No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

In reply to this tweet:

Powermat replied:

So - would you buy a Powerpak (a replaceable battery that can be indctively charged using a Powermat) for N900 if it was available, are you in two minds or would you give it a miss?

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Aren't the N900 using the same battery as one of the other phones they have plans for? I'm not entirely sure.

If they're not too expensive, yeah.

EDIT: Apparently they manufacture a special battery door / case, and not just a special battery.

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

If they could it last longer (more mAh) then definitely, otherwise I probably wouldn't see the point imo

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Definatley, its made for people like me, I am as lazy as they come!

Really like the Palm Pres Touchstone and that has awful battery life as well.

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

I think even if they were slightly lower capacity the increased ease of charging (just put it down) would mean you didn't notice the difference.

I'd have a single device Powermat at work and a single or two device mat at home in which case the device would be on charge most of the day instead of being on charge only when I notice it getting a bit low and I have to fuss with the (potentially dodgy) USB connector.

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

where did you manage to find some specs?

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Your right, n900 uses the same battery as the 5800 Xpress music....But then again, as you imply, the n900 would probably need a new back casing to support the battery...

Hopefully powermat would see the advantage and sell a new battery casing for the n900.

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Interesting, think we would need to tell them though

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Yeah, the N900 BL-5J is used by the 5800 Express and X6, both of which will be supported by a Powerpak battery.

However since the back cover needs to include some sort of inductive coil and an electrical connection from the back cover to the battery there's a possibility that the "back cover" will be fully integrated with the battery (ie. one component) and thus bespoke for each device. That would mean producing a combined battery/back cover (ie. Powerpak) only for high volume devices, which the N900 probably isn't.

Then again, assuming the back cover and battery are indeed separate components why not just sell the inductive version of the BL-5J separately from the back cover, and charge a decent price for the N900 back cover that covers any cost of a relatively short run - they'll still make a nice profit selling lots of power mats! :)

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Then again, having looked at the pictures in this post which documents with photographs how to replace the N8 battery I'm really not sure how Powermat intend to support the N8 unless the Powerpak battery is the entire inductive charging system with no replacement back cover required (in which case an X6/5800 Powerpak should work with the N900, unless there are other technical issues outstanding).

It certainly doesn't look like you can easily replace the back cover on the N8 (note that in the article they switch between a blue and black N8 in the photographs).

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Powermat presumably doesn't conform to the new Qi standard so it probably isn't worth investing in induction just yet.

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Fair point but how long will the Qi consortium take before they have product in the market place, how long before it's supported by Nokia (who I know are a member) as standard? I think including Qi technology as standard in their next high-end device would be a key differentiator for Nokia, but I doubt it will happen.

Given how slowly Qi has been moving forward I think it's still another 18-24 months away from having anything on the market, and even longer before it appears as standard in Nokia devices.

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Are you really considering spending
3X $60 for the mats + $30-40 for the battery+cover = $210-$220 for a charger?

For that price you can get a second phone (including charger), or some 50 betteries+chargers

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Yeah, because the mats can be used for multiple phones/devices (certainly at home) and the convenience would be great. So often in the past I have realised the phone has almost no charge at the end of the working day and if I decide to go out on the town I'm left without a phone for most of the evening. Keeping the battery topped up throughout the day almost without thinking about it by using a Powermat would mean the phone is always at 100% charge when I leave the office.

Obviously the mats are one-off purchases, and can be used with other phones in future as I upgrade devices (assuming those devices are supported by Powermat, and my guess is the company will support most mass market devices in future).

And if you have a partner and/or kids at home each with their own phone the reduced number of chargers plugged into wall sockets and left on 24x7 may even save money in the long-term - one large mat with one charger could serve up to 3 or more people in one household.

Eventually you'll just be buying new batteries/covers for each new device, so $30-$40 for each device isn't that big a deal for this level of convenience. Maybe at some point in the future Qi will make Powermat redundant but until then it's not that big an outlay.

I could, but neither would be very practical so I'd just have wasted that money.

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Any charging method is better than the detachable-usb-port one ;)

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Any reduction on the wear to the microUSB port is a worthwhile investment. I wonder how the N900 software would react to the battery being charged without interaction with the USB hardware though?

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

The N900 battery.. well let's admit it, sucks. It doesn't last more than a day, so I believe I speak for everyone when I say that given the right price (and maybe a mAh increase) everybody would love to have one.

Yet another good reason.

That's a good question actually. The software may not be able to detect that it's charging, however since it updates the icon in the status regardless of the state of the battery, you should see the level go up.

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

This also sounds like the kind of thing Mugen would be interested in, unless there is something proprietary in the casing.

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Would be? As far as I know Mugen already released a battery and cover http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...cFR7Qb2_zGvyyQ

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Isn't the power management hardware (RETU?) on most Nokias (inc. N900) the same though?

Would the power management hardware in the N8 (also charged over USB) be implemented significantly differently to that in the N900?

Technical considerations such as this may be one more reason why the N900 isn't supported, but I'd have thought that Nokia would have a fairly standard power management system in place across most of their phones.

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

N900 doesn't have RETU.

N900 power management consists almost entirely out of off the shelf components from Texas Instruments

TWL4030 "Gaia" energy management chip
bq24150 battery charger
bq27200 fuel gauge (used minimally by maemo)

The software seems to correct itself eventually if battery states change behind its back. The battery meter freezes at some point until the value it froze at is closer to what seems like something closer to the truth. So it'd probably be possible to charge the battery directly behind N900's back, and only have a confused meter as result. Who cares if it goes "boing Battery Low *boing boing*" 12 hours before dying? :D

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

I guess that could make things tricky for the likes of Powermat if the N900 is "non-standard" compared with high-end Symbian based devices (fairly sure these did and may still use Retu). A messed up battery meter could be quite annoying though - maybe a software update would fix that, but very unlikely while there is no requirement for such a fix (chicken and egg).

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Well the issue is that it's actually hard to figure out nuch more than "It's full"/It's not full and it's not empty"/"It's empty" after something has gone mess with the battery behind your back.

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

so couple hundred bucks once in 3 years is acceptable?

or should it be reasonable to wait and see which technology wins?

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

shame that the right price for majority is something like 50% of the manufacturing costs....

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Yep, doesn't sound too bad. Of course the investment won't be entirely lost as it will keep on working if/when I give it away to someone as I usually do when I upgrade a phone, but that kind of assumes the rest of the world will have switched over to Qi technology which is by no means certain.

And I refuse to believe people here would balk at spending a couple hundred bucks over 3 years - how much have people spent on their N900s already?

That would be lovely - in the meantime I'd rather buy something that's here and now. I doubt anything from Qi will materialise this year and probably not next either.

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Quite possibly - and likewise the X6. :(

Until we know more about how Powermat have designed the Powerpaks it's impossible to say for sure - it could well be the reason why the N900 isn't on their list, along with "non-standard" charging hardware and/or the need for a bespoke back cover.

It should all become clear once they launch these things for all the other devices but ours... :cool:

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

Guys,
I'm all for tech and happy to spend money though within reason. You still have to justify the need and then vers cost. They are very costly and the hassle of placing the case on, plug, not being able to use whilst in charge etc, stuff that, pretty much pointless for a phone.

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

the point is the risk. you take a risk that you blew 200 bucks if other technology becomes standard.

it is expensive to be first in line to buy these things.

and second point: charging comes free of charge with the phone. so you are basically paying 200 bucks just for the charging part. too much imo.

just keep in mind that when there is this kind of uncertainty, the guys who spend their money to the technology bare all the risks.

Re: No Powermat inductive charging for N900 planned
 

OK, we geddit - this isn't for you.

Nobody is trying to convince you to buy this (not that it's even available or an option). All technology has a limited life span until it becomes obsolete, some more limited than others, and we can all work out the risk versus return/reward and make the appropriate decisions whether to spend our own money or not, thank you very much. :)

No sh1t Sherlock! :)