If you were able to attend the 5th annual wireless power conference, Imagine, in October, you
likely have a notebook full of ideas and notes.
Ossia executives and global wireless power leaders spoke about:
- The challenges companies are facing in adopting wireless power and predictions on how they will overcome them
- The future of IoT and just how critical it is for wireless power to enable the millions of sensors needed to support IoT innovation
- How the first wave of wireless power adoption is rolling out
- The traditional need to sacrifice power to stay within budget, and how wireless power technology is reframing the discussion
These are just the highlights. Also, leaders in Japan spoke about how sustainability, efficiency, and safety are top of mind when they are developing wireless power products.
In the next couple months, we’ll touch on these topics in more detail, but first we did want to leave you with five big takeaways from this year’s conference.
1. Solve Real Problems: wireless power is not a novelty
It’s not enough to want to integrate wireless power into any business or product. The integration must solve a real problem. To ensure the effort is successful, companies are talking to workers on the floor, strategists in the office, and other employees in the field to understand where wireless power can eliminate friction, save time, and provide a level of data transparency not available before.
2. Simplicity: wireless power technology does not need to be complicated
The more complex or rigid the wireless power technology, the less likely it will be adopted. Worldwide, companies are calling for a system that is flexible, quick to integrate with a retrofit, and easy to use, and one that doesn’t require complex algorithms or controlled environmental requirements.
Because Ossia’s Cota Real Wireless Power does not require line of sight between the transmitter and receiver, naturally avoids people and pets without the need to start and stop transmission, and can deliver power over air at any distance, it was the preferred technology for the Imagine participants.
3. Software: a platform for data, control, and communication
Businesses are in need of an enterprise management platform to be able to remotely oversee and analyze not only the wireless power transfer, but also data that is created, gathered from, and sent to an RF-based retro-directive wireless system like Cota. Company leaders talked about how enterprise management and control software, like the Ossia Wireless Power Cloud Platform, will accelerate adoption, due to, in part, the data insights.
4. Sensors and Sensing: wireless power can facilitate smart systems
With very small Cota-enabled sensors, companies will be able to retrofit and integrate the sensors into IoT. It’s a low effort, high value way to transform systems and innovate products rapidly.
What’s more — and this isn’t publicly talked about much in the industry — the sensing capabilities of RF-based wireless power like Cota were noted as a feature worth exploring in different verticals. Wireless power sensors will help companies understand the environments they are in, including whether it’s a large or crowded space, and what foot traffic patterns look like. Sensing data can also provide another source of insights for businesses.
5. Service: power delivery as an emerging industry
Wireless power as a service (PaaS) is a requirement for the wireless power ecosystem to function, and will become another service industry that will contribute to the realization of a seamless society. Which companies will emerge as the dominant choice for maximum power transfer is still up in the air.
At the end of the conference, I spoke about how this is a really exciting time in the world for sustainability, and 2021 has been the best in Ossia’s history. Every part of the ecosystem is heating up and moving faster, and new major announcements are happening and will continue to happen in the next few months. Companies that are not discovering real problems that can be solved with wireless power technology will likely be scrambling to catch up in the months ahead.
