Surface Energy aims to Replace Wireless Charging

Zii Energy, a California electronics firm, plans to bring a technology it calls "surface energy" to leading brand-name consumer electronic devices in 2017. Its founders believe crowd-funding will bring needed capital to propel surface energy-powered devices to everyday use.

Zii's surface energy is based on Open Dots compatible power surfaces and modules that deliver up to 120 Watts. The Open Dots Alliance is a 501(C)(6) non-profit organization founded by JVIS-US, LLC that maintains and publishes the Open Dots wire-free power standard so that Open Dots compliant products from different manufacturers will operate correctly with each other. The Open Dotsâ„¢ Alliance is funded by independent sponsors and web advertising.

“Surface energy allows efficient and unlimited electrical power transfer from anywhere within a special area to a device in contact with that area,” explained Mitch Randall, Zii Energy CEO.

It’s the much needed alternative to wireless charging, which, according Randall, “has come to mean a particular disappointing user experience: It only works for phones, it is slow, it gets hot, it can only charge one item at a time, and it requires exact alignment.”

In sharp contrast, surface energy efficiently powers multiple devices of high and low power -- like phones, power tools and notebook computers -- placed anywhere on a power surface. “Surface energy is everything wireless charging wishes it could be,” said Gregg Clark, Zii Energy president.

Since 2012, Zii Energy’s technology has been successfully used on 25 automotive vehicles sold by Ford, Fiat Chrysler and Toyota, including the popular Ford F-150 pickup truck. Now the company wants to move quickly to bring surface energy to many common consumer electronics devices.

According to Randall, Zii Energy will shortly develop components to enable surface energy in certain brand-name notebook computers and power tool batteries arriving on the market as early as 2017. Zii Energy is seeking to crowdfund part or all of this development effort through a Kickstarter campaign to accelerate the adoption into these vertical markets.

“Consumer and industry frustration with wireless charging has reached a head,” Randall noted. “We’re seeing a wave of disappointment with wireless charging because companies can’t get it to work like they had been promised, and the consumer experience with existing products is weak. Surface energy is here today, it’s proven, and it meets the requirements consumers and companies alike have been demanding.”