The Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) and Power Matters Alliance (PMA) announced a merger earlier this year with the hope of mounting a serious challenge to the Qi wireless charging standard championed by the Wireless Power Consortium. After many months, the new group finally has a name. Meet the AirFuel Alliance.
The AirFuel Alliance currently deploys a wireless charging technology that is somewhat different from the Qi standard in that it transfers power differently. The alliance is working on using magnetic resonance to transfer power to devices; and it believes that this is more efficient and scales better than the induction charging used by the WPC.
The alliance has some 195 member companies, although many of those companies are also part of the WPC. However, the AirFuel Alliance does boast some important supporters like Intel; who are trying to make the technology more widely available. Samsung has also begun supporting both AirFuel Alliance’s standard and Qi in its flagship mobile devices.
Branding for the AirFuel Alliance will begin appearing on compatible products, although there is a limited number of these devices currently available in the market. Wireless charging is one of the more excited – and practical – growing technologies, and it would be great if the industry could settle on a single standard for mass adoption.
[Source: ZDnet]
