Actually we’re transmitting power wirelessly all the time. Cellular towers, wifi devices all work on the principle of transmitting electrical power over the air.
When these signals are demodulated in the device the current stream is converted into a digital signal which is then processed by the client.
Therefore we have both transmitters and receivers capable of manipulating energy wirelessly.
However the energy is very small. Comparatively speaking our electrical devices need much more power to operate. Signals over the air decay rapidly as the distance from the source increases.
In effect wireless electrical transfer would only be good at very small distances or the power of radiation would have to be drastically increased.
From this FCC document
“Although the FCC permits an effective radiated power (ERP) of up to 500 watts per channel (depending on the tower height), the majority of cellular or PCS cell sites in urban and suburban areas operate at an ERP of 100 watts per channel or less.
An ERP of 100 watts corresponds to an actual radiated power of 5-10 watts, depending on the type of antenna used. In urban areas, cell sites commonly emit an ERP of 10 watts per channel or less. For PCS cell sites, even lower ERPs are typical. As with all forms of electromagnetic energy, the power density from a cellular or PCS transmitter rapidly decreases as distance from the antenna increases.”
From the point of view of physics you can capture this energy and use to store in a battery, no problem. But it would be a net loss as compared to the power delivered to you with wired lines.
So yes we can charge devices wirelessly.
Useful Trivia
Sun radiates 3.83 x 10^26 watts of energy wirelessly, a small fraction of which we look capture in fixed solar panels.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-estimated-power-radiated-by-the-Sun
I think it might not be such a bad idea to create devices that radiate sun’s power as electromagnetic waves that can be stored in remote batteries. Losses here don’t matter because everything is free. We can try to optimize for convenience and create a wireless power distribution system that augments (not replaces) the wired power distribution.
workrock 