Wireless charging has been just over the technological horizon for years now, but circumstances have consistently managed to hold it back from reaching the mainstream.
One key issue has been the fragmented marketplace caused by contrasting technologies. Three major companies – the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP), the Power Matters Alliance (PMA) and the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) – have all been competing against one another using incompatible tech.
The landscape has now undergone a dramatic reshaping, as A4WP and PMA have teamed up to help further their own individual causes.
The tradeoff sees A4WP grant PMA their ‘resonant wireless charging’ technology, which allows for multiple devices to be charged simultaneously, whilst PMA will allow A4WP to use their ‘legacy inductive charging’ technology – plus cloud-based software infrastructure for managing and monetizing charging points.
The CEOs of both companies have been quick to assert that this relationship is not a complete corporate merger.
Whilst the two firms both gain individual technologies from the agreement, the real benefit is the potential gain they make on the current market leaders.
WPC’s Qi technology was the forerunner in the wireless charging game for a long time, but due to the contrasting nature of the three competitors it has been unable to truly seize hold. A4WP and PMA will be hoping that by teaming up they will be able to swing the market in their favour, as the technology gets closer and closer to widespread use.
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