EnergySquare develops strip and mat for ‘wireless’ charging of laptops

The French company EnergySquare has announced a system that allows users to charge their laptops ‘wirelessly’ on a charging mat. They have to place a strip under their laptop for this.

At the end of the strip is the connector that must be plugged into the power supply of the laptop. When the strip is placed on the charging mat developed by EnergySquare, it charges the battery in the laptop.

EnergySquare’s Power by Contact technology does not work on the basis of induction, such as the Qi standard, or magnetic resonance, but on the basis of conduction. According to the manufacturer, the mat consists of conductive tiles and there are sensors that detect what is placed on the mat. The mat will only become active if a device with Power by Contact support is present. If water is spilled on the mat or if a metal object hits it, the mat would detect this and stop supplying power.

The advantage would be that several devices can be placed on a mat and less loss occurs than with induction. According to Liliputing, who visited the EnergySquare booth, the laptop is slightly higher on a surface because of the strip. It is not known with how many different connectors the company supplies the strip. EnergySquare focuses on manufacturers and a price is not known.

A standard for wireless charging of laptops based on magnetic resonance, Rezence, was announced in 2014, but it has not been broken.