Core77

Induction Charger Misses the Mark

By Rain Noe - April 14, 2011

in Tech | Object Culture

Maybe it's just me, but I can't see the point of Mobee's new Magic Bar inductive charger for Apple's Wireless Keyboard.

The whole point of Apple's keyboard is that it's minimal and wireless. That was the design feat it managed to pull off, it's raison d'etre. You slip two AA's in there and you've got juice.

What Mobee has done is essentially replace two small and functionally invisible batteries and replace them with one enormous and highly visible battery.

That enormous battery in turn charges the keyboard, yet needs to be periodically plugged in itself to get the juice in the first place. Aren't we just playing Pass the Buck here?

The Magic Bar claims to be greener in that you can "stop trashing batteries." But hasn't Apple already solved that by using a lot less material, with their rechargeable batteries?

Electricity is electricity, whether it comes through induction or battery contacts. What I think the Magic Bar represents is a creator enamored of a particular technology without fully considering what the actual benefits of that technology are.

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moofie

13 years ago

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"I have an intuition that the health risks of this type of technology may be significant and have not been adequately evaluated."

Do you have the same intuition about standing underneath the giant fusion reactor in the sky?
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Rob

13 years ago

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This technology will allow wireless charging over distance in the near fututure. I believe that is what Apple intends to implement. I have an intuition that the health risks of this type of technology may be significant and have not been adequately evaluated. Sending power through the air and people's bodiss may cause unknown health problems in the long term. A company with Apple's concerns for users should not implement such a technology unless they can give a 100% guarantee that it will not cause cancer or other health problems over the long term. I don't believe that they can ddo that with their current state of knowledge.
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Ken K

13 years ago

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Woof. I agree with hipstomp, even after reading Adam's note. I have one of those Apple wireless keyboards. (Love it -- fastest and most accurate typing I've ever done -- I vastly prefer it over my MacBook Air's built-in keyboard.) On top of what hipstomp pointed out, its AA rechargeables run the thing for 6-10 hours of typing per day for several months before needing recharging. Translation: the AAs need recharging only 3 or 4 times per year! And recharging isn't exactly a panic situation -- I'm alerted when the batteries are getting low, which means about 2 or 3 more weeks before I need to take some action. I'm hard-pressed to think of any device LESS in need of this bulky, design-trashing "solution." What next -- a car-battery-based juice-pack for a travel alarm clock?
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Adam

13 years ago

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That's not quite right.

The only thing permanently attached to the keyboard is that tiny circle popping out the top left side (you can see it in the title image). The"enormous battery" you speak of is the basestation, and is not a battery at all. You slide the keyboard into that to keep it charged on your desk. The base-station itself isn't wireless, they just photoshopped out the wire from the press images. From the article:
"Plug the base station to any USB port in order to allow the recharge, you don't even need an external power supply."
If you want to move the keyboard, you just pick it up out of the "base station." It doesn't have any permanent connectors, and charges like an electric toothbrush just by sitting there.
The actual batteries that this uses, are rechargeable AAs that slide in and replace the standard ones. The benefit of this over regular rechargeable AAs, is that it will keep them charged all the time so you don't need to replace them and slip them into an external charger.
That said, for an inductive charging base, it is somewhat large.
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