Is the Airpower Apple’s biggest failure ?

I’m not sure why someone calls anything a “failure” if it’s not even released on the market. It’s really common that a prototype product will never see the light of day. As a giant in the high-tech industry, many people will ask why such a big company still fails to develop when there are lots of similar products have appeared on the market. It may be necessary to introduce some basic working principle of wireless charging, it is not complicated, even high school physics can explain his basic logic. A transmitter coil disposed below the charging surface may produce a time-varying magnetic field that induces a current in a corresponding receiving coil in the electronic device. The induced current can be used by the electronic device to charge its internal battery.

But smart readers may have discovered the problems because we use the induced current to charger our battery, does it mean that the entire area can be charged, that ’s dangerous. So after some design improvements, most of the wireless charging on the market now require an electronic device to be placed in a very confined charging region on the charging surface in order for the electronic device being charged to receive power. If a mobile phone is placed outside of the charging region, the charger may not wirelessly charge or may charge inefficiently and waste power. This limits the ease at which a mobile phone can be charged by the wireless charging device.

This is the biggest drawback of most wireless chargers on the market today. The user must place your mobile phone accurately. Because of this, Apple has proposed a new concept that allows airpower to get rid of the restrictions.

In order to accomplish this goal, Apple raises some ideas.

In some ideas, the wireless charging device can be a wireless charging mat which includes an arrangement of wireless power transmitters. This allows the electronic device to be charged at any location within the charging region, thereby increasing the ease at which electronic devices can be charged by the mat.

And in some other ideas, a wireless charger includes: a housing having an outer perimeter and a planar charging surface within the outer perimeter of the wireless charging device. The housing includes first and second shells defining an interior cavity, and a transmitter coil arrangement disposed within the interior cavity and below the planar charging surface. The transmitter coil arrangement includes: a plurality of transmitter coils which is arranged in different layers, each transmitter coil having a first region and a second region having more turns than the first region; where the plurality of transmitter coils comprises a plurality of inner transmitter coils and a plurality of outer transmitter coils positioned around the inner transmitter coils; and where the first regions of the outer transmitter coils are oriented toward the outer perimeter of the wireless charging device .

  In the future design, We are not limited to devices, but an entire system. A wireless charging system may include: an electrical device may comprise a receiver coil which can generate a current to charge a battery when exposed to a time-varying magnetic flux, a charging mat which can generate the time-varying magnetic. And the wireless charging includes the one I just mentioned housing having an outer perimeter and a charging surface within the outer perimeter.

  The whole process is particularly complicated, we can't conclude it in one or two articles. But from the perspective of patent, that will be more intuitive. Hundreds of patents can be divided into the following:

Base Pattern

Wireless Charging Mat

Expanding Transmitter Coil Patterns

Coverage of Transmitter Coil Patterns

Arrangement of Transmitter Coils

 Rotational Arrangement of Transmitter Coils

Transmitter Coil Structure

Transmitter Coil Patterns

Transmitter Coil Wiring

Rosette Pattern

Bobbin

Angle Transmitter Coil

Parallel Transmitter Coil

Multi-Layer Arrangement of Transmitter Coils

Transmitter Coils Without Bobbins

Wireless Charging Mat Assembly, and

Hybrid PCB and Stranded Coil Wireless Charging Mat.

(one of Apple’s patents)

Therefore, we can find that Apple has put a lot of effort into research and development of Airpower, especially in coil R&D, unfortunately. The coil was the main problem in the death of Airpower. As I said, Airpower was not similar to other charging mats because you can charge your device by putting it anywhere on the mat, not like other mats.

Other wireless chargers contain up to maximum 3 coils but Apple’s AirPower contains 20 to 30 small coils to charge anywhere on its body. But, it leads to thermal issues means it makes a lot of heat which was not good for the charger and the device. The heat can also damage our skin and can be subject to fire accidents in our house.

The conception of Apple has trans-era realistic meaning, however, the heating issues can’t be tackled by nowadays technology but it can be done in the future.  But from another point of view, the products cost so much, even eventually are canceled because of the technical reasons. Even if the product finally comes out, the price is definitely far higher than others. What do we need? A fast and safe Mongda wireless charger which is $29 is enough. I may not be able to place my mobile phone on the charger at will, but this is not worth making me spend more than 100 dollars. And the key core of Mongda wireless charger is smart temperature control. 

Mongda team, based on Belkin Engineer's former team, who can assert that the Mongda can’t solve the heating issue of Apple?