Use cases for wireless power at a distance are plentiful. What might be more difficult for companies is making a persuasive business case to adopt the technology. Here are 5 viable business cases — and the challenges they help solve — to consider..
As an innovative, forward thinking business leader, you and your team are having no difficulty planning for all the new product features and conveniences that wireless power over air will enable. Cutting cords, ditching power chargers, and designing outside of the confines of batteries is a beautiful thing.
But what about the business case? How can wireless power over air and at a distance propel a company forward? How does it help save money, gain customers, and/or increase profits?
We spoke to some of the executives at Ossia who have seen firsthand how organizations are leveraging wireless power technology to their advantage, and the top business cases fall into 5 categories:
1. Product Improvement
2. Product Innovation and Advancement
3. Operational Optimization
4. Meet and Exceed Customer Expectations
5. Expand Reach
These business cases rose to the top not because of what Cota Real Wireless Power can do, but because of what business problems it’s helping to solve. Let’s start there.
Real Wireless Power Must Solve a Business Challenge
The most successful wireless power integrations have started with a problem. Here are several examples of business challenges that wireless power helps solve:
Wires Are Challenging and Expensive
Wiring new products is expensive. It requires not only the material costs associated with wiring, but also acquiring the technical expertise. Even a professional may have difficulty understanding
a new product’s installation guide, and this can lead to multiple technical service calls, which is also expensive, not to mention frustrating for everyone.
Wiring often requires accessing difficult locations and planning ahead, before other installations such as paneling or tile. With wired products, there are multiple single points of failure in each device. It also, more obviously, tethers the wired item in place, limiting mobility.
Wireless power over air eliminates the need to wire many electronic devices, including switches, digital controls, ambient lights, heated elements, sensors, door locks and doorbells, security cameras, and more.
Batteries Inhibit Business Growth
The traditional route to avoiding wires is to use disposable and/or rechargeable batteries. Batteries represent a logistically prohibitive maintenance problem that requires a mind-boggling maintenance workforce, which presents a daunting challenge for individual facilities where maintenance resources are already at capacity. With the tremendous amount of smart devices and IoT entering the market, it is simply impossible to manually keep them all reliably charged using batteries.
Batteries also increase total cost of ownership, due to repeated battery replacement. Real Wireless Power requires no battery or battery replacement.
Batteries Are Not Sustainable
Batteries are impacting the environment in multiple ways. As things stand, safely disposing of batteries is a massive challenge. Batteries often contain many toxic substances such as lead, cadmium, nickel and mercury, which are extremely detrimental to the environment. Recycling these substances can be time consuming and expensive.
Using batteries to power the devices of the near future could well have catastrophic consequences on the health of our environment. Battery-less sensors powered by technologies like Cota, in addition to being more practical, are also the more eco-friendly option.
A Catalyst for New Product Innovation Is Required
Batteries, wires, and rechargeable batteries are limiting new product innovation. Batteries add weight and take up space. To achieve a longer lasting battery, the device must lower power consumption of the device, which reduces its features, and there is lower end-to-end efficiency overall. Wires tether the device to a fixed location, either by hardwiring or while charging, and often require a professional for installation. All of these challenges limit features and functionality in current products and constrain new product development and adoption.
User Experiences Are Hidden
The actual user experience of new electronic devices is sometimes hard to come by. User and usability testing, surveys, customer service call analysis, and other traditional methods to understand how end-users are experiencing the products over time in different environments is an arduous process, and requires much extrapolation.
A difficult initial user experience can break a new product or feature launch. What many businesses don’t know is that Real Wireless Power can provide product and customer insights that can help companies understand usage, spot errors, and iterate quickly.
Safety and Efficiency
Designing and implementing an electronic device that is safe and efficient to use in multiple locations is possibly an underrated business challenge. But the fact is that many devices must be quickly and reliably accessible and functional to consumers and professionals alike in multiple environments, including warehouses, kitchens, bathrooms, restaurants, factories, food production plants, hospitals, and more. When wires and batteries are eliminated, so are the associated safety and efficiency concerns.
In this article, we have only begun to scratch the surface on the business challenges that Real Wireless Power helps solve. We will continue to explore this topic in more detail in future posts.
In the meantime, download this worksheet: Making the Business Case for Wireless Power. It includes questions to ask your team to help you determine the impact wireless power would have on your business.
