There's been plenty of talk of ‘wireless power' recently, and a range of forward-thinking companies have been showing off their particular brands of revolutionary gadget-charging at trade shows for some time. One of these is WildCharge, makers of a conductive surface designed to make boosting battery power in portables such as mobile phones, digital cameras and MP3 players as simple as placing it on a table.

The device is around the size of a mouse pad and consists of a series of conductive metal strips. The pad itself must be connected to mains power but only actually switches itself on when a portable device is detected, so we can see it being placed quite conveniently on a telephone table or other area of the home where you might typically place a phone or MP3 player.

Unfortunately, any ideas that the charger employs some sort of mystical electro-manipulation to get charge from the pad to a battery should be dismissed from the start, as the actual process involved is far simpler than it might sound.

In order to use the WildCharge a device that needs charging must first be placed in a rubberised ‘skin' that has built-in charging terminals at the back. In truth, then, this is simply a way to bridge power, albeit in a rather unique way, across a series of connections. Skins are currently available for the Apple iPhone and BlackBerry and although these are relatively svelte and obviously offer added benefits in terms of protection, those who buy these sorts of devices for their aesthetic merits may not be too happy covering them up.

Of course, WildCharge would be narrowing its target audience quite dramatically if it were to only appeal to these two ‘skinnable' phones, so to make things a bit more attractive to a wider audience it's also possible to buy attachments for some Pocket PCs and Nokia phones and there's a ‘universal' PowerDisc available with seven different adaptors.

These include common connectors for Nokia, Palm, LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson as well as Micro USB and Mini USB, so should cover the majority of everyday handhelds. The PowerDisc magnetically attaches to the WildCharge pad and the appropriate connector should then be attached with one of the supplied cables. In essence this works very well, but the fact that you're actually having to plug the device in does detract somewhat from the ‘wireless' aspirations of the unit.

Thankfully there's a couple of other benefits on offer here, such as the fact that it can charge multiple devices simultaneously and that there's no apparent overhead on charge times: in our tests it took no longer to fully charge a mobile phone and MP3 player than when plugged directly into the wall. Those concerned about safety should also be reassured by the fact that it automatically switches off when a foreign object (such as a hand or finger) makes sufficient contact with the pad.

The WildCharger Pad itself isn't overly expensive, but when you consider that skins cost upwards of £20 and a universal charger unit costs £14, things start to mount up. Despite this we can see it being a very useful concept with the right support, but for now will place it in the ‘early adopter' category as it doesn't have quite enough appeal to break into the mass market in its current guise.

Verdict
The WildCharger Pad is certainly innovative but at present it's expensive for the advantages it offers and isn't nearly as ‘wireless' as we'd hoped. If and when portables start including charge terminals built directly into cases we could see such a pad taking off and potentially becoming a mainstay in the modern home, but until then it'll mainly be confined to owners of iPhones and other skinnable gadgets as a luxury purchase.

Company: WildCharge

Contact: 020 8446 4407

Tags: nokia mobile phone sony ericsson universal serial bus wildcharge blackberry iphone lg corp.