IKEA To Offer Furniture That Charges Your Wireless Devices

IKEA International A/S has unveiled a new line of furniture. This new furniture can actually charge some of your mobile devices wirelessly. The Swedish furniture conglomerate announced the new feat this past Sunday at MWC 2015 that is taking place in Barcelona this week.

The new IKEA furniture collection features desks, tables and lamps. All of them have built-in wireless charging pads. The furniture’s wireless charging ability works through an energy induction transfer. The actual furniture piece itself must be connected to a power source in order for it to function properly. The new line of furniture will be hitting the shelves of the IKEA stores in both North America and Europe on April 15^th of this year, and will be followed by an international roll-out.

Wireless device battery power is and will most likely always be an on-going concern for the majority of smartphone and other mobile device users. And, with increasing app usage, such as video services and location service, the ability to charge your wireless devices on your furniture (or any other everyday surface) could truly become a very welcome innovation because the batteries on many of our mobile devices tend to lose power rather quickly. IKEA will also be offering wireless charging kits that you can build into your existing furniture, and the starting price will be $33.60. Furniture featuring the built-in wireless charging abilities will be an extra $20.

According to IKEA’s business area manager of lighting and wireless charging, Jeanette Skjelmose, people tend to worry about not being able to find a charger when their mobile device starts running out of power.

IKEA’s new furniture line will be equipped with Qi-certified wireless chargers from the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), as the furniture giant has also joined the WPC organization. The Qi-standard is currently supported by a number of big-name smartphone makers such as Samsung, HTC and Microsoft.