“How do you charge your phone?” If someone asks you this in the future, Xiaomi may offer you multiple answers for that. Apart from the usual wired and wireless charging, Xiaomi recently revealed its Mi Air Charge tech. Going forward, you could also add “via sound” to the list. Yes, Xiaomi has figured out a way to charge smartphones by using sound; no reliance on power sockets for this system.
The company has filed a patent in China for a technology that explains this sound-based charging solution. There’s no proof of concept yet but based on the theory, the system could charge your phone just by using sound around. It seems living in a house full of crying infants and barking dogs would start to make sense.
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Given that this is still in the patent stage, it could take some years before we could see a working prototype and eventually a commercially finished product. If you want to understand the “whats and hows”, bear with us for the next para.
Xiaomi Mi 11X
The system involves a sound charging device, an energy storage device, and an electronic device. The sound charging stage itself includes a “sound collection device, a plurality of energy conversion devices, and a power conversion device” to convert it from environmental to mechanical vibration. The electronic device will convert this mechanical vibration into an alternating current (AC), which will be converted to direct current (DC) using the power conversion device. This will in turn charge the smartphone or whatever device you seek to fill up.
In layman’s English, this will initially be a couple of devices that rely on sound to generate mechanical energy and then pass it through some clever tech to create the magic that is electricity. The prospect of such a system is indeed exciting but it remains to be seen how well can Xiaomi implement it for commercial usage.
Can Xiaomi pull it off? In the past, the company has made great strides in the world of smartphone charging. Its recently announced 200W charging solution drew attention with a promised charging time of 8 minutes for a device with a 4000mAh battery.
