Pat Hindle, MWJ Editor
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Hindle
Pat Hindle is responsible for editorial content, article review and special industry reporting for Microwave Journal magazine and its web site in addition to social media and special digital projects. Prior to joining the Journal, Mr. Hindle held various technical and marketing positions throughout New England, including Marketing Communications Manager at M/A-COM (Tyco Electronics), Product/QA Manager at Alpha Industries (Skyworks), Program Manager at Raytheon and Project Manager/Quality Engineer at MIT. Mr. Hindle graduated from Northeastern University - Graduate School of Business Administration and holds a BS degree from Cornell University in Materials Science Engineering.

The Phone Charging Dilemma

March 22, 2013

One subject that received a lot of attention at Mobile World Congress was mobile device charging as our batteries seem to drain faster and faster each day.  Besides the wireless charging mats that have been available for a while, there were many new wireless charging designs where you can set you phone on a table or on your car middle console and it will charge inductively through the surface.  Of course your phone has to have a special battery or inductive coupling attachment in order to charge it using this method but in the future these could be standard.  For now, they are not widely available as a built-in function so what can you do to charge your battery.  I found some interesting ways to plug in your phone to keep it charged.

Everpurse is a stylist purse that has a special charging pocket into which you place your smartphone. It has patent-pending docking system guides your phone smoothly onto a dock connector at the bottom so is no cord involved. To charge Everpurse itself, simply place it on its charging mat where it uses inductive charging to charge the purse up.

onE PuckonE Puck is a very innovative way to charge a mobile device while having a drink.  It uses a Stirling engine powered solely by heat disparities, in this case a hot or cold drink. It is a coaster that has one side for a heat source and the other for a cold source to power the Stirling engine to generate power.  These heat/cold sources will provide enough power to the Stirling engine to fully charge your cell phone battery which is connect to the coaster via a USB port.

iRockiRock is a rocking chair charger that is not only a charging dock but an entertainment system as well with its built-in stereo speakers that are powered by your rocking motions. There is a tilted mount for your device to watch it while you are charging.  It is crafted from Swedish wood and comes in 5 different colors – white, black, green, blue or red.

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