6 reasons to use a mobile router
Many of us would like to be without internet and communication for a while, a break from messengers and social networks. But sometimes the situation is just the opposite: you urgently need to send something, pay or just watch the most important game from your gadget. We already know that the cellular signal is not always stable with one operator. And friends or relatives ask you to turn on modem mode. It’s hardly convenient: the phone quickly runs out of power and heats up. Wireless mobile router will come to the rescue. This unpretentious little thing is a real salvation. We’ll show you why it’s worth buying.
Why do you need a portable Wi-Fi router?
How to set up the Internet in the countryside
During the summer season, my friends and I try to go to the dacha more often. Nature and fresh air – it’s good, but no one can do without quality internet. And we also listen to music and watch sports broadcasts. But each of us uses the services of different communication providers, which do not always work stably in the Moscow region.
A portable router is a great option for staying online in nature or out of town
Yes, and turn on a smartphone with a better signal in modem mode is not very convenient. For this reason, my friend takes a portable 4G router with him: it is enough to leave it in a place in the house where there is a good signal. Several devices can be connected at the same time, and the battery lasts for 5-6 hours of active use. Your vacation will not be spoiled!
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Here’s how to always stay connected
A portable router helps me work from anywhere
Working in the AndroidInsider.ru editorial office, you always need to stay connected. I can’t say that’s a bad thing, but my laptop is almost rooted to my feet. I can’t always turn my smartphone on in hotspot mode – the battery drains too quickly, and the data signal sometimes leaves much to be desired. There is no time to argue about who is to blame – I turn on my mobile router and am ready for any blow of fate and even for the major social networks to collapse in an instant.
How do you start saving money?
A portable Wi-Fi router can help you save money on Internet at home
A friend of mine spends all day at work and only comes home, as he says, at night. During the day, he may be in different places, but he needs to be connected at all times. By the way, he doesn’t have wireless Internet at home – why complicate things and spend money when you can use a handy pocket router with an unlimited plan? It’s a universal solution to all problems. Hotspot is always with you: you use it yourself and share the Internet with your friends when the situation requires it. The main thing is not to forget about charging.
How to use the Internet abroad
When you’re traveling, you just need a pocket router so you won’t be left without a connection.
It seems that the pandemic is slowly receding and other countries are gradually opening up to tourists. Many friends take advantage of this and combine work and travel. Unfortunately, the cost of roaming services is still obscenely high: As they say, Internet for the price of travel. Once again, a multifunctional router comes to the rescue, in which it is enough to insert a local SIM card to access the network from all available devices. With such a handy device, you no longer have to worry about keeping money on your phone balance.
What device to get your grandmother
Get a router so your grandma can always stay connected
Not so long ago we talked about a smart speaker, which will not be sad and will be a great gift for relatives. Unfortunately, such a device requires constant access to the Internet. It is important for calling, for listening to music. As a rule, there is nowhere without Wi-Fi. Why bother with the Internet at home, if the solution lies on the surface – the pocket fi-router is easy to use. The main thing is not to forget to connect it to the network, so it accidentally does not run out of power. Now the smart speaker will always be online, and you will not worry about not using the device.
What are the dangers of public wi-fi
Public hotspots are not known for security. be careful
We are surrounded by wi-fi hotspots everywhere. There are so many that your smartphone has no time to switch between them. Sure, Wi-Fi is great on the subway or in cafes. However, it’s a good breeding ground for scammers: just connect the wrong hotspot, and all your data goes to intruders. If you choose Wi-Fi, keep a handy mobile router by hand. It’s much safer than using a public hotspot.
We found 6 unusual reasons why this simple device is sure to come in handy. Have I used one yet? Tell us about your experience in our Telegram chat!
7 reasons why wireless electricity and a strong wireless board will remain in science fiction
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Wireless boards are convenient: Throw your device on a stand and you don’t have to plug anything in. And how great would it be to use them to charge electric cars!
And why can’t those weird scientists still reproduce Grosseur Tesla technology? It’s weird, you’ve been working for a hundred years and no results.
That’s what almost everyone thinks of modern power transmission technology. After all, it is faster, more convenient, and more reliable (I guess) without wires.
In practice, transmitting small currents without wires over short distances is easily accomplished. However, as soon as large amounts of electricity, increased capacity or removal of large batches of goods are required, serious problems with the simplest physical laws begin to emerge.
And other intractable problems arise.
Nikola Tesla – the great teacher and the great con man
Most of the myths associated with wireless power transmission have come down to humanity from conspiracy theorists and the many myths about the great Serbian-American inventor who were “digested” by them.
In the early 20th century in Colorado Springs, he demonstrated the possibility of transmitting an electromagnetic field at a distance when he managed to shine a light bulb over three kilometers away.
How did he manage this? There is no official answer to this question because the methodology of the experiment remained secret. And well known notes tell a completely different story.
But there are the laws of physics and the impressions of eyewitnesses, which speak of the incredible power of the emitter (certainly for the time): much more energy was expended than required by some light bulbs.
And since there are no numbers, there is no datum – isn’t it a myth, like many other developments? Tesla turned out to be the greatest hoaxer of his time, and modern “successes” allow us to reveal this in all its splendor.
Today they are trying to replicate his work with an investment from New Zealand power company Powerco through local startup EMROD.
According to official information, the EMROD project involves wireless transmission of energy between the recipient and the transmitter within line of sight, and this can actually be ten kilometers.
The created prototype is currently undergoing laboratory tests, and then field tests will begin, during which it is planned to transmit electric power with a capacity of up to 2 kW.
It was found that thanks to the new radio absorbing materials, the efficiency of the receiving antenna (smoothing) is up to 100%, and the efficiency of the forwarding system is up to 70%.
And then they came up with: nothing can have an efficiency of 100%. Nobody cancelled the laws of conservation of energy and the principle of causality: the transmitted wave cannot completely transform into the desired type of energy.
In the case of electricity and real technical devices, things are quite sad.
1. Mobile costs have low efficiency
Today, there are three basic options for a wireless Qi-line: 5 watts, 7.5 watts, 10 watts. By comparison, the most common wired ones are 5 watts, 10 watts, and 18 watts.
The efficiency factor of wired power supplies that convert alternating current to direct current, at which the specified parameters deviate from 50 to 85%. The rest is emitted in the form of heat and is expressed by the heating elements of the electropop.
The minimum condition for Qi to work is a 10-watt charger. Otherwise, nothing works, the board does not work.
At the same time for Qi 10-watt requires a power supply with QC 3.0 of 18 watts or more (more often suggested to use a PSU of 24 watts).
The conversion efficiency is only 55%.
The power transfer from the store to the device is also a source of loss: the phone takes an average of 4.2 W 5W (85% efficiency) and 9.1 W 10W (about 90% efficiency).
You have to make 9.1 watts out of 18 watts with 50% efficiency – is this now called “green economic energy”?
Aren’t there any successful technologies? There are. Theoretically, the problem is simple: increase the voltage, decrease the electricity, and decrease the losses.
In electronics, the battery has a voltage of only 4.35 V, so a smartphone would have to be equipped with a step-down converter. This needs to be calculated
- For certain charging parameters.
- With a voltage reserve
- And have a high loss based on the conversion and features of the transistors used for this
High performance remnants of wireless interfaces, actively promoted by Xiaomi and other Chinese brands, offer higher currents.
At the expense of expensive electronics (and some cost allocation), it is possible to achieve efficiencies of up to 55-70%.
However, this requires high-power power supplies of 65 W or higher, which have quite high losses.
That’s why most manufacturers equip their devices with their own Qi-compatible power supplies. As a result, the total cost of an accessory on the free market can reach 20-40% of the cost of the device itself. Don’t buy anything separately. Why would you buy a more powerful device, albeit likely a new smartphone?
2. No one cancelled the heat loss
The second problem is the thermal losses already mentioned above: the energy that is lost from change to constant during the conversion of electric current and during transmission over a distance is converted into heat.
Heating occurs. Mainly of the charger itself and because of it and invited devices.
In the case of a normal LIPO battery, charging losses are at least 15-20%. Add to this the losses, typical for wireless data transfer – you get a lot of heat.
All this needs to be directed and dissipated somewhere in space: Lipo batteries are very afraid of the heat of 100 degrees for a small fire.
Another problem lies in the wireless store. What it is. A series of electromagnetic coils with multiple chips that transmit a field to the same coils through a charged device.
Poor placement and different coil sizes increase losses and heat, which lowers the cost of charging.
Sometimes they try to solve this with magnets (Magsafe), sometimes by moving the coils or increasing the number of coils, sometimes just by shutting down the process when it heats up. The results are not bad, but only for small currents.
Increase the transfer characteristics – you get a variety of losses. In fact, even 65 watts without accurate positioning can be seen as a small fire.
Is it worth the risk, or should the technology be left as a prototype for when people get used to using wireless boards?
3. wireless electricity interacts with metal
Actually, the current boards are a bit more complicated than just a few coils: at the level of protocol (yes, the charger and appliances communicate with each other) and circuitry.
One value blocks the load from turning on when a metal object hits the electromagnetic emitter.
Once the transmission of the induction coil is matched, the metal inevitably heats up. For example, for the same office clamps, a few minutes is enough, and the plastic begins to melt.
In Magsafe and car holders, the magnets and their mating metal parts move away from the coil, so there is no interaction.
In more complex systems, very precise positioning has to be debugged first. This is unlikely for a car, drone, or base.
Theoretically, it is possible to choose a transmission frequency at which the interaction is minimal (complex coils are required).
A prototype solution exists and has been tested for years. But it has not yet reached the series, and it is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future: the costs are high, the complexity of production and work increases.
In addition, the charging process is more unstable.
4. The harm of electromagnetic radiation has not been proven. And not disproven.
This is the most interesting question, which has a definite answer only with certain devices and limitations. Of course, Qi boards for devices are absolutely safe.
Even the most powerful examples, which are available in retail sales, work only at a short distance: the power of radiation should not exceed 50 mW/cm2 from the store at a distance of 20 cm.
There is a subtlety here: the distance and power are limited by the rules of the communications commissions (in different countries). Since there are assumptions about the possible harm, but they are not unequivocally established.
In addition, due to its properties, the radiation practically does not penetrate: electromagnetic radiation of the coil with current spreads with a circular cut, forming a closed circuit.
Directed radiation requires different frequencies, different powers and different types of radiation. The harm from this, by the way, is easy to study.
In particular, cell phones with low radio emission do not affect the human body: experiments show no negative impact on the human body.
Radiation from high-power stations, such as radars and base stations, at certain frequencies is harmful in the immediate vicinity of the source and can cause discomfort. Otherwise, there is no confirmed information.
What happens with a significant increase in QI-like power? Obviously, it all depends on the specific parameters of current: strength, voltage and frequency.
You can choose them correctly, but because of human stupidity you can always get an abnormal situation.
The “Tesla current transfer method”, loved by geeks, which perfectly ejects automatons, spoils the technique: frequency resonance is inevitable.
But here you just have to get the parameters right to eliminate the interaction. And hope that the tech that is inappropriate in the new standard doesn’t end up lying between the charger and the charged device.
5. The more modern the sources, the less predictable the consequences
Finally, another unresolved physical problem: the superposition of electromagnetic fields. The larger the chargers and their power, the further and farther their waves spread.
Eventually they will start to interact. At first glance, this is not a problem.
Just until someone decides to move some nearby charge, the propagation vector switches to something sensitive to the electromagnetic field.
This “something” could be a communication device, a pacemaker, a communications station, or any other electronic device.
The problem is not that it will be affected by the source – theoretically, even powerful mobile costs can be designed so that they do not affect electronics.
However, the imposing waves will prove to be an unknown quantity that is difficult to predict. Do you need that risk?
Incidentally, rumor has it that this is what “killed” Apple’s wireless charger, which could carry 32 coils (low Jurenta).
“Over time, these harmonics combine and there are very powerful signals in the air,” explains this and that, for example, such radiation can stop a person’s pacemaker if it’s powerful enough. Or shut down someone’s hearing aid. “
William Lamkins, technical vice president of O&S Services
If the harmonica dissipates from an apple machine, the air power may not pass U.S. or EU regulatory tests.
6. Each device needs its own charger
The same problem with the placement of electromagnetic coils ultimately leads to the next thing: a lack of a uniform standard across the industry.
Companies agreed to use low-power QI technology and unified devices. But then Samsung releases Xiaomi models that don’t work to their full potential with other people’s chargers.
The powerful Xiaomi Wireless Lading charger, unveiled a few months ago, only works with precise base bumps.
And it quickly charges the battery to only 50%, subsequently reducing the power from 80 watts to 20 watts. Even at maximum “speed” the efficiency is only 65 watts.
Such charging does not work at low speeds with other smartphones – the coils are of a different size. For the same reason, standard Qi only charges up to 10 watts with the corresponding Mi 11 Ultra.
There needs to be a single process standard, otherwise the infrastructure will only work for one manufacturer.
Also for smartphones, it’s a disadvantage for the user. but what about cars?
Especially when the existing Dynamic prototypes promise incredible 100% efficiency?
7. We must modernize the world’s energy supply
Finally, there is another reason that only electric car opponents remember. The existing world is already entangled with wires of a certain cross-section, advanced electrical grids and equipped power plants.
Any dramatic increase in electricity consumption requires serious modernization.
In Russian newly built industrial cities, this is almost imperceptible. But just imagine: in London there are still houses with “plugs” taken out of thin century-old lines. Whole streets, which were fixed at the beginning of the last century with the personal participation of Westinghouse, have been preserved.
And here it is proposed not just to use electricity everywhere, but to do so with low efficiency and huge heat losses.
Most cities are not ready for that. Because the wireless charge still needs something to power it – that line has to be very thick, growing, and generating energy.
That means you need 50% more wind turbines, solar panels – or some other thermal power plants, because they don’t scale well.
But do prototypes already exist? There’s no stopping progress!
Oddly enough, in countries where scientific approach and dry mathematical analysis are appropriate, the attitude to “green electricity” and wireless power transmission is peculiar.
Thus, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China some time ago submitted for discussion “a temporary regulation on radio control of wireless chargers (energy transfer).
It proposes to prohibit the manufacture, import, sale and use of wireless chargers with a power greater than 50 watts from January 1, 2022. The document is probably already in effect.
Despite the abundance of startups promising low-cost technology to transmit electricity remotely without wires, no one is releasing an actual product.
It is worth thinking about, because the first working prototypes of drones, which receive energy from the ground from a laser beam, were successfully tested in 2007-2009.
Moreover, there are as many questions about the workings of this technology as there are about Nikola Tesla.
One thing is certain: when all existing ones are solved, a new technical revolution awaits the world. And it will be a completely different world.
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