An idea I had a few months back (Wireless charging)

So, I was playing with my Lumia 735, which as a few may know has wireless charging capability, It got me thinking, what if this was added to mice?

Now, I have an Ouroboros and some Steelseries mousemat (Firefly awaits me ) and while I was swapping out the side panels, I was thinking, could there be a way to add the wireless charging capability of most phones now to mice and mouse mats. Since the Firefly now has power going to it for the lighting, why not make the mousepad the 'Stand' or 'Pad' that phones use for the charging (See FIG 1) and for the wireless mice currently made by Razer, the Ouroboros and Mamba (Is that all) have a receiver (See FIG 2) on the underbelly of the mouse. Since these two are always touching when gaming, theoretically the mouse would always be on charge, complete.y removing the need for wires to power the mice. I passed this onto @Kramoh a while ago but haven't heard anything since. I thought I'd make a thread here and try get Lord Tan to see it.

(fig 1) This is Samsungs Wireless QI charger - http://puu.sh/lECuT/3de3c00320.jpg
(fig 2) This is the Reciver on the inside of the LG G3 case for QI charging - http://puu.sh/lECDW/9a215336cc.jpg (Yes, NFC is also on the sticker)

So essentially, find a way to build the wireless charger's transmitter into a mousemat like the Firefly and add receiver(s) onto the underside of wireless Mice, whatchu think?

 

It's a GREAT idea, but one problem could arise...

Now, I'm not too sure on the power inputs/outputs of both wireless charging and USB...

But I'm assuming the mousepad would need to have AC power. Powering the mousepad and having wireless charging could result in too much of a power draw from the USB port.

Frankly I wouldn't mind if the mousepad took up two USB ports if this feature was implemented.

 

Well, who says the mousemat in question needs to have the lights? It coujld be a variant without Chroma (I know </3) for the time being.

 

Possible use of USB C's increased power transfer capacity?? (idk the the technical term)

The future is coming.

 

I'll look into it! Compare the voltage outputs if USB 1, 2, 3, 3.1 and C

 

Huh. Pretty dang cool.

"A USB 2.0 connection provides up to 2.5 watts of power — that’ll charge your phone, but that’s about it. A laptop might require up to 60 watts, for example.

The USB Power Delivery specification ups this power delivery to 100 watts."

Source

 

"Currently, a normal USB 2.0 port provides a 5V supply with at most 500mA per port, while USB 3.0 offers around the same voltage but with up to 900mA per port."

Source

So it does sound like wireless charging will need an AC current, I don't see why the mat can't have a hub like place at the top where it can be optionally plugged into the mains until a time comes where sufficient power can be drawn from a port, I certainly wouldn't mind. And even if it was possible, I'd gladly let my moutmat use two or even three USB ports.

 

So would I, but using up that many ports could be an issue for people who game on their laptops. Also, using 2-3 ports just seems inefficient. I doubt we'll see any wireless charging mouse mats until we have a mainstream method of getting the proper power output from our PCs

 

Basically, this idea has been around for quite some time.
An ars technica forum member discussed it with some great minds about a year ago.
It's weight, power and expense would be the greatest deterrents and basically if you just make a location where you leave the mouse to charge, it become a mouse dock.
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1262641