# True Wireless Power is FINALLY here (building a TRULY wire-free setup)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyR2-C9ggi0

[00:00] Check out this light.
[00:03] It doesn't have a built-in battery, nor is it connected to anything, and yet it's illuminated.
[00:09] Almost like magic.
[00:12] Well, what you're actually looking at is fully 3D wireless power delivery.
[00:16] And it could change the way we power and charge our devices forever.
[00:21] Imagine a world where everything at your desk, your keyboard, speakers, even the monitor are powered completely wirelessly in perpetuity.
[00:28] No cables ever.
[00:31] And I don't know about you, but that's a future I would love to see.
[00:36] And honestly, I think we might be there.
[00:40] So, join me on a journey of discovery as we see just what the future of power delivery might look like as we build a truly wirefree setup where everything, and I do mean everything, is powered completely wirelessly from an invisible dome of energy.
[00:56] It's pretty wild.
[00:56] Now,
[01:01] It's worth noting that the method by which this works is not at all like the wireless charging pads you might be familiar with for phones, although it is very similar.
[01:09] So, they're a great example to understand how it works.
[01:13] These chargers use a coil of wire to generate a magnetic field that flips in polarity thousands of times a second.
[01:21] Think of it like an ultraast spinning magnet, only with no moving parts.
[01:26] When another coil is placed in close proximity, this continually changing magnetic field induces an electric current within the second coil, transferring power wirelessly.
[01:38] This is great for phone charging pads where the phone can be positioned precisely on top.
[01:42] But as it requires almost direct contact in order to work, its use cases are somewhat limited.
[01:47] The 3D wireless power system, however, can cover a very large area defined by the perimeter of a single length of wire.
[01:56] This wire generates a magnetic field in exactly the same way as the charging pad, only.
[02:02] It flips its polarity significantly more rapidly, millions of times per second rather than thousands.
[02:07] The technology also relies on being precisely tuned to resonate at this transmission frequency, allowing power to be efficiently transferred to devices anywhere within the power dome at tightly controlled power levels to make it safe for general use.
[02:23] It's wireless power that just works.
[02:27] Now, this particular unit has been designed to be embedded within a desktop.
[02:32] So, that's exactly what I'm going to do with mine.
[02:34] For my attempt at this, I'm going to use plywood as the main core of the desk, as it's pretty easy to work with and keeps the build simple because making compartments for components is just a case of cutting out holes with a jigsaw.
[02:47] The first of these is a set of cutouts for the control box and its power supply with a shallow channel routed out for the wireless power delivery ring.
[02:56] This keeps it nice and straight.
[02:59] And as the wood doesn't interfere with the generated magnetic.
[03:03] Field, it's a great way of housing it invisibly.
[03:06] Before permanently covering it up though, I do want to give the plywood a nicer appearance.
[03:10] My first thought was to use hardwood veneer for this, but unless you apply it perfectly, it can look a bit ropey.
[03:17] So instead, I'm going to be using some ash hardwood lengths that have been left over from a previous project.
[03:23] And I can simply glue them in place on top of the plywood.
[03:28] Being off cuts, they aren't the straightest, and there are a few knots and cracks.
[03:31] But after filling these and sanding everything down, it's just the look I like in a desk.
[03:35] A soft, light appearance with some rustic texture to be reminded that the wood is in fact real.
[03:41] I'll give it an oil to finish the surface off in a minute.
[03:44] But before that, there's more to do underneath.
[03:46] You see, making a completely wire-free computer desk would be pretty pointless if I still had a computer and all of its associated wires causing chaos around it.
[03:58] So, my plan is to hide the computer within the desk.
[04:01] Thanks to the plywood building.
[04:05] Method, this is incredibly easy for me to do as all that's needed is an additional layer with some more cutouts, mostly for wires, but there's also space for a little bidirectional cooling fan to push air over the power supplies as they would likely overheat otherwise, what with them being about to be boxed in.
[04:23] To one side, you can see that I've left an area completely open.
[04:24] And this is for the computer itself.
[04:27] Yes, it's very small, and that's because I'll be using a Framework mainboard, which is a full computer system built into a single board.
[04:36] These are really intended for upgradeable and repairable laptops, but they can be speced to be pretty powerful.
[04:42] And thanks to their incredibly thin form factor, they're perfect for building into projects like this.
[04:46] And that's it.
[04:49] That was the easiest desk PC I've ever built.
[04:54] Now, for USB port access, I've added some holes on the side piece of wood, but other than that, there won't be any real indication that there's a PC inside here at all, especially once it's closed.
[05:05] Up with a bottom panel.
[05:08] Now, I am mounting a USB hub to the bottom here for connectivity, but as it's a bit of a bulky one, I may swap it out for a slimline version at a later date.
[05:16] Anyway, to keep with the rustic appearance, I'm going with some aged iron effect hairpin legs, which match it quite well and give it plenty of support.
[05:24] They also help to hide the main's power cable, which feeds not only the internal PC, but also the wireless power ring.
[05:31] Now, one of the best advantages of having used real hardwood lengths to encase the desk in is that they can be sanded down to make the corners rounded, which looks not only quite smart, but again emphasizes that it is real wood.
[05:44] As this kind of grain wouldn't be visible on veneer.
[05:49] Now, a raw wood surface would stain easily even just with water.
[05:52] So, to protect it, I'm adding a few coats of raw effect Osmo Oil, which has a pigment in it to prevent the wood from darkening too much after application.
[06:02] This is my favorite way of finishing ash as it keeps it light and.
[06:07] Modern looking.
[06:09] The end result is a decent looking hardwood desk with a secret wireless power system built in.
[06:15] Now, this desk is actually only one aspect of this project.
[06:17] We still need to build the various devices that are going to be powered wirelessly from it to make hopefully the ultimate truly wireless PC setup.
[06:27] And to do this, I think the first thing we ought to do is check out the receiving rings to see just what kind of power we have to play with.
[06:35] Unsurprisingly, the larger these rings are, the more power they can capture from the magnetic field, up to 10 W with the larger rings.
[06:42] This is quite a bit of power considering that it's being received wirelessly.
[06:46] So, before we start making the different PC related devices, let's see if there's enough power deliverable to keep a mug of coffee perpetually warm.
[06:57] For this, I've bought some little resistive heating pads from Amazon.
[07:02] When power passes through these, they heat up quite a bit.
[07:05] So, I'm simply.
[07:08] Going to stick them to the base of a borosilicate glass mug, which has excellent heat endurance in the hopes that the heat will transfer to any liquid that's inside.
[07:17] To give the ring somewhere to rest, I've 3D printed a little base to hold it, which also allows the mug to be placed on top.
[07:24] When in the vicinity of the desk, the ring powers the pads, which start to heat up.
[07:29] And this is looking very promising, as you can see through this thermal camera.
[07:33] A lot of this heat though will be lost to the surrounding air.
[07:37] So to make it more efficient and to make it look a bit nicer, I've 3D printed an outer shell which can be placed over it with a little bit of sheep's wool to aid in insulation.
[07:47] It would obviously need to be sealed and made watertight if it were an actual product, but it will do for now as a proof of concept.
[07:54] Giving it a test with some boiling water.
[07:55] The temperature does drop away from boiling, but it stabilizes in the mid-70 C range, which is a temperature at the upper end of what's comfortable to drink.
[08:05] What's remarkable about this is that it just stays there at this temperature.
[08:10] Remember, it's not plugged into anything.
[08:11] And as someone who likes a coffee beside me while I'm working and finds that it goes cold far too quickly normally, this is quite remarkable.
[08:21] And I've never seen anything quite like it.
[08:24] Imagine a dining table with this technology built in.
[08:26] It could keep your plates and mugs perpetually warm.
[08:28] And I feel like that would be kind of a revolutionary idea.
[08:33] And I don't think it presently exists.
[08:35] So, who knows?
[08:37] Maybe this technology will be coming to a dining table near you in the near future.
[08:41] But now that we've seen just what the system's capable of at the upper end of the power scale, what about the smaller rings, which obviously can't deliver as much power?
[08:51] The smallest of the ones I have, which is just a bit larger than a thumb, can only deliver about 100 m or so, but that's actually still plenty for another excellent use case, which is powering computer peripherals.
[09:06] These are almost always wireless these days, but when they run.
[09:11] Out of battery power and suddenly cut out, it can be super annoying, especially if you're doing some important work at the time.
[09:17] Having them perpetually powered without ever having to think about charging them would be a dream.
[09:23] A dream that's about to become a reality.
[09:26] You see, as the smaller rings regulate their power to 5 Vs, a USBC connector can simply be soldered to the output and the whole thing housed inside a little 3D printed case.
[09:37] This can then just be literally plugged in.
[09:40] And that's it.
[09:43] The keyboard sees the voltage and starts charging immediately.
[09:46] No wires required.
[09:49] The power provided far exceeds the energy use of the keyboard.
[09:52] So, even though it's not much power overall, it will never need any other source of power ever.
[09:59] Having the dongle stick out like this doesn't look amazing though.
[10:04] And while it does work with the mouse in just the same way, a better option would be to have it mounted internally.
[10:08] This mouse is a perfect guinea pig or maybe.
[10:13] Mouse pig as its PCB ends before reaching the back of the casing, leaving a perfect area for the receiver ring.
[10:20] Before mounting it in place though, I'm going to remove the battery.
[10:23] You see, it's becoming very popular to have extremely lightweight mice these days, and shaving even the 10 g that this battery weighs off its overall weight will make a dramatic difference for high-end esports titles in particular.
[10:37] As the ring itself barely weighs anything, we've gone from a 55 g mouse to a quite remarkable 46 g mouse with a mod that actually improves its usability thanks to it never needing to be charged.
[10:50] It just works when it's on the desk.
[10:52] Very, very nice indeed.
[10:54] This feels like the future.
[10:55] Now, we're only just scratching the surface of what's possible here with computer peripherals because the medium rings, which are a step up, can deliver almost a watt each.
[11:07] And a watt is actually quite a lot when it comes to audio.
[11:10] So, it's got me thinking, can we make a set of truly
[11:14] Wireless stereo speakers?
[11:18] Hm.
[11:18] Let's find out.
[11:21] Wireless Bluetooth speakers are of course incredibly common.
[11:24] And while we could just modify one to have a receiving ring built into it, we'd be missing out on an opportunity to make an independent pair of speakers that utilize true wireless stereo, also known as TWWS.
[11:36] TWWS allows two Bluetooth audio boards to talk to one another and synchronize their stereo reproduction, allowing each to play either the left or right channel without introducing delay issues.
[11:48] My chain to make it work is as follows: two medium-sized power receiving rings for about 1 and a half watts of power delivery, followed by a power filter board to reduce any interference noise from them, a true wireless stereo Bluetooth board, amplifier, and then finally the speaker itself.
[12:06] Now, I found in previous projects that 3D printing is actually quite practical for making enclosures for speakers.
[12:12] So, that's what I've done here with plenty of internal trussing to.
[12:16] Reduce panel resonance.
[12:19] It's quite a simple design, but as the drivers themselves are quite high quality, they should sound pretty decent.
[12:25] Once everything is stuffed inside with a little sheep's wool to reduce internal reflections, they can be closed up, essentially completing these 3D printed speakers.
[12:33] They could look a lot nicer aesthetically, though, so it's time to get creative with some external materials to hide the fact that they're 3D printed.
[12:42] Despite my reticence to use it earlier, veneer is actually a really good option for small parts like this, as it's easier to get right.
[12:49] And after trimming and oiling, it looks quite convincingly like a wooden piece.
[12:54] The sides though still remain very obviously 3D printed.
[12:57] So to hide these as well, we can use an equally simple but effective technique, textured vinyl wallpaper.
[13:05] This can simply be stuck around the perimeter and it's remarkable just what kind of difference it makes.
[13:13] Now being ovalshaped, they don't stand up very well on their own.
[13:16] So the
[13:18] The plan is to screw on some speaker spikes which, along with some edging trim, finish off the speakers beautifully.
[13:27] For such simple speakers, they do look quite nice.
[13:28] But how do they sound?
[13:31] Well, placing them within the power dome, they immediately connect to one another and the PC and sound decent for their size.
[13:46] So, our setup is really starting to come together now.
[13:49] We've got our wireless mouse and keyboard, as well as a set of pretty decent truly wireless stereo speakers.
[13:55] But what about a microphone?
[13:59] You see, microphones are actually notoriously bad for getting messy pretty quickly.
[14:03] You've got the interface, its power supply, the microphone cable, and unless you're really careful, it can get pretty tangled.
[14:10] But if we make a wireless one, all of those issues just suddenly go away.
[14:14] But the key is, can we make one that's high enough of a quality to be?
[14:19] Useful in a studio environment?
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[15:59] So, powering our microphone is going to be easy.
[16:02] We already have the power receiving rings and one of them will be more than enough for what we need.
[16:08] However, how are we going to handle the audio transmission?
[16:13] Bluetooth audio isn't going to be suitable here because of the latency that it introduces.
[16:16] But thankfully, a lot of lowcost audio transmitters have become.
[16:21] Available the past few years, and they could be just what we need.
[16:25] These use a direct 2.4 GHz connection, so don't exhibit any delay or sync issues, unlike Bluetooth-based microphones, and so have great potential for good quality audio.
[16:36] Being cheap, they almost always sound awful though.
[16:41] And this is because they use really bad microphones and preamps, wasting the otherwise good wireless protocol that they use for audio transmission.
[16:51] Thankfully though, these two components are the easiest components to upgrade.
[16:55] You see, most microphones in devices like this are of the permanently polarized electret variety, and much higher quality capsules are available at many different sizes, some of which are absolutely massive.
[17:10] Larger capsules like this have better noise performance and overall audio dynamics, and as they have the same underlying technology, they are essentially drop-in replacements.
[17:19] To help it along though, I'm adding a.
[17:21] Better quality preamp to boost the audio before it enters the transmitter unit, which takes the load off the poor quality internal preamp, drastically reducing its background hiss.
[17:32] The intention here is to have these boards mounted above a power ring in a little 3D printed platform.
[17:36] But instead of including the capsule on top here, I'm going to extend its mounting position quite far upwards with a thin acrylic tube.
[17:46] This lifts the capsule closer to the source of the sound, which will be a voice in this instance, as proximity is very important for capturing clean audio.
[17:55] It does pick up a lot of desk and handling noises, though.
[17:57] So, to fix this, I'm going to build a little shock mount for it.
[17:59] What I've come up with for this is a little frame made of 3D printed parts from which I can suspend the capsule with elastic.
[18:07] The elastic prevents any vibrations from being able to reach the capsule itself.
[18:12] And another benefit of the frame for it is that it can double as a passive shield to protect the microphone capsule from any distortion caused by talking too closely.
[18:23] To it.
[18:23] It's somewhat unusual looking for a microphone, but it is extremely practical.
[18:28] It can be placed directly in front of a user and as the capsule itself is held very close, it makes for a fantastic sounding output.
[18:37] So, it certainly looks the part, but how does it sound?
[18:40] Well, this entire segment has actually been narrated on it, and you can be the judge of its quality versus the other segments which were narrated on my high-end expensive microphone and interface.
[18:52] So, I'll be having some buyers remorse if you guys think it sounds the same.
[18:56] But either way, I'd say the setup is complete now, but you guys might be looking at the elephant in the room and saying, "Matt, what about the monitor?"
[19:04] You'll have seen this throughout the video as I installed it on a standard support arm earlier with two wires going to it.
[19:10] One for power and one for the video signal.
[19:13] These wires kind of go against the spirit of a truly wirefree setup though.
[19:18] So, let's see if we can do something.
[19:23] About it.
[19:25] Thinking somewhat out of the box, ideally I'd like to have this floating above the desk, perhaps suspended with some sort of transparent cord so that it's almost like a hologram.
[19:33] But as I don't have a power ring large enough to capture the required power at this distance from the desk surface, I've settled for building a couple of rings into a custom stand instead.
[19:44] This provides plenty of power for the monitor, which can receive its signal through a little wireless HDMI dongle pair, the other end of which goes into the computer, so it can receive its signal over the air.
[19:55] It's very cool to have it able to be positioned anywhere on the desk without any wires at all.
[20:02] But as I do really want to make it floating one day, I will keep experimenting and release a YouTube short on it if I get it working.
[20:06] But for now, the truly wireless desk setup is complete.
[20:13] Everything here, the speakers, microphone, even the heated mug, they never need any other source of power.
[20:18] They just work elegantly wirelessly.
[20:25] Now, this is a clean
[20:27] setup. One major downside of this
[20:30] system, though, is that it's actually
[20:31] really difficult to integrate some
[20:33] devices with it. The most major one, I
[20:36] think, being smartphones. You see,
[20:38] sufficiently dense PCBs prevent the
[20:41] receiving rings from being able to
[20:42] collect power from the magnetic field.
[20:45] So, it's not possible to simply mount
[20:46] one to the back of a phone. It would
[20:48] need quite a bit of development to
[20:50] integrate one properly. You could
[20:52] totally make a phone case though that
[20:54] holds them far enough away. And with
[20:56] some of the larger rings, you could get
[20:58] pretty decent charging rates when the
[21:00] case is open on a desk like this.
[21:03] Another thing to note is that while the
[21:04] efficiency is overall pretty good, there
[21:07] is about a 10watt base power load. So,
[21:09] if you're powering just a keyboard and
[21:11] mouse, it would be somewhat wasteful.
[21:14] I'm sure that this could be tuned down
[21:15] to match specific use cases, though. So,
[21:17] it would be cool to see some kind of
[21:19] universal desk mat, for example, that
[21:21] provides power to peripherals using this
[21:24] technology. With that all said, what
[21:26] would you like to see wirelessly
[21:28] powered, even if it's super niche and
[21:31] far removed from the items that I've
[21:33] introduced in this video? The reason why
[21:36] I ask is because although the wireless
[21:38] power unit isn't available for
[21:40] widespread purchase just yet, it is
[21:42] available as an evaluation kit, which is
[21:44] technically what mine is. And if you
[21:46] have a killer idea that you'd like to
[21:48] prototype, you should be able to
[21:50] purchase one from the company if you
[21:52] send them an email. I've placed a link
[21:54] in the description with more information
[21:56] as well as a forum thread if you'd like
[21:58] to share your own ideas and download the
[22:01] individual files for all of the items
[22:03] that we've built in this video. Some of
[22:05] which you could easily integrate into
[22:07] being USB powered if you wanted to. So,
[22:10] I hope you've enjoyed seeing what the
[22:12] future of power delivery might hold. If
[22:15] you haven't already, don't forget to
[22:17] subscribe. But other than that, I'm
[22:19] Matt. You've been watching DIY Perks,
[22:21] and I hope to see you next time. Goodbye
[22:23] for now.