# How far are we away from wireless power? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 18, 2014, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-are-we-away-from-wireless-power/681610 "2014-02-18T09:15:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-are-we-away-from-wireless-power/681610/21 "2014-02-19T19:35:51Z")
> [@whitetho](#): > > Mr. Cecil Adams reviewed [What’s up with “broadcast power”?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/934/whats-up-with-broadcast-power) back in 1990. It was impossible then, and there is no reason to be any more optimistic now on any sort of wide scale implementation. Also, [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12205542) and [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12638793) are a couple of threads from 2010, which include links to earlier threads and to the column you linked to. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-are-we-away-from-wireless-power/681610/22 "2014-02-19T20:04:45Z")
we are close to wireless power. it doesn’t travel far so if you aren’t close to the device then you have no power. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-are-we-away-from-wireless-power/681610/23 "2014-02-19T21:06:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **iamthewalrus(:3=**: > > You could still make that quite safe by having a failsafe that will cut the beam if anything gets close. Say, have a bunch of low-powered lasers in a circle around the power beam that will shut off the main beam if they’re broken. > > The size of the circle is determined by the distance between transmission stations and the speed you expect the living thing might be going. OK, that’s a start. Now, suppose that something does breach that perimeter, and the safeties kick in. How do you know it’s clear again to start back up? Maybe the obstruction partly entered the protected zone and moved right back out, and it’s safe immediately. Maybe two things entered at once, shadowing each other, and only one came back out. And that’s assuming that the people who run the plant and its failsafes are trustworthy. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-are-we-away-from-wireless-power/681610/24 "2014-02-19T21:31:43Z")
Chronos, you should probably encase the perimeter in something solid to protect the surroundings from the highly dangerous energy within. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-are-we-away-from-wireless-power/681610/25 "2014-02-19T21:31:44Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > You could still make that quite safe by having a failsafe that will cut the beam if anything gets close. > [@Chronos](#): > > OK, that’s a start. Now, suppose that something does breach that perimeter, and the safeties kick in. How do you know it’s clear again to start back up? Typical technogeek thinking, here… that the issue is making the machine failsafe… > [@](#): > > And that’s assuming that the people who run the plant and its failsafes are trustworthy. …since no one ever could or would find a way or a reason to deflect a mega- to terawatt beam. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-are-we-away-from-wireless-power/681610/26 "2014-02-19T22:45:29Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Chronos, you should probably encase the perimeter in something solid to protect the surroundings from the highly dangerous energy within. We could call it an “insulator”. I’m thinking that to improve the transmission efficiency across this high powered beam, we could put something in the middle, too. A “conductor”, maybe? Man, the Dope may be onto something here! We could finally make long-distance power a reality. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-are-we-away-from-wireless-power/681610/27 "2014-02-19T23:19:00Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > We could finally make long-distance power a reality. It would usher in a new age, an age of Power, we can conquer the Night and have fantastic machines to cater to our every whim! Nah. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-are-we-away-from-wireless-power/681610/28 "2014-02-19T23:28:32Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > We could call it an “insulator”. I’m thinking that to improve the transmission efficiency across this high powered beam, we could put something in the middle, too. A “conductor”, maybe? Man, the Dope may be onto something here! We could finally make long-distance power a reality. Hmm, and copper makes a excellent conductor. Maybe long, thin pieces of it? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-are-we-away-from-wireless-power/681610/29 "2014-02-20T22:33:19Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Detecting a bypassed meter is almost glance-at-it easy. Detecting altered broadcast power metering software would require draconic DRM and a locked-down operating system, and for a lot of classes of power-using items that’s a non-starter. (Android has huge market share, for instance. And the Linux OS underneath it is also ubiquitous, and pretty much impossible to lock down. So your metering firmware would have to start with a proprietary framework and work up from there… which increases per-unit deployment costs. Because the per-copy license of proprietary OSs is always higher than the per-copy license cost of Linux.) You’re thinking about this the wrong way. You don’t have to trust the device to correctly report its usage because you don’t bill based on how much power is reported to be received by the device, you bill based on how much you sent to the device. The device just has to report where it is and how much power it wishes to receive. And either end should notice if somehow the power that’s being sent is not being received (more than whatever normal attenuation you’d expect) There’s still a problem with devices that claim to be registered on some other person’s account and try to abuse the system that way. But the same problem exists with cell phones right now, and it doesn’t seem to be insurmountable, despite the fact that many of them are running Linux. > [@Chronos](#): > > OK, that’s a start. Now, suppose that something does breach that perimeter, and the safeties kick in. How do you know it’s clear again to start back up? Maybe the obstruction partly entered the protected zone and moved right back out, and it’s safe immediately. Maybe two things entered at once, shadowing each other, and only one came back out. Ok, so not just a perimeter, but a grid of lasers. You can start back up if they’re all unbroken. > [@](#): > > And that’s assuming that the people who run the plant and its failsafes are trustworthy. Well, yes. But the same is true for pretty much any power generation or transmission system. Better hope that whoever wired your house got the polarity right, too. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-are-we-away-from-wireless-power/681610/30 "2014-02-20T23:50:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, yes. But the same is true for pretty much any power generation or transmission system. Better hope that whoever wired your house got the polarity right, too. That’s a matter of competence, not trustworthiness. It’s tough to weaponize copper wiring. ---
**Author:** ![jaquie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee59a6/32.png) [@jaquie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaquie)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-are-we-away-from-wireless-power/681610/31 "2014-04-01T03:54:36Z")
The biggest issue of today is that there is still no agreeable standard by which devices (both transmitter and receiving) are to be development at. Although there are some independent chargers out there which will work for specific devices, the idea of wireless power gets exciting when you can charge multiple devices irrespective of brand, make, model together with the same charger. Obviously for this to happen everyone in the space needs to work together, however, once the wireless standards are agreed upon, there is high probability of a global uptake. I think companies like [PowerbyProxi.com](http://powerbyproxi.com/wireless-power/) will have a lot to offer in the wireless power space. > [@](#): > > How far are we away from wireless power? I would would say this could be as soon as 18 months, but they are still battling out the standards debate… ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-are-we-away-from-wireless-power/681610/32 "2014-04-01T17:24:40Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > It would usher in a new age, an age of Power, we can conquer the Night and have fantastic machines to cater to our every whim! > > Nah. With such Devices in an age of Power, I forsee a truly Fantastic Future! Where mankind has Powerful Engines that can share Thoughts across Time and Space, bringing Enlightenment and Banishing Ignorance! Wait, what the heck did I just say? Man, I really need to cut back on the rarebit. And the opium, too, probably. What crazy gibberish I spout sometimes… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-are-we-away-from-wireless-power/681610.md?page=1)