Powermat Cuts the Cord

For all those confounded by a tangle of electronic device cables and chargers or a shortage of electrical outlets, Powermat thinks it has the answer

by Arik Hesseldahl

It was about a year ago at a Silicon Valley tech conference when domestic doyenne Martha Stewart voiced the frustration felt by everyone who's ever been confounded by a preponderance of electronic device charge cords.

Stewart, founder of Martha Stewart Omnimedia (MSO), pointedly asked Sony (SNE) Chief Executive Howard Stringer why the power-charging cord for one device couldn't be swapped for the cord of a different, comparable gadget. "Why can't that thing be this thing?" she asked Stringer, brandishing an array of chargers, cords, and components.

Like Magic

Stewart had made a "fair point," conceded Stringer, who sheepishly added that Sony profits from the manufacture of such components—that his company, in effect, was part of the problem.

Ran Poliakine thinks he's come up with a solution. The Israeli entrepreneur is chairman of a startup called Powermat, one of a growing handful of companies dedicated to breaking the tyranny of power cords and wall sockets. Founded in 2006, Powermat devised a technology that gives an entire wall or table surface the ability to charge whatever electronic device is set on or near it, doing away with the need for wall sockets and the gaggle of cords that connect to them.

Poliakine, also founder of the electronic billboard startup Magink (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/8/06, "Magink's Billboard Magic"), recently demonstrated Powermat's handiwork in a Manhattan hotel room. A flat mat, about two or three feet long and roughly six inches wide, sits on a table as unobtrusively as a placemat in a restaurant. Able to charge or power as many as eight devices at once, the mat could replace an eight-socket power strip, not to mention the cords that connect to it. To make it work, the user simply places a device on the mat—no plugging or fumbling with connections or cords.

Scientifically Speaking

The scientific principle at work is electromagnetic induction, an idea that dates back more than a century and is widely associated with the work of Nikola Tesla, the scientist who in the 1890s demonstrated that the wireless transmission of power was possible. Induction charges a device—for instance, an electric toothbrush—by creating a magnetic field. That field is activated around a coil of wire inside the brush's charging cradle when it's plugged into a power source. Setting the toothbrush on the charger introduces a second coil that can receive an electrical charge from the magnetic field created by the first. The second coil is connected to the battery and starts the recharging process.

Powermat Chief Technology Officer and Chief Scientist Amir Ben Shalom says pretty much any electric device can be powered directly or charged that way. "We can use the same basic physics of the copper coil that Tesla did so many years ago, but we can control it and monitor it and make it much more efficient than before," he says. Place a cell phone on the mat, and the surface recognizes the phone through a tiny radio chip placed inside it, Poliakine says. The mat then can determine the precise power needs of the phone.

The company plans to introduce a product this year that will demonstrate the potential of the technology. The mat will be sold alongside a universal "puck" about the size of a small cell phone that will connect to scores of handheld devices already on the market and allow them to use the mat for charging.