Delhi-based Tapan Mittal trying to crowdfund his innovation ‘Qitah’, a wireless charger
Tapan Mittal is a New Delhi based entrepreneur who graduated as an Electrical Engineer from Delhi College of Engineering (batch of 2005). He went on to work at Hewlett Packard and also at Electronic Components and Tuners, a small partnership business which is in the business of manufacturing electronic components for OEM. After these stints, Tapan focused on harnessing their expertise in electromagnetics and embedded electronics.
“Finally, in early 2013, the right opportunity hit me when I bought a Google Nexus 4, a phone that could charge wirelessly. Looking for a wireless charger, I found none to be to my liking. That's when Qitah (pronounced as Chee-tah) was conceptualized. The final product has been launched after months of hard work,” says Tapan. Completely a single man effort, the Qitah has a couple of configurations:
a) one that holds the phone at an ergonomic 40-degree angle - best for office desk scenarios
b) other when collapsed at a sensible 7 degrees for your night stand/side table or hotel room
“This also makes the Qitah the only wireless charger with an incline that is travel friendly,” adds Tapan.
There are quite a few of these being made, and the technology of wireless charging is based on the Qi (read Chee). Qi is an international standard which allows for proximity power, based on magnetic induction - both the charger and the phone have coil(s) to transfer/receive power and electronics to communicate the needs/status of the phone. Any wireless charger that is built on the Qi standard will work with any Qi phone/tab/device. The device itself needs to have a Qi inductive coil and associated electronics (e.g., Nokia Lumia 920 series, Google Nexus 4, etc).
Samsung, Nokia, LG have all come out with wireless chargers, but are flat pad forms. “The biggies are more interested in having the feature in their phone. We're more interested in using the technology to solve actual problems faced by us,” believes Tapan. Tapan has a production setup in-house and the electronics have also been prototyped and tested in-house. The injection molding tool will be made in India/China while the assembly will also take place in-house. They have vendors aligned for all the components and have opened up an indiegogo crowd funding campaign to make the prototype a commercial reality.
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