Introduction: cutting the last cord
Wireless-charging pads have been around for a decade, yet most still demand millimetre-perfect placement, work only with a single handset and top out at 15W. Warp Solution, a Seoul-based fabless semiconductor firm, used CES 2026 to unveil a system it believes finally removes those caveats. By fusing computer-vision AI with multi-frequency beamforming and in-house rectifier chips, the company claims to deliver safe, simultaneous power to dozens of moving devices across a room—without mats, coils or alignment rituals.
How it works: vision-guided energy beams
The platform centres on a palm-sized Power Transmission Module (PTM) that combines:
- A 4K low-light camera and custom vision model that recognises the silhouette and motion of any device wearing a postage-stamp receiver.
- A 64-element phased-array antenna able to steer 1–6 GHz RF beams in 0.5° increments.
- Edge AI firmware that recalculates optimal paths every 8 ms, maintaining beam lock on devices up to 5m away—even if they rotate or are blocked briefly by human limbs.
Receivers use Warp’s WEP-series rectifiers (100MHz-6GHz) that harvest incoming RF and convert it to regulated 5V, 9V or 20V rails. The firm quotes 60% end-to-end DC-out efficiency at 2m under line-of-sight conditions, falling to ~45% at 4m or through low-density drywall.
Multi-frequency, multi-charging (MFMC) architecture
Unlike Qi’s single-coil resonance, MFMC divides power into narrow, non-overlapping channels analogous to MU-MIMO Wi-Fi. A 48W transmitter can allocate, say, 12W to a tablet on 1.8GHz, 8W to smart earbuds on 2.4GHz and 5W to a sensor tag on 900MHz, updating allocations 10×/sec. The result is steady cumulative throughput without the thermal spikes or duty-cycle throttling common in resonant pads.
Real-world applications
Smart homes & offices
Kitchen counters, desks and lounge tables become invisible charging surfaces. A laptop sleeve or set-top box with an embedded WEP rectifier stays topped up wherever it sits, eliminating wall-wart clutter.
Industrial automation
AGVs, robot arms and sensor nodes can roam warehouses without docking stations, cutting 4–6% downtime typically lost to battery swaps. Warp says pilot customers in Korea’s Incheon logistics hub recovered capex in 14 months.
Healthcare
Disposable patches, smart beds and ingestible capsules gain sealed, battery-free designs—lowering infection risk and easing sterilisation.
Retail & hospitality
Restaurants embed receivers in smart menus and POS tablets; hotels power bedside lamps and voice assistants without extra cabling.
Technical considerations
Safety & compliance
The system keeps power density below 1mW/cm² beyond 50cm and automatically dials down when humans are detected within the beam cone. It meets current FCC Part 18 and draft IEC 63028 limits; however, global 6GHz spectrum rules vary, so rollout will be region-by-region.
Interference
Operating in 1–6 GHz overlaps Wi-Fi 6E/7 and U-NII bands. Warp uses LBT (listen-before-talk) and spectral nulling to notch out occupied channels, claiming 1m RF power, but short-range Qi still wins on raw efficiency. The selling point is freedom of placement plus multi-device scale.
Industry analyst take
"True over-air charging has been five years away for a decade," notes Dr. Laila Parvin, senior analyst at IDC Energy. "Warp’s demo is the first to bundle vision AI for micro-tracking with verifiable 60% rectifier efficiency. If they can secure 6GHz spectrum and keep transmitter cost under US$150, the addressable market for battery-free IoT could jump from 200million to 1billion units by 2030."
Challenges ahead
- Standardisation: The Qi consortium is preparing Qi-Long-Range, while IEEE is drafting P1901.3. Warp must either join or risk a format war.
- Scale & ecosystem: Receiver adoption hinges on phone OEMs, who are unlikely to add RF antennas solely for power.
- Environmental claims: 60% efficiency sounds good, but 40% energy loss is still high; regulators may impose eco-design limits.
Early verdict
Warp Solution’s AI-guided platform is the most convincing over-air power play to date. By solving spatial tracking and multi-device multiplexing, it moves wireless power from novelty to infrastructure-grade utility. Hospitality, logistics and healthcare pilots starting in 2026 will determine whether consumers—and standards bodies—buy into the vision of a truly cord-free, battery-lite future.