Your next phone could use over-the-air wireless charging — how the futuristic tech works

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(Image credit: Shutterstock)

While Motorola has shown signs of trying to re-establish itself in the flagship smartphone world after predominantly being known for shipping some of the best budget phones in recent years. 

A new announcement suggests those flagship aspirations may be kicking into high gear as Motorola has announced a partnership with Guru Wireless with an eye to delivering over-the-air (OTA) wireless charging in a smartphone (via Engadget).

GuRu Wireless was founded in 2017 by a group of scientists and engineers from Caltech who want to make remote power as simple as Wi-Fi. That would be fantastic, but needless to say, we aren't there yet.

Neither company had any specific details to offer today. The current developer kit from Guru Wireless is apparently capable of delivering power at approximately three to six feet. Power delivery is over the 24Hz mmWave range and halts if anything comes in between the charger and the device. 

However, we clearly aren't talking about something Motorola will announce as part of any phone launching in 2021, so it's likely Guru Wireless will be at least one generation further along with its charging station and receiver tech by the time this is integrated into a Motorola phone.

OTA charging is a dream as it makes charging your devices completely frictionless, but the amount of wasted energy is already a concern to some. It will be interesting to see if this can be addressed by Motorola and Guru Wireless or if convenience will trump any such worries.

Sean Riley

Sean Riley has been covering tech professionally for over a decade now. Most of that time was as a freelancer covering varied topics including phones, wearables, tablets, smart home devices, laptops, AR, VR, mobile payments, fintech, and more.  Sean is the resident mobile expert at Laptop Mag, specializing in phones and wearables, you'll find plenty of news, reviews, how-to, and opinion pieces on these subjects from him here. But Laptop Mag has also proven a perfect fit for that broad range of interests with reviews and news on the latest laptops, VR games, and computer accessories along with coverage on everything from NFTs to cybersecurity and more.