AT&T, Google, Starbucks Back ‘PMA’ Wireless Power Ecosystem and Open Standard

Global Leaders Backing Power Matters Alliance

PISCATAWAY, N.J., USA. (October 29, 2012) –AT&T, Google and Starbucks today announced their support for The Power Matters Alliance (PMA) with AT&T and Starbucks taking additional steps to join the PMA Board.  Founded by Powermat Technologies and Procter & Gamble, the PMA’s Honorary Chairman is Google’s Vint Cerf – one of the fathers of the Internet – and its board now also includes AT&T, Duracell, Google and Starbucks. The US Government’s Energy Star and Federal Communications Commission – both PMA members – are board observers.

Beyond helping set a global standard, the PMA’s members and adopters are working together to create a real-world ecosystem of wireless power.

• AT&T – has begun selling PMA-compatible wireless power cases and charging surfaces in select markets.
• Delta airlines installed PMA-compatible Wireless Charging Spots in lounges and gates in leading airports.
• Duracell has begun a nationwide retail rollout of PMA-compatible wireless charging accessories through its Duracell Powermat joint venture.
• General Motors – the world’s largest automaker – will include PMA-compatible wireless charging for smartphones in upcoming models.
• Jay Z has installed PMA-compatible Wireless Charging Spots throughout his 40/40 Club in New York.
• Madison Square Garden, ‘The world’s most famous arena’, has begun installing hundreds of PMA-compatible Wireless Charging Spots throughout the arena, as has the brand new Barclays Center, in Brooklyn.
• Powermat Technologies – the world’s leader in wireless power – has contributed its core technology to the PMA and has committed that all its products will comply with the PMA specification.
• Starbucks is testing PMA-compatible Wireless Charging Spots in select Boston stores.
• Westfield – one of the world’s largest shopping center portfolios – has installed PMA-compatible charging spots in Westfield Garden State Plaza Mall.

The technical work has been initiated by the PMA and operates under IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Industry Connections ‘Power Matters Activity’, officially launched in March 2012.  Technical specifications to enable any device to interoperate with the PMA standard are already available to all PMA members – and membership is open to all at www.powermatters.org.

Quotes:
AT&T
“Smartphones and fast networks have transformed our mobile experience, and the next frontier is ensuring that these devices never run out of power,” said Jeff Howard, vice president  devices and accessories, AT&T.  “We believe the PMA has the right organizational framework, the right institutional backing and the most promising technological platform. We look forward to a future where all of our devices can charge seamlessly in the home, in the car and in the coffee shop – and expect that such a future is at hand.”

Google
“An Internet of ‘smart things’ is rapidly evolving and most of them are powered electrically. Google cares greatly about a future where power can be wireless, smart and environmental,” said Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. “The PMA is about doing for power what the Internet did for data.  With the help of Starbucks, AT&T, P&G, Powermat and so many others I believe this goal is finally within reach.”

IEEE
“The mobile revolution continues at a rapid pace and IEEE is poised to do the same for open wireless power standards as it did with the ubiquitous IEEE 802.11™,” said Dr. Konstantinos Karachalios, Managing Director, IEEE-SA. “The IEEE-SA Industry Connections Program is ideally suited to help PMA advance its groundbreaking technical specifications to make wireless charging a reality in the foreseeable future.”

Procter & Gamble
“P&G has been at the forefront of innovation and category creation for 175 years, and for 50 years our Duracell brand has been the leading force behind ‘power on the go’,” said Stassi Anastassov, President of Duracell at Procter & Gamble.  “In today’s digital world staying powered up throughout the day is one of the biggest unmet consumer needs and therefore the next big thing in power. We are thrilled to be working side by side with global leaders from AT&T, Google, Starbucks and Powermat to bring this innovation to consumers worldwide.”

Starbucks
“We are always looking for ways to help our customers recharge, both literally and figuratively.  Wireless charging is not only the most convenient and simple way to recharge a mobile device, but it’s environmentally friendly – so it makes perfect sense for us to be working with the PMA to create a universal standard for wireless charging,” said Adam Brotman, chief digital officer of Starbucks.

About the Power Matters Alliance

The Power Matters Alliance (PMA) associated with a program of the IEEE Standards Association called Industry Connections is dedicated to creating an ecosystem and open standard for smart wireless power.

PMA was founded by Powermat Technologies and Procter & Gamble in 2012. Google’s Vint Cerf – one of the fathers of the Internet – is its Honorary Chairman, and its board includes AT&T, Duracell, Starbucks and the US Government’s Energy Star and Federal Communications Commission.  A wide array of PMA-compliant products are available at leading retailers, and compatible ‘wireless charging spots’ have been installed at leading airports, stadiums, restaurants, gyms and hair salons.

Membership of the PMA is open to all, and its technical specifications are available to all members.  For more information and to join the PMA visit www.powermatters.org.

Contact:

Scott Eisenstein

+1 212 297 2762

press@powermatters.org

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Boston.com (October 29, 2012) If you’ve deemed yourself a non-essential worker and are riding out Hurricane Sandy at your neighborhood Starbucks, you may get a chance to be the first to try something new today: juicing up your phone with a wireless charging system made by Duracell Powermat.

The caffeine purveyor has chosen 17 locations around the Boston area for a “limited time in-store trial for wireless charging,” in the words of Starbucks chief digital officer Adam Brotman. “We’re building the Powermat technology into some of the tabletops, just to get a sense for how our customers will react, compared to having to plug their mobile devices into the wall.”

And if you don’t already own an accessory for your iPhone or Samsung Galaxy that allows it to soak up electricity via inductive charging — the same technology that may already be keeping your electric toothbrush powered up — Starbucks may have a few freebie and loaner connectors. “A few weeks into the test, we’ll do some in-store giveaways, and we will have some behind the counter available to loan out,” says Brotman.

The first three stores where the technology is being installed are all in the Financial District: One Financial Center, 125 Summer Street, and 101 Federal Street.

Starbucks rolled out free WiFi in all its stores two years ago, in mid-2010. While the chain hasn’t yet made the decision to roll out wireless charging everywhere, Brotman says that “customers are coming into our stores every day with mobile devices, and putting them down on the table. If they could be charging their device at the same time, then we’ve connected with that customer and met their need, maybe even before they realized they had a need for wireless charging.”

I asked Brotman whether wireless charging, along with free WiFi, might encourage customers to hang around even longer in Starbucks stores. His response: “We want people to feel welcome and stay as long as they want to.”

As for selecting Boston for the test, Brotman says, “Boston is a hotbed for early adoption and tech-savvy customers.” Starbucks plans to test the technology through the holiday period, and then “early in the year, we’ll talk to our customers and our store partners” — that’s Starbucks lingo for employees — “and regroup with Powermat to figure out the next steps.”

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NEW YORK, NY (June 11, 2012) – Duracell Powermat, LLC, the joint venture between Procter & Gamble’s Duracell brand and Powermat Technologies, today launched a range of products that ensure New Yorkers will never again have to worry about their phone dying on them.  Starting today, the Duracell Powermat 24 Hour Power System will be available at major retail outlets throughout New York City and select online retailers, as well as at www.duracellpowermat.us.

The 24 Hour Power System

The 24 Hour Power System contains three products that, together, give you everything you need to enjoy your smartphone without worrying about the life of your battery.  Here’s how it works:

A sleek charging “mat” called the ‘Powermat’ serves as a wireless power transmitter.  When you plug the mat into any wall outlet, you immediately hear the welcoming bleep, letting you know that your Powermat is up and running and ready to send power to all enabled devices that will be placed on top of it.

To enable your device you simply insert it into the smartphone case and you are ready to receive wireless power from the Powermat. Simply drop your smartphone on the Powermat and it will charge.  The Duracell Powermat case is both protective and decorative. Cases will be available in pink, black and white at retail and in a variety of colors online.

The third component in the 24 Hour Power System is designed to let you take the power with you wherever you go, whenever you need it.  The Duracell Powermat Portable Backup Battery serves as your personal portable charger, providing one full charge while on-the-go. Its compact size lets you carry it in your pocket, purse, or bag. The backup battery comes equipped with both micro USB and Apple connectors so it works with practically any smartphone. To recharge the backup battery, you simply drop it on the Powermat alongside your smartphone.

What’s more, unlike other standard chargers, the Duracell Powermat System is smart. It knows just the right amount of energy your phone needs and it stops sending power when your phone is fully charged, helping to eliminate energy waste.

Starting today, the 24 Hour Power System will be available exclusively for the iPhone 4 and 4s both at major NY retail outlets and online.  Beginning this fall, it will be available in retail outlets nationwide and will support not only the iPhone but also an array of other leading smartphones.

“Today’s smartphones are our right hand:  evermore powerful, but at the same time ever quicker to run out of power, barely lasting through the afternoon. With The Duracell Powermat 24 Hour Power System, users can now fully utilize their phone throughout the day without having to worry about the battery life. ,” said Ron Rabinowitz, Duracell Powermat CEO. “And, with our upcoming Wireless Power Nation, this will get even easier. People will be able to charge wirelessly on embedded ‘wireless power hot spots’ in public venues where they travel and interact throughout their day. All they will need to do is put their phone on the table, same thing they normally do. The only difference is that now, their smartphones will get charged from the table”

Wireless Power Nation

The Duracell Powermat vision, of creating a world where access to wireless power is widely available in places and settings frequented by consumers throughout their day, is also going to transform The Big Apple into a wireless charging showcase. Duracell Powermat has added extensively to its growing list of “ecosystem” partners. In addition to the previously announced partnerships with Madison Square Garden and General Motors, Duracell Powermat has made great strides in attracting best-in-category partners from public and private locations intended to surround consumers with wireless power.

The initial list of wireless partners includes leaders in their category, known for providing their consumers with the best customer service and access to new and unique experiences.  These first partners were chosen carefully so that people would have access to power throughout the day. The list of partners who have signed on to wireless charging continues to grow on a weekly basis.

My name is Daniel Schreiber. I am the President of Powermat. Most recently, before joining Powermat, I was Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing and General Manager of one of SanDisk’s divisions. In that position, I oversaw the growth of SanDisk’s Sansa MP3 player to the number two position globally. Prior to that I was vice president of marketing and business development at M-Systems, the company that invented the USB flash drive.

Could you give us a piece of history of Powermat, about how and when it has been started?

Powermat was established in 2007 in Israel. We introduced our first line of wireless charging products at The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in 2009. Since that time, Powermat has become the dominant supplier of wireless charging products garnering over 80% of the overall market for wireless chargers. We have won numerous awards for product innovation including Frost & Sullivan’s Best Practices Award in 2011 and announced partnerships with General Motors and Teknion to supply wireless charging products for automotive and infrastructure respectively. We are also working with leading device OEM’s to embed wireless charging capability directly into smartphones as well as other electronic devices. Currently, we are proud to lead the category in technology, retail footprint, consumer experience, and brand.

Powermat will be integrated into GM cars beginning in mid-2012. How is the integration going?

It’s going great. As you may remember, our agreement with GM calls for integrating personal-device wireless charging into multiple automobile models. The integration of wireless technology into the automotive market is a powerful advance in convenience for consumers who will be able to utilize wireless charging capability in a variety of in-car applications. The first Powermat-enabled automobiles will be embedded in the 2013 GM models, available for purchase by consumers in late 2012.

We heard that there are issues with the interference of the wireless charging system with other wireless devices such as the electric door key, which makes it hard to obtain for example the Emark license, what is your experience on this?

Absolutely! Integrating all these technologies has required a great deal of innovation as well as old fashioned hard work. Happily, we haven’t yet encountered an obstacle that couldn’t be overcome, and so these challenges won’t slow the progress of wireless power.

In the beginning of this year Powermat and Arconas (leader in providing public seating in more than 130 airports) announced an agreement to bring wireless charging capabilities to airports worldwide. Could you tell us more about this project?

Yes, that’s right. Arconas is a global leader in the manufacturing of airport seating with a presence in over 130 airports around the world. Powermat is currently working in partnership with Arconas to incorporate wireless charging surfaces into airport lounges and seating areas. Currently, Powermat charging stations are available in several airports around the world including Toronto’s Pearson International and Chicago’s O’Hare among others, with many more on the way.

Recently Powermat joined the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), what made you decide to join this consortium rather than move on with your own technology? And when can we expect the first Qi compatible wireless chargers from Powermat?

Yes, we have joined the WPC. However, we have not now nor will we ever abandon our own technology. Powermat technology is proud to be best-in-class. Our technology has literally created the wireless charging industry.
As the leader in the wireless charging industry, we understand and support the need for a “common denominator” to which everyone in the industry can relate. As to why we joined the WPC: to the extent that the industry is growing and The WPC is gaining wider participation, we are glad to support them. Powermat has always maintained that we would support any standard that, through consensus, reaches a significantly broad audience.

However, we will continue to drive our technology. So, when a Powermat device meets a Qi-compliant device, it will interoperate with that device in accordance with the Qi specifications. But the best user experience in terms of efficiency, reliability and ease-of-use will continue to be enjoyed when Powermat receivers are paired with Powermat mats. And, by the way, we support not only the Qi standard, but several other standards as well including UL (product safety) and CE (Conformance European), as a way to help to increase the wireless charging audience and ultimately bring about a world without wires; the long-term goal and mission identified by Powermat upon its inception.

Before Powermat joined the Wireless Power Consortium, you partnered with Qualcomm. What is left of this partnership with Qualcomm?

Our joining the PWC has no bearing on how we operate as a company. The WPC is essentially an amalgamation of companies that have come together to further the adoption of wireless power and to move the industry forward in general. As previously announced, Powermat and Qualcomm have plan to collaborate. That remains intact.

What do you expect from the near field magnetic resonance charging (NFMR) of Witricity and Powerbeam are you thinking of going to use this technology as well?

Powermat technology is scalable and embeddable, and can be built directly into electronics of all kinds and almost any surface within homes, automobiles, airports, offices and other venues. Magnetic resonance is not there yet. In truth, though, resonance is not really an alternative underlying technology to inductive charging, it is better thought of as another way of implementing inductive charging, and it brings with it various tradeoffs. Our engineers have been working with resonance for years, and we are always committed to using the most compelling technology for the job. Maybe that will include resonance one day – but not in the immediate future.

What new devices can we expect from Powermat the coming year?

We have not yet made our product-related plans public for the coming year but as always you can expect innovation, cutting edge design and wireless charging support for more of today’s most popular Smartphones. In addition, we will continue to focus on developing our wireless charging technology into new growth areas and venues designed to expand consumer options and convenience.

What is the company target for Powermat and where will it be in five years from now?

The ultimate vision of Powermat is to create a wireless world free of the tangle of cords and wires. We will continue to advance our vision with even more widespread adaptation in key business-to-business areas including automotive, hospitality and airport venues. At the same time we expect to further push the envelope, and integrate wireless energy delivery into new verticals that will allow surfaces to act as “energy hubs” where the consumers can power up their favorite Powermat-enabled devices by simply dropping them on a Powermat enabled surface. And, of course, we expect to continue to provide best-in-class wireless charging solutions for consumers’ favorite smartphones and devices.

What if you didn’t need that backup battery? What if you just knew that any place you might happen to be was pretty much assured to have tables and counters and other surfaces fully enabled to charge your phone on contact? 

[...] ” I referred back to that moment a few years later in 2007 when I wrote in Businessweek the first story about an interesting start-up called Powermat. It’s not a start-up anymore. You can now get at several of the major electronics retailers a tabletop mat and phone-enclosure combo that will charge your iPhone or BlackBerry or Android device just on contact, and last year Powermat was included in a roundup of wireless charging products by The Wall Street Journal’s Katherine Boehret.

But the vision for Powermat was to be bigger. Founder Ran Poliakine described for me an ecosystem where pretty much any flat surface — including walls — could be connected to the power grid, and thus able to charge and power a personal electronic device. Office and home furniture manufacturers were in talks of varying degrees of seriousness, I wrote at the time.

The vision hasn’t gone away. Powermat, in a tie-up with Procter & Gamble’s Duracell battery brand, today took a big step forward with a new generation of the Powermat product. This time it’s being branded as the Duracell Powermat 24-Hour Power System, though the schtick is pretty much the same. Wrap your phone in the PowerMat-enabled enclosure, set it down on the mat, and the charging just happens, courtesy of the principle of electromagnetic induction and the discoveries of Nikola Tesla. A new third piece is the Portable Backup Battery. Also charged by the Powermat, you can, as they say in Minnesota, take it with. It has micro-USB and Apple connectors so can charge pretty much any phone or device you might have with you.

But here’s where the vision thing gets a little more interesting. What if you didn’t need that backup battery? What if you just knew that any place you might happen to be was pretty much assured to have tables and counters and other surfaces fully enabled to charge your phone on contact? We already have a habit of setting our phones on the table when we stop for coffee, or in a meeting at the office. Why don’t those tables charge our phones, too?

That, in a nutshell, is the vision. And Powermat and Duracell today nudged it forward. Having already cut deals with Madison Square Garden and General Motors, the duo todY announced a batch of new partners in and around New York City, including The Barclays Center in Brooklyn, which is opening a $5 billion venue this fall; the Jay-Z owned nightclub in the Flatiron District, the 40/40 Club; and the Delta Sky Club, among others. The deal with GM is also yielding some fruits. And if all that weren’t enough, Jay-Z has added some of his star power as an investor in the Duracell/Powermat joint venture.

These not exactly places where I find myself all the time. But it’s progress toward the vision that Powermat laid out for me five years ago. A partnership with Starbucks? Now that would be something.

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• Each charge point has an LED light that indicates when charging occurring.
• An audio “chirp” alert signals the user that the device is in proper alignment with the Teknion Powermat charger.
• When full power is achieved, the system stops charging and monitors the status of the battery in the device. If the battery is used, the system again initiates charging.
• The charger delivers exactly the amount of energy needed so that transfer to the receiver is safe and efficient. No energy is wasted.
• Regardless of brand, devices enabled with Powermat receivers can drop and charge on any Teknion Powermat charger.
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The technology was initially used to charge cell phones and hand-held devices. The way it works is simple: first you place a case with a power receiver on the device. Then you place it on a Powermat mat, which transmits charge to the battery. When the battery is full, power stops flowing to the unit, fully charging your device and saving you money on your power bill.

FORBES first reported on the company last year when the technology was just starting to take off. Since its introduction in 2009, Powermat has sold more than 3.1 million of its units around the world at retailers such as Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Bed Bath and Beyond, Staples, and Brookstone. It’s the market leader with about 90 percent share. But as it continues to try and maintain dominance in an industry expected to grow over $11 billion by 2020, Powermat must find a way to integrate into people’s everyday lives.

“We are trying to do to electricity what Wi-Fi did to data,” said Poliakine. “We are practically eliminating the need to drag with you many, many, many cords with power supplies, enabling users to power and charge their devices without the need of cords.”

So Powermat is expanding beyond hand-held devices and partnering with other device makers to install Powermat receivers in their products. For example, the company has a partnership with Haier with plans to put Powermat receivers in air conditioners, washing machines, and refrigerators.

Poliakine’s strategy also involves implanting the charging technology into surface areas, such as furniture, counter tops, car dashboards, and even walls so you can hang a TV without cords. Powermat is even expected to appear in airports so travelers can easily charge their cell phones between flights.

And it’s just been announced that it’s implementing its technology into all 2012 GM Volt cars.

“Our vision in time is to make sure that there is an infrastructure; every table, every kitchen countertop, every hotel desk will have this infrastructure that will enable you to effortlessly just place your laptop or your cell phone or your lamp on the surface and get the right amount of power,” said Poliakine.

Take a look at the video below to see Mr. Poliakine’s own kitchen using the technology.