Loewe and German AV furniture maker Spectral bowed a TV cabinet line with built-in Qi wireless charging for the European market. The cabinets, with a Qi charging base on the top of the unit for a smartphone, can be freestanding or wall-mounted, the companies said. Options include LED lighting with motion sensors, an internal drawer with a mirrored front, a universal adapter for a soundbar and a fabric-covered opening in the base to house a subwoofer, the company said. Prices start at roughly $1,200.

The global wireless charging market will reach $9.4 billion by 2020, growing at a 33 percent compound annual rate, a Technavio report said Tuesday. Wireless charging growth is being driven by rising awareness of wireless power technology among consumers and increased adoption for industrial and health care applications, especially in the U.S., Technavio said. Market leaders are Integrated Device Technology, Intel and Qualcomm. U.S. OEMs such as Duracell Powermat are investing heavily in R&D infrastructure projects in shopping malls, transportation stations and restaurants, and CE vendors Apple, Google and Microsoft are investing significantly in wireless charging, it said. Google parent Alphabet plans to test its wireless charging technology for autonomous electric cars, analyst Sunil Kumar Singh said.

Integrated Device Technology is integrating its wireless power products with signal conditioning technology from recently acquired ZMDI, it said Wednesday. The ability to combine wireless charging with sensing has potential applications in home automation, wearables and other products that have a “finite ability to retain a charge and either need replacement batteries or wired charging schemes,” said Sailesh Chittipeddi, IDT’s chief technology officer. The technologies share a 32-bit embedded microcontroller core that can be used to program both the wireless power circuitry and the analog front-end circuits used in signal conditioning applications, the company said. The integration can potentially lower bill of materials costs for development while shrinking the product footprint, it said.

Crowdfunded company Bezalel is showing a dual-mode wireless charging case for the iPhone at CES. The Latitude case is compatible with PMA and Qi inductive wireless charging transmitters. Bezalel CEO Frank Wu said the Latitude enables iPhone users to use a PMA charging mat at a Starbucks or a Qi-based charger in a Toyota center console. “The Latitude is the first and only wireless charging solution that doesn’t make iPhone users pick a side in the war over competing standards,” said Wu. Qi charging is offered in some McDonald’s restaurants, select Ikea furniture and Toyota/Lexus vehicles, while PMA charging is found in certain Starbucks, Delta Airlines and General Motors vehicles. Prices are $49 for iPhone 6/6s and $59 for iPhone 6 Plus/6s Plus.

After lapsed deadlines for certification and product introductions, a merger between the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) and the Power Matters Alliance (PMA) and a rebranding from Rezence to AirFuel, resonant wireless charging has a product road map in place for 2016, the AirFuel Alliance said at CES. The alliance couldn’t speak for member companies’ specific product plans, though, said Geoff Gordon, Qualcomm staff manager-product marketing, on behalf of the alliance. AirFuel Alliance President Ron Resnick said the merging of A4WP and PMA and the consolidation of inductive and resonant wireless charging will ensure interoperability between the two, a "unifying leap forward for the entire wireless charging industry and members.” The Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) and its Qi specification aren't part of AirFuel, however. While the WPC remains separate with its Qi specification, that’s not stopping manufacturers from moving on with tri-mode wireless charging receivers that enable products to work with any of the three major charging specs. Among the products the alliance had on display in the AirFuel booth was an HP EliteOne 800 G2 all-in-one laptop with tri-charging incorporating PMA, resonant charging and Qi. Discussions are “ongoing” for the two alliances to come together on a single unified charging that also incorporates Qi, Gordon said. AirFuel Alliance announced at CES regulatory approval of its certification program in the U.S., China and “other major technology hubs around the world.” The program has certified more than 60 resonant components, some of which allow manufacturers to bring 1-50-watt devices or 1-70-watt charging stations to market, the alliance said. The certification program aims to provide a unified AirFuel brand that extends to the commercial market to ensure that consumers’ products “will work where they go,” Resnick said. Meantime, AirFuel member companies Chargifi and Gill Industries announced at CES that Chargifi will implement its smart gateway with Gill’s wireless transmitter technology. Chargifi’s aim is to offer restaurants and other venues a way to realize a return on investment from resonant wireless charging through customer data and advertising.

The Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) and Power Matters Alliance (PMA), which merged earlier this year, (see 1506010046) on Tuesday announced AirFuel Alliance, a new combined organization and brand identity. With a unified vision, the alliance is further committed to improving the wireless charging user experience through the development of advanced wireless charging standards, it said. The consortium aims to “accelerate the impact of wireless power transfer technology through inductive, resonant, and future standards,” it said.

Adoption of wireless power technology in mobile phones is slowly pushing adoption of wireless power functionality in vehicles and public spaces, said a report from Navigant Research released Wednesday. But low consumer awareness and competing industry standards remain challenges to category growth, said Benjamin Freas, senior research analyst. Inductive coupling, led by the Qi standard, is the predominant wireless power technology in the market, though it's limited in the amount of power and spatial freedom provided, said Navigant. Magnetic resonance addresses these limitations, but commercialization has been delayed, with products expected to hit the market by the end of 2015, it said. More than 100 million mobile phones are expected to ship with wireless charging functionality this year, generating revenue of $1.3 billion, with revenue forecast to reach $17.9 billion in 2024. “The expansion of wearable electronic devices and IoT devices coupled with technological advances are poised to transform the market,” said Freas.

Samsung used IDT’s wireless power kit to provide wireless charging capability for the Galaxy S6 edge+ and Galaxy Note5 smartphones, along with a wireless charger and Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch charging pad, IDT said Monday. IDT’s semiconductor technology includes all the hardware and associated software to support mobile device wireless charging, it said. The company also joined with Samsung for the Galaxy S6 wireless charger, it said. Both companies are members of the Wireless Power Consortium (the Qi standard) and the Alliance for Wireless Power (the Rezence standard). An IDT spokesman told us the Monday announcement is for Qi wireless products. The latest IDT ICs used in Samsung products are programmable with built-in microprocessor cores, and they support Samsung’s customization of features such as fast charge, which will enable users to charge the Galaxy S6 edge+ or Galaxy Note5 nearly 1.5 times faster than previous wireless charging, IDT said.

The number of wireless charging-ready devices has outpaced charger shipments to date, but resonant wireless charging should boost the overall wireless charger market, said a report from ABI Research. Some 213 million Powermat/Rezence chargers are forecast to ship by 2020, but they’ll be outpaced by the 713 million Qi chargers expected to ship during the period, said ABI. Many smartphone OEMs haven’t bundled wireless chargers with handsets, which has stunted the market for chargers, said ABI, but growing awareness and dropping prices should drive sales of chargers per active user, said the research firm. Broadcom, Microsoft, Qualcomm and Samsung are among the companies that belong to both the Qi and Powermat/Rezence trade groups, but companies “will need to send clear signals about their product support to consumers,” said ABI. Samsung ships devices today that support both Powermat and Qi, but ABI predicts Samsung eventually will throw its full support behind Qi in future products. The Qi standard has a big lead both in the direct-to-consumer retail charging pad market, “notably in the Samsung Wireless Charging Pad,” said ABI, and in public charging stations, with “thousands of locations,” compared with Powermat’s hundreds. Public charging stations are viewed as an important driver for expanding consumer awareness and as a way to highlight the convenience of wireless charging, it said. Smartphones with wireless charging capability are driving early awareness of the technology and will account for roughly 84 percent of all wireless charging receivers by the end of 2015, said ABI.

ConvenientPower announced a resonant-based wireless charging transmitter pad that can charge mobile devices encased in metal. The WoWme is based on Qualcomm’s WiPower technology and will charge metal and nonmetal devices, the company said. Phone designers now have the choice of incorporating metal and wireless charging, ConvenientPower said. The company worked with Qualcomm Technologies “to advance the state of resonant-based wireless charging of devices,” said ConvenientPower, which called the charging through metal capability a “significant breakthrough.” The ability for metal-encased mobile devices to be wirelessly charged “accelerates the range of design and waterproof possibilities for mobile electronics such as wearables, smartphones and computing devices,” said Camille Tang, president, ConvenientPower. The capability also enables “greater differentiation in user experience and product feel,” Tang said. The WoWme 10-watt wireless charging pad “maintains all the properties of other Rezence-certified transmitters, including the ability to charge multiple devices with various power requirements, simultaneously, through surfaces," ConvenientPower said. Qualcomm's WiPower was designed to support wireless charging for smartphones, tablets and other CE devices, allowing OEMs and vertical markets such as hospitality, furniture and automotive to deploy the technology in surfaces and devices. Convenient and wireless charging has been viewed as a leading challenge for the wearables market. Citing the “valuable tools and expertise” brought by ConvenientPower, Steve Pazol, general manager-wireless charging, Qualcomm, said the company was surprised by the excitement the charging pad generated. “Having ConvenientPower follow up so quickly with a companion solution gets this technology that much closer to consumers,” Pazol said. The companies didn’t say how ConvenientPower overcame the challenge of passing radio signals through metal.