
UBeam CEO Meredith Perry Steps Down - shmatt
https://www.axios.com/ubeam-ceo-meredith-perry-steps-down-1537464261-82b55bb0-d83c-4630-aabd-ffbda3fc7804.html
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lacker
It's a sad time for wireless charging technology. Apple also claimed they
would launch wireless charging in 2018, but also might be unable to deliver
due to fundamental engineering problems.

[http://sonnydickson.com/2018/09/16/what-really-happened-
to-a...](http://sonnydickson.com/2018/09/16/what-really-happened-to-apples-
airpower/)

~~~
dogma1138
Apple seems to be incapable of making a good Qi charger Anker and Belkin fast
wireless chargers work just fine with iPhone X/Watch which support it.

Apple can dress its tech as much as it wants but Qi chargers still work not
all of them but all the good ones do.

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rdl
I think from a physics perspective this never made sense for power for devices
like laptops/phones, but might have developed expertise for communications or
for sensors or other very low power devices. But maybe they never did that.

~~~
harryh
"3/ Meredith oversaw uBeam's transition from consumer-facing mobile charging
to b2b licensing for IoT that you'll hear a lot more about in the months
ahead. She oversaw scores of patents filed and many granted in an important
market area of ultrasonic energy transfer"

[https://twitter.com/msuster/status/1042866486367285248](https://twitter.com/msuster/status/1042866486367285248)

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pkaye
I'd just be curious of a derivation of how much energy can be transmitted by
ultrasonic energy transfer without causing hearing damage due to prolonged
exposure.

~~~
harryh
If you google around there has been a decent amount written by physics folks
about how ubeam could never work doing exactly this sort of calculation. They
show that the amount wouldn't be useful to charge a phone or other similar
device.

But I guess it might be useful for other things? I dunno.

~~~
pkaye
For small IOT devices, the primary benefit would be to charge from a distance
(wireless charging) but then the efficiency of the ultrasonic energy transfer
will also drop inverse square to the distance. And if the power requirements
are low enough, why not live with a lithium batter that will last 5-10 years
possibly?

~~~
rdl
I can think of some specialty environments where batteries fail (due to
environmental, temperature, acceleration, etc.) but where energy-transfer
would be good. I can separately think of times when RF/induction/etc. wouldn't
be good, but ultrasonic might be good.

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crunkykd
Never a big believer in energy over ultrasound. Maybe for low amounts of power
it could work. But so could power beamed over IR lasers into photovoltaic
patches. And lasers would work better.

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pkaye
I've been wondering what happened to this company. I've been curious from a
physics perspective if their technology is even practical.

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technobabble
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8dqzVlhFkA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8dqzVlhFkA)

EEVBlog and a few other YT channels go over debunking and the basic physics
behind it.

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pkaye
Looks like 1.5W energy transfer in optimistic case if willing to waste a lot
of the energy.

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samnwa
Makes sense given that this is basically Theranos 2.

