Walmart & Ossia Explore Wireless Charging Inside Stores

When it comes to wireless charging, we have yet to see the commercialization of “true” wireless charging where it will not require devices to be placed on charging mats, and where it can charge wirelessly through radio waves in the air. In fact about a decade ago, a company by the name of Ossia developed such a system that never really took off.

However fast forward to today, it looks like the company has another chance of making it happen, thanks to a recent cooperation with Walmart in which both companies will explore taking advantage of Ossia’s technology to bring wireless charging to Walmart’s stores. The idea is to try and find ways that could help Walmart save money in terms of power costs across its stores, clubs, and facilities.

Given that Walmart sells a ton of electronics, they all need to be powered, some of them through batteries which can be draining in terms of costs when you have hundreds of such items on display. It could also help to save Walmart costs in terms of running and managing wires for certain products, and not to mention troublesome. By using wireless charging, it could certainly help keep things a lot neater.

Speaking to VentureBeat, Ravi Jariwala, Walmart’s director of public relations said, “When we find ways to lower costs, it means we can lower our prices even further for customers, and that’s something we’re always looking to do. One interesting technology we’re excited to test is wireless power transfer from a company named Ossia, Inc., which could one day reduce and even eliminate our daily dependence on batteries and wired connections for power.”

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: walmart, wireless charging