Tucked behind Powermat's Charging Spot 4.0
announcement was another important press release from the biggest rival of the
Qi wireless charging standard that almost went unnoticed. Powermat basically
said that it is throwing in the towel, and will join the Wireless Power
Consortium (WPC), which is the creator of said Qi standard.
Powermat is a wireless charging pioneer, and you may
have noticed its presence in places like Starbucks, where it provides the pads
to top up your handset while sipping on a latte. With the last wireless
charging holdout Apple going the way of Qi, however, Powermat obviously
concluded that there is no point of being the odd one out, as iPhones sell in
the tens of millions annually, but Qi is also used by Samsung, LG, and the rest
of the mobile juggernauts.
With Powermat joining the WPC juggernaut of a
consortium, and pushing an update to make its legacy PMA mats in Starbucks
compatible with Qi, there is now one wireless charging standard to rule them
all, which bodes well for future interactivity with charging stations. Now, if
we could only get one high dynamic range standard for screens to cover, too,
that would be singularity.
