At the recent Retail Tech Expo held in Tokyo Panasonic showcased a prototype solar powered inductive charging table which is able to juice up devices simply by placing them on the table.
Although inductive coupling products have been on the market for some time, what was different about this product was how the charging panel on the table connected directly with the battery itself. A Panasonic employee demonstrated how it was possible to simply place the battery on the table and it would begin charging without any coupling or 3rd party accessories, as the circuits are integrated with the batteries themselves.
With the array of mobile devices in use today users are always looking for a quick top up of battery power on the go. Incorporating this kind of product into city restaurants and coffee shops would provide a very quick and easy way to keep the mobile offices powered, customers simply place their devices on the table as they have their coffee and automatically charging without any further cables or docking.
Sanyo’s portable Eneloop chargers, some solar powered, are already popular products on that market in Japan, so it makes an obvious next step to introduce this kind of technology into the market as well. We wrote recently about the rise in demand for alternatively powered appliances given the recent power shortages in Japan, coupled with the rise in the “eco-conscious” consumer around the world means that this kind of innovative product would potentially be hugely popular and useful.
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Darrell is a native of the U.K. and has been in Japan since 2002. He consults on innovation and strategy at the 
