Team squares off on Kickstarter for charging needs via pad and stickers

(Tech Xplore)—A popular need, a quite friendly solution: Always stay charged on an ultra-thin pad using just a strip placed on your smartphone. The team behind this idea has turned to Kickstarter. The people behind this Energysquare. This is a French startup created last year.

They want to succeed on a twin mission (1) to get rid of all electric cables and (2) to reinvent the way we have access to energy.

Energysquare hopes the Kickstarter campaign will take them further on their mission.

"Energysquare's Kickstarter campaign will help fund the development and production of an initial order."

They said their wireless chargers will allow users to charge multiple devices at the same speed as classic chargers, just by putting them on the wide, thin pad.

The video on the Kickstarter page shows a hand holding up a long sticker and a square shaped power strip with individual blocks. It is an ultrathin surface you can put anywhere, said the presenter. A person places the phone, strip side down, on the surface, and voila—the phone stays charged, up to four times faster than induction and 20 times more powerful than a classic charger.

It is quite easy to set up and run based on its descriptions: Install a small sticker on your phone, put it on the pad and it's charging.

How do you know if the sticker will fit your size phone? They said the sticker was designed to fit different types of smartphone; supporters get to choose different sizes and colors before shipping.

Unlike with classic chargers, which are charging one thing at a time, with their system the user is allowed to charge more than one device.

The technology behind Energysquare has two elements: pad and sticker.

"A charging pad made of conductive squares inlaid into an insulating material" is discussed on the Kickstarter page. "Each square is then controlled independently by our embedded system." The thin adhesive sticker is to be stuck to the phone's back. Two conductive dots on the sticker connect to the battery. When the device lands on the pad, the sticker's conductive dots connect with two different conductive squares of the pad. The pad starts charging the device.

The pad comes in two sizes, "Square One" and Square Two. "The pad features a smart sleep mode to prevent any power waste when no devices are connected. It becomes active once two squares are connected to a device. When the device is fully charged, the pad detects it and stops charging.

The team's website said "Charging smartphones is just a beginning. We are currently working on being compatible with several other devices: laptops, tablets, lights.. possibilities are unlimited, we want to bring power to every device that needs energy."

To make their tech less intrusive, they said, they planned to integrate their charging surfaces directly in furniture.

The technology is designed to work with smartphones and tablets. They developed an open source standard.

Matthieu Poidatz, Timothée Le Quesne and Daniel Lollo are behind Energysquare.

So what is next: They are ready for "industrialization," they said and have turned to Kickstarter to help make it happen. They see earlybird shipping in November this year and "classic batch shipping" in December. ''So far things are looking good for them. They raised $67,136 in pledges at the time of this writing out of $33,630 goal with 21 days left to go.

There is the usual campaign range of prices and deals; for example, for $66 a supporter gets a SquareOne charging pad and 5 stickers for estimated delivery in December.

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