Having an electronic vehicle is becoming a bit more common, although still not as prevalent as we would like it to be. There are a lot of reasons why some are still hesitant about adapting to this more eco-friendly kind of cars. Aside from the price tag, charging your vehicle overnight is still not as easy especially if you don’t have a garage or driveway. You have to look for charging stations near your place but you probably won’t be able to do your charging overnight. A startup aims to solve that problem by utilizing trusty old lamposts.

Designer: Voltpost

Since street lamposts are pretty common, this New York City startup is proposing to retrofit these existing lamposts and use them to charge electric vehicles. They designed a shroud that will cover the lower part of the lamposts and inside you have various cables and electronic devices to juice up the cars that need them. You have retractable cables that can anchor up to eight feet off the ground and a hand level charger dock. It is also modular and can be installed in an hour and can be repaired easily.

For newbies to the EV game, charging your car here is as easy as plug and play. There’s an app where you can oversee the charging of your vehicle and it is also where you will pay for the service. You can also use it to reserve your spot in case you know the schedule when you need to recharge your vehicle and you don’t want to compete with other EV owners. Even the installation of these chargers on the lamposts is pretty easy and takes just an hour based on their initial tests.

Voltpost has finished a test with the New York City Department of Transportation and they are currently in different stages of development with other cities specifically Chicago, Detroit, and New York. This is something that will be pretty useful to encourage more people to switch to EVs, especially if they don’t have space in their houses to do their own charging. We look forward to the day when EVs are as common as hybrid or regular cars and having a more convenient way to power up is a step towards that.

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Wireless charging is finally becoming more common but despite the freedom from tangling cables that the technology offers, wireless chargers still have a few inconveniences, especially when it comes to aesthetics. Only a few of these products can be considered pleasing to look at, especially when mixed with the rest of your room decor. And they still have at least one cable snaking out of their bodies, which might be difficult to hide depending on where you place the chargers. In an ideal future, almost any flat surface can become a wireless charger, immediately juicing up your phone or device the moment you put it down, anywhere you put it down. Part of that future seems to already be here, with a creative wireless technology that can hide that wireless charging space inside stone countertops, seamlessly blending with your choice of interior design.

Designer: FreePower

Wireless chargers remove the messy cables from the charging equation, but the current state of technology requires you to still make physical contact between the device and the surface of the charger. Add to that the hard requirements on materials for the surfaces of wireless chargers and you will find yourself with a few of these products scattered around your house, often sticking out like a sore thumb. Some designs are admittedly more elegant and stylish, but they still add to the visual baggage on what would be an otherwise pristine table or countertop.

FreePower is a technology that tries to offer the best of both worlds, combining the liberating convenience of wireless charging with a clean and unblemished tabletop surface. In a nutshell, it embeds the wireless charger inside the countertop, and not just any countertop, mind you. It is compatible with different stone materials, including quartz, granite, or even marble, materials you’d never think could be used for wireless chargers. Thanks to this innovative design, you don’t need to actually put a charging mat or stand on your kitchen countertop, side table, or bedside table, because the countertop itself is the wireless charger.

Of course, only a portion of the countertop actually functions as the wireless charging zone, but you don’t have to worry about ugly and conspicuous markings that ruin the aesthetic of your beautiful stone top. A customizable LED halo glows around the area where you can place your devices, and you can even turn this light off when it’s not in use. FreePower does even better than most wireless chargers because you can place your phone or earbuds anywhere within that zone, no need to perfectly align with markers.

FreePower is the latest in a growing number of designs that aim to integrate wireless charging technology into every surface inside your home, completely freeing you from unsightly cables. Of course, such a design is also less flexible in that you have very little choice when you want to change furniture or designs. You’ll have to hope there’s also an invisible wireless charger version available for that or else you’ll have to go back to old-school wireless charging mats.

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Although wireless charging has been around for years, it was only until Apple finally joined the fray that the technology really became popular. Of course, it was Apple’s MagSafe spin on wireless charging that really caught on, but it still sparked interest in a future where wires and cables are a thing of the past. We’re still a long way from that future considering how wireless charging works today, but that’s not to say that there is no progress to improve the situation. These wireless charging product designs, for example, are based on such ongoing development and prepare us for a world where desks can be completely devoid of cables, especially those for charging your multitude of devices.

Designer: Sprout Studios

As convenient as wireless charging might be, especially magnetic wireless charging, the requirement to have the device and the charger touching is still quite restricting. Not only that, you still have to make sure that the charging coils are aligned properly, which is what made it necessary for Apple to implement MagSafe in this way. But what if you could get rid of that restriction? Then every surface or anything on your desk can become a wireless charger.

That’s exactly what these designs are proposing, based on technology being developed by startup DeepCharge. Even a laptop mat, for example, can become a wireless charger that can accommodate phones, earbuds, and other devices as well. This Laptop Pad also has extra features like an antimicrobial frantic top and LED lighting to indicate charging status. You don’t have to ensure that devices are in the right area. Simply place them on the mat and watch the LED indicator light up. Another design involves a charging pad that also acts as a landing pad for drones, though that requires attaching some feet to the quadcopter.

A more ambitious design, however, is based on “transmutation” and “energy hopping” technologies that are still being developed. In a nutshell, it could turn any surface, like a desk or a shelf, into a wireless charging area. Then you have small wireless charging stations that can transfer power from a central hub and distribute it even in areas out of reach of your desk. Pretty much like how mesh routers work today, except spreading electrical power instead of data.

Although the concepts in this collection still look like your conventional technical products, the technology it relies on opens the door to even more flexible designs. Anything on your desk or shelf, be it an accessory or even a piece of decoration, can become one of those satellite charging hubs. With wireless computer peripherals and data connections, such a design could lead to cleaner and tidier workspaces, unless of course, you start cluttering your table with even more devices to charge.

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Of the many things that smartphone buyers look for, cameras and battery life probably rank the highest, even over display quality. Capturing memories is a very important part of what people use smartphones for, but an extremely short battery life can ruin even the most powerful smartphone. In fact, the more powerful a device is, the faster it will drain its battery. While batteries themselves haven’t evolved as fast as smartphones, charging technologies have been growing in leaps and bounds. In the past, super-fast charging speeds have been exclusive to high-end, premium phones, but the new Infinix NOTE 40 smartphones are bringing that technology and convenience to a wider and younger audience that also cares just as much about style as they do the rest of the phone’s specs.

Designer: Infinix

Although there are research and innovations that attempt to improve the quality of smartphone batteries, they’re pretty much still the same packs that we’ve been using for years. Manufacturers have poured their efforts into improving charging speeds instead, making sure that people spend as little time as possible when they do need to plug the phone in. That’s what Infinix’s new All-Round FastCharge 2.0 technology is trying to accomplish, bringing speed and versatility to users’ charging experience.

Infinix NOTE 40

Infinix NOTE 40

This technology supports rapid charging at 70W for the new Infinix NOTE 40 and NOTE 40 Pro (4G), as well as blazing fast 100W speeds for the Infinix NOTE 40 Pro (5G) and NOTE 40 Pro+ 5G. Thanks to Infinix’s self-developed Cheetah X1 chip, these phones can boast reaching 50% in just minutes (8 minutes for the Infinix NOTE 40 Pro+ 5G, to be precise) while still providing safety and longevity. Additional charging highlights include Bypass Charging 2.0 to minimize heat generation when playing games while the phone is plugged in, 20W wireless charging, and, perhaps most interesting, Infinix’s own brand of magnetic wireless charging technology, MagCharge.

Infinix NOTE 40 Pro (4G)

Infinix NOTE 40 Pro (4G)

Infinix NOTE 40 Pro (5G)

The Infinix NOTE 40 series is designed to cater to a younger audience that appreciates a more distinctive and livelier aesthetic than most gray, black, or even white phones in the market. That’s why Infinix adopted an urban theme for the phone’s designs, creating a sleek and modern appearance through smooth curves, colors, and materials. The Vintage Green, for example, tries to evoke a sense of charm for retro styles and uses vegan leather to add a bit of luxury to the finish. Titan Gold’s mix of blue and yellow tries to capture the image of the sun setting over the city’s horizon.

Infinix NOTE 40 Pro+ (5G)

Infinix NOTE 40 Pro+ (5G)

In terms of hardware, the Infinix NOTE 40 runs on MediaTek’s mid-range chips, paired with 8 or 12GB of RAM. All four models in this series get a 108MP main camera, though only the Pro variants put optical image stabilization (OIS) on it. The brand also introduces an AI-powered Active Halo lighting feature for dynamic notifications and accents to give a little life to your smartphone usage. The Infinix NOTE 40 series launches globally this month, available in Vintage Green, Obsidian Black, and Titan Gold colorways. A special BMW DesignWorks Racing Edition will be coming later this year to truly drive home the phone’s super-fast charging speed.

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