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Wireless Charging Fuels the Smart Home of the Future

October 17, 2017

The Tech

Last week, we spoke about the latest iPhones all (finally) supporting wireless charging and Apple’s commitment to the Qi wireless charging standard. But the sort of wireless charging that Apple has chosen to back isn’t truly a wireless solution, since you still have to use a charging mat (plugged into an outlet), and your device must be placed on the mat in order for it to charge. However, there are other wireless charging options on the market that are truly wireless.

One such company is called Energous, a Silicon Valley-based company whose WattUp wire-free charging technology is gaining a lot of buzz. Energous supplies chips to manufacturers that can be integrated into a wide variety of devices (such as smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and more) that enable wireless power transmission at short, medium, and long distance ranges – the longest of which can bolster energy from up to 15 feet in any direction. Energous uses a Radio Frequency (RF) system, so the experience of charging your devices will feel similar to using a router for Wi-Fi. According to their website: “A WattUp transmitter, or Power Router, sends energy via a Radio Frequency (RF) signal to your WattUp-enabled electronic devices when requested. A WattUp receiver in each device converts that signal into battery power.” To learn more about Energous in action, check out this article about their CES 2017 exhibition.

Another company, Ossia, with their Cota Wireless Power technology, envisions a world in which you walk into your home, an airport, a coffee shop, even a train – and your devices automatically begin to charge. The system comprises of a transmitter, a receiver, and software. The transmitter comes in many different forms: from a smartspeaker-looking cylinder, to a ceiling tile. The receiver is a microchip that can be embedded into numerous devices, which mostly lies dormant, but gets triggered when a Cota receiver sends it a packet of information indicating a need for charge. The software then directs the charge from the transmitter to the receiver’s location, even if there’s movement. Cota uses the same frequency as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and can charge multiple devices at once.

Finally, there is Wi-Charge, which just received FDA approval to sell their products in the US. Wi-Charge works differently than Energous and Ossia because it uses infrared beams to transmit power as opposed to an RF system. The range for their charge is up to 10 meters indoors, with 3-4 watts of power per device. In order for the technology to work, your device needs to be in, what they call, the “line-of-sight” (i.e. visible to the transmitter). The first phase of their operations will use dongles or cases attached to your device equipped with the receiver. In the future, receivers will be fitted inside devices, like we’ve seen with Energous and Ossia. The current Wi-Charge charging stations double as lamps, but in the future, the company wants to equip transmitters into ceiling light fixtures in office buildings and homes.

While Apple was praised for choosing to implement a fairly ubiquitous wireless charging standard into their latest iPhones, their choice was actually quite underwhelming. Apple is known for being at the forefront of innovation. Because they waited so long to jump on the wireless charging wagon, many expected them to come out with something better than a technology that’s been standard on Android phones for years. They didn’t. Instead, startups like Energous, Ossia, and Wi-Charge now stand at the forefront of wireless charging innovation.

Wireless charging is essential to the smart home of the future because the smart home of the future is wireless. From the smart speaker boom to advances in wireless, multiroom audio, this year has brought hi-tech products into the mainstream market, fueling the growth of the smart home sphere. With the introduction of true wireless charging into homes, offices, and public spaces, we’re one step closer to a truly connected world.

Apple kills the iPod Nano and Shuffle. So, what’s next?

August 22, 2017

The Tech

FireCat

With the announcement in late July that Apple is officially retiring the iPod Nano and the iPod Shuffle (the last of the pre iPhone iPods) we can safely say that “video killed the radio star” or rather, the rise of online/app-based streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music, have essentially wiped out the need for music file downloading on portable devices (and the products that were designed for that sole purpose.) When the iPod debuted in 2001, Steve Jobs promised 1,000 songs in your pocket. Today, through streaming, you can play almost any song in existence, instantaneously and fairly cheaply, without bogging down your smartphone or tablet’s storage. Thus, it’s not surprising that Apple is finally saying goodbye to the standalone MP3 player (although it does pierce a knife right into the heart of my childhood.)

With online/app-based streaming swiftly becoming the norm, home A/V and speaker manufacturers are adapting as well by offering products with built-in streaming services like Spotify Connect and Chromecast built-in, allowing music lovers to stream their music wirelessly from their phone or tablet to their speakers. But this shift comes at a price because they are exposing major flaws, not just in their products, but in the wireless protocols their products are built on.

Conventional Wi-Fi runs on TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) which was designed in the 1960’s for transferring files down wired Ethernet lines, not streaming real-time, wireless, audio. Unfortunately, most products out today that boast wireless streaming capabilities still use these outdated protocols and therefore, can’t properly support wireless streaming.

This has posed a huge problem for manufacturers who want to stay on trend, but are unwilling to invest in new, wireless infrastructures. As we’ve seen with Apple’s retirement of standalone MP3 players, products that support app-based streaming are the future. And yet, manufacturers continue to release products that are fundamentally unable to support the future of wireless home entertainment.

So what can be done? Well, Blackfire Research has an answer for that.

It’s called the Blackfire Realtime Entertainment Distribution (RED) framework, and it’s the industry’s only wireless and entertainment-centric infrastructure software framework built from the ground up to both overcome the limitations of Wi-Fi and meet the needs of wireless, entertainment-related apps and products. Top global audio brands, such as Harman Kardon, Onkyo, Pioneer, and Integra have already licensed the Blackfire RED framework, and are currently shipping products that leverage its capabilities: reliable multi-room, multi-channel, low latency, wireless audio and video over Wi-Fi. With the Blackfire RED framework in products such as home A/V systems, wireless speakers, smartphones, and TVs, home owners can finally become Smart Home owners – enjoying all of their digital streaming services wirelessly, synchronously and seamlessly throughout the home.

With the original iPod, you could carry 1,000 songs in your pocket. Today, the Spotify song collection alone boasts over 30 million. We’ve been adding more and more music into our pockets, but after all this time, we’re still trying to figure out how best to get it out.

Virtually Real: What Went Wrong with VR in 2016? -Part I-

February 27, 2017

The Tech

Ruben Mookerjee

As a lifelong gamer, I’ve had the good fortune to work with several talented development teams at Razer, Corsair and Logitech that have contributed to the evolution of gaming control over the last 20 years. So, with all the excitement for the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) taking place in San Francisco this week, I’m sharing my thoughts on the most discussed technology in the gaming industry today: Virtual Reality (VR). What does VR look like currently? What are some problems VR Pioneers are facing? And what can we, as users, expect from VR in the future?

Imagine scoring front row seats to a sold out concert, strolling atop the Great Wall of China, or test driving a sports car, all without ever leaving your living room. If that sounds like Sci-Fi Fantasy, you’re right. This is a very special case of life imitating art: developers and manufacturers are hard at work to make our VR dreams of the last century a reality. Storytellers, movie makers, and artists are already tapping into the virtual field to bring their work to life – for several years now, the annual Sundance Film Festival has exhibited Virtual Reality films and art installations as part of their New Frontier initiative. Like with the introduction of film and the Cinema over 100 years ago, creative visionaries are exploring ways to develop their art alongside an emerging technology.

The non-technical press increasingly confuses Virtual Reality (think Tron) with Augmented Reality (think Minority Report). Virtual Reality immerses a user with a digitally rendered, three dimensional world while wearing a head-mounted display (HMD). Augmented Reality, (AR) superimposes a digital rendering over the world visible in front of us – and at its most basic, just uses the screen of a smartphone. AR has already found many applications in productivity and collaborative design, and makes use of similar technologies, however, VR will likely have an overall greater impact on the world of gaming and entertainment in the near future.

Virtual Reality has bifurcated into two adjacent entertainment technologies: mobile VR and PC-based tethered VR. Mobile VR relies on smartphones (mainly Android) to do the heavy computation, and can’t match the responsiveness and graphical detail of a powerful gaming PC or gaming console, such as the PS4 or Xbox.

The cheapest, and therefore, most accessible, mobile VR option is Google Cardboard, which is, quite literally, a piece of cardboard with embedded lenses that folds into a box you can use to cover your eyes and create a VR headset. Although the graphics are only as good as the smartphone you’re using, Google Cardboard is completely wireless (mobile), so it can be used just about anywhere, and its minimalist design and minimal cost make it very accessible. In 2016, Google unveiled Google Daydream, a more high-end VR headset that is currently only compatible with a small selection of smartphones. However, the top mobile VR headset is the Samsung Gear VR, which already boasts a relatively large library of apps and games, such as Minecraft. The primary applications for mobile VR are currently non-interactive virtual “showrooming” and social, shared-viewing experiences.

PC-based VR not only has sensors for head-tracking, but (crucially), absolute position detection for hand tracking, which allows users to pick up and manipulate objects in the virtual world, thus enabling more interactive applications and a more immersive experience. Ultimately, “Room-Scale” VR allows us to freely wander around a rendered universe (“freely” meaning the way a Jules Verne era diver might wander around with tubes sticking out of his head). The industry leader in room scale VR is the SteamVR-powered HTC Vive system, but it was Oculus Rift that started the buzz when it was bought by Facebook in 2014 for $2B. Content for Oculus has been slow coming, and the company is rapidly losing ground and influence in the industry to the HTC Vive system, and to the lower-cost, but less ambitious Sony Playstation VR.

The HTC Vive gives users the most complete VR experience currently on the market. Although you are tethered to a gaming PC, the Vive lets you walk around (after you clear your living room furniture, of course), as well as reach out and grab objects in the virtual reality space using controllers. The HTC Vive controllers can become a paintbrush, cartoon hands, and most usually, guns. Until recently, Oculus Rift was using Xbox controllers to navigate through their system but the company has started shipping the much anticipated Oculus Touch to close the gap between them and the HTC Vive experience.

But the most significant entrant is PlayStation VR, the new market leader with an estimated 800,000 units shipped last year. PlayStation VR is a more affordable alternative to the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive because it works with the PlayStation 4 console, as opposed to a costly gaming PC. Although, the Playstation 4 can’t create the same high-res experience as Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, Sony has more control over both the hardware (Playstation VR) and the software (Sony Interactive Entertainment [SIE]), which gives them usability advantage over the other VR ecosystems.

Before Q1 of last year ended, 2016 was already being dubbed “The Year of Virtual Reality”, with roughly 2 million VR headsets shipped in 2016, and 5 million units projected to ship by the end of 2017 (Canalys). Despite this, the brand-new gaming and entertainment platform still didn’t meet the immense expectations of many investors. In our reality, VR is undergoing impressively steady growth. Although with the technology in its infancy, and manufacturers hyping up their “first gen’s” potential to generate media attention and sales, Virtual Reality has got a long way to go before becoming a household item.

In next week’s blog post, I’ll share my thoughts on the commercial and technical problems facing VR technology.