If you’ve been following along on the innovations, advancements, and partnerships within the wireless power space, you know there’s a lot going on: contact-based Qi, radio frequency (RF), laser beams, ultrasound, and more. Which technologies and companies will be most widely accepted? Which ones will stand the test of time?
The wireless power standard will likely follow other patterns of past new technologies, such as video tape recorders (BETA or VHS?), MP3 players (Zune or iPod?), and storage systems (DVD, thumbdrive, or cloud?), and that involves:
- Dominance
- Best-in-class features
- Broad use cases
- Strong growth trajectory
Let’s take a look at each area within the current wireless power market.
Wireless Power Dominance
If you compare the wireless power technologies and they are semi-equivalent, early dominance will lead the way on which one takes over long-term market acceptance.
Dominance is not only who entered the market first. It can also be measured by number of licenses, strategic partnerships, and awards, and brand awareness and media exposure.
Wireless Power Best-in-Class Features
A combination of best-in-class features can help move a wireless power technology or brand to become the gold standard. Standards do not make a new technology; it’s the other way around: successful deployments make a new standard. Wireless power should not only be safe, it should work:
- Without wires, cables, or charging pads
- Over a distance of several meters, with opportunity to expand the distance
- While the device is in motion
- While behind objects, within purses and pockets, and around corners
- While in use
It should also be easily managed and secured over the cloud.
No technology made into a standard without reaching the market first. This goes back to dominance. The wireless power technology that has the best-in-class features is the one that will attract the most attention and create the most strategic relationships to propel it forward.
Broad Use Cases for Wireless Power
The wireless power technologies that can cover more of the market needs have a greater opportunity to stick around long-term. This makes sense: it’s not only much easier to apply one technology to many use cases, it’s smarter for innovation and evolution of the devices.
Several wireless power factors make the market need broad:
- Power level: While maintaining distance and safety, which wireless power services the needs of the broadest range of devices, including electric vehicles, laptops, mobile phones, and sensors for IoT?
- Distance: Which wireless power delivers efficiently across several meters? A technology that delivers over inches is severely limited.
- Efficiency: Although this is not a significant factor for small devices (e.g., if you’re wirelessly powering a sensor at 5% efficiency and that increases the yearly power bill by 10¢, then it is not an issue), if you’re powering something larger, like an electric vehicle, and efficiency at 70% means $300 a year and thousands of KW/hr wasted, then efficiency is an issue.
It’s clear that no single wireless power technology today exists that will cover all use cases, consumer and commercial; but that’s OK. We anticipate multiple wireless power technologies to co-exist, just like WiFi did not kill off Bluetooth or Zigbee; each has its own market.
Strong Growth Trajectory
Has the wireless power technology continued to grow, innovate, and advance? A technology that has a strong roadmap for growth and development and shows that it is meeting and surpassing milestones has a better chance at being a marketplace leader.
Why Cota Wireless Power Will Dominate the Small Device Market
Cota Real Wireless Power technology covers many of the core aspects that none of the other RF competition can achieve. It power devices at the highest efficiency possible for the distance and size of transmitter and receiver, while the devices are in motion.
Cota is currently the most future-savvy solution for wireless power due to its best-in-class features, features that are actually being demonstrated today. Competitive technologies are not even promising, let alone showcasing, these features due to technology limitations.
What’s more, the Cota technology has been actively advancing for the last ten years, while attracting strategic partnerships, licensees, awards, and media and industry attention.
Read more about Cota Wireless Power technology and licensing opportunities.
