Powermat Jumps to the Wireless Power Consortium, Citing Apple's Qi Adoption
Powermat, supplier of public wireless charging stations, announced Thursday it joined the Wireless Power Consortium. The company said it will contribute its technology and expertise to advance inductive wireless charging capabilities, while remaining backward-compatible with the WPC’s Qi ecosystem.
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Powermat, a wireless charging pioneer, started the Power Matters Alliance (PMA), a WPC competitor, which combined with the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) in 2015 to become the AirFuel Alliance (see 1511030038). AirFuel promoted future wireless power transfer technology through inductive, resonant and RF standards, and made overtures to WPC to join its ranks. AirFuel was dealt a blow when Apple joined WPC last year and threw its support to the Qi inductive charging standard in the latest round of iPhones.
“The WPC won the battle for the standard adopted by the cell phone manufacturers,” wireless charging industry consultant LeRoy Johnson told us. “This was sealed with Apple also choosing Qi.” AirFuel Alliance membership has shrunk. At the time of the combination with PMA, they boasted membership of 170 companies, many overlapping with WPC, including Samsung, a co-founder of the A4WP. The AirFuel website listed some 85 member companies Thursday, including Powermat, marked as a board member. Powermat didn’t respond to questions, and emails to the AirFuel media contact were returned as undeliverable.
WPC Chairman Menno Treffers recognizes Powermat as a pioneer of wireless charging and said Powermat’s joining WPC “further unifies the wireless charging ecosystem” behind Qi. WPC will leverage Powermat’s expertise to support more use cases including higher power and expanded spacial freedom, he said. The two use cases were promoted by the AirFuel's Rezence standard.
Powermat CEO Elad Dubzinski acknowledged Qi as the “dominant wireless charging standard on the market,” citing Apple’s adoption of Qi in the iPhone 8s and X. Powermat will share its technology to “further unlock wireless charging potential,” he said.