powermat

BARCELONA, Spain--Drivers don't have to buy a Chevrolet Volt to take advantage of wireless smartphone charging in the car. Powermat is releasing its wireless Car Charger later this year.

The windshield-mounted aftermarket accessory is powered by a 12-volt outlet and uses magnetic induction to wirelessly charge devices in the cradle. The Car Charger adjusts its width to hold any of the mobile phones that Powermat supports, and consumers will need to purchase the Powermat Battery Door separately ($19-$29) for each smartphone they wish to charge.

It's not as sleek as the integrated solution in the Volt. Plus, … Read more

LAS VEGAS--At CES 2011, GM announced it would include Powermat's charging technology in its entire vehicle line-up, starting with the Chevy Volt. We took a close-up look of how Powermat implemented the technology.

Powermat put a Chevy Volt in its booth space at CES with its charging pads in front and back. This setup was conceptual, and GM will finalize the placement of the charging pads later. But the front pad, placed on the top of the center console, seemed a likely place. A pad between the rear seats is a less likely implementation, as GM probably would not … Read more

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Motorola announces the Xoom tablet and 3 new Android phones

LG shows off the Optimus 2X

AT&T announces its 4G plans for 2011 and 20 new smartphones

Research In Motion gives us some details about the BlackBerry PlayBook on Sprint

Toshiba shows off glasses-free 3D TVs

Mitsubishi shines the light on a 3D projector

The 2012 Ford Mustang will have voice-controlled apps called App:Sync

Microsoft is adding more functionality to Kinect with video streaming control

GM partners with PowerMat to put wireless chargers in car consoles

Universal chargers for portable electronics will someday seem quaint when wireless charging technology becomes ubiquitous, and that may happen soonest in your car.

General Motors has partnered with Powermat to incorporate its wireless charging mats into car interiors, both companies announced from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today.

Starting with the Chevy Volt, drivers and passengers will be able to lay things like phones and MP3 players on the center console and have them wirelessly charge while they're sitting there.

GM said consumers will be able to get the tech for the 2011 Chevy Volt, and that … Read more

Mobile phone chipmaker Qualcomm has inked a partnership to explore wireless charging technology with Powermat, a specialist in the area.

Wireless charging holds the promise of ridding people of a lot of wires but poses risks that different devices will use incompatible charging methods, so it's no surprise that part of the partnership involves building an industry alliance around the technology.

Qualcomm's current wireless approach, called WiPower and using a method called near-field magnetic resonance technology, is on display at CES this week.

In their deal, the companies agreed to a broad partnership designed to explore the technology … Read more

For this week's Crave giveaway, we've got Powermat's upcoming new Wireless Charging System for the iPhone. Yes, you heard right, upcoming, which means if you win you'll be this first on your block with one of these puppies when it's officially released mid-April.

In case you don't know what Powermat's all about, its products allow you to charge cell phones (and other stuff) by simply laying the product down on a mat that's plugged into the wall. Powermat's new Wireless Charging System for the iPhone comes with a Powermat 1X mat, … Read more

Start-ups Green Plug and WiPower are working together on a universal wireless charger for portable devices, the companies said Thursday.

The partnership makes sense since GreenPlug has developed a protocol to allow power sources and portable devices to communicate, while WiPower has invented technology to transmit power wirelessly over short distances.

Green Plug's universal chargers allow portable electronic devices containing its embedded Greentalk chip to be charged from a universal port. Once a device is plugged in to a Green Plug charger port, the charger's Greentalk protocol reads the chip inside the device to determine the power supply … Read more

I originally planned on writing my review of the Powermat magnetic inductive charging system by highlighting the innovation in the technology and the lack of necessity for a product that costs a serious amount of coin--$99.99 for the wired mat plus $40 for the charger--for achieving the same goal as a simple wire.

But then the Powermat took my iPod Touch captive.

First, the straight shooting: the Powermat system is indeed very cool. It does what it advertises and brings "wire-less" charging to devices that normally don't have the ability: the iPhone, iPod Touch, select … Read more

Powermat has been touting its wireless chargers for a while now--ever since CES 2009, quite frankly--but now they're finally available for you, the consumer, to purchase.

The Powermat is a one-pad, one-plug system (pictured above right) that charges all your gadgets in one place without wires. Your gadget gets a special "Powermat Receiver" sleeve so that it can use magnetic induction charging to power your devices. (Aren't familiar with magnetic induction? If you've got an Oral-B rechargeable toothbrush, or a Palm Touchstone charger for your Pre, it's the same thing.)

Read more of &… Read more