New Apple Patent Shows Off Strange Inductive Charging Headphones
Just a few days ago we covered inductive charging in a post about Evatran's Plugless Power system for electric vehicles, and the technology has just come up again in the news today.
Apple submitted a patent today for a system of inductively charging their mobile devices not through the headphone jack, but through the headphones themselves. One of the designs shows a charger base with a post on it, around which the headphone wires of an iPod or iPhone wrap around. The patent stipulates that the wires have a mesh of conductive metal on the outside, so as to create an inductive coil around the pillar-shaped charger stand.
The patent also describes another method of charging via headphones, but this one uses the actual earpieces. This method of charging is a really interesting concept, as it uses the existing technology of the speaker to do so. When music is playing through earphones (or speakers of any size for that matter), power is sent to the components inside, which in turn vibrate outwards and disturb the air. These disturbances are sensed by our ears, and translated into sound. Apple's patent would effectively reverse this process, vibrating the components in the headphones, generating current that is sent back down the headphone wires and into the iPhone or iPod's batteries! If these patents ever actually make it to production, it will be a really wondrous thing to behold!
Source: Engadget
