. Over the past year, the company's profit amounted to $ 3.74 billion.