Wireless company charges ‘smart’ apartment complex

Wireless company charges ‘smart’ apartment complex

Grand Rapids-based Gill Electronics makes wireless power products. Photo via fb.com

A West Michigan company has been selected to provide the wireless technology for the world’s first “socially active smart apartment units.”

Gill Electronics, a maker of resonant wireless power and charging technology, announced its TesLink products have been chosen for the new iUnit Highland Park complex, which is being constructed in Denver.

iUnit said it is the first builder to incorporate wireless charging “as a standard in our units.”

The complex includes 40 iUnits made up of 30 studios and 10 one-bedroom apartments.

Each iUnit will be outfitted with Gill Electronics’ wireless technology for smart devices. A tenant places his or her device, or devices, on the charging area and when they are ready to go so is the device.

Unlike first-generation wireless charging, which required specific placement of the device on a specific location on the surface, Gill officials said a benefit of resonant-based devices is they can be placed anywhere within the charging area.

The charging stations also allow for devices with different charging requirements to recharge simultaneously.

Brice Leconte, founder of iUnit, said he was looking for “drop-and-go functionality” so that people’s ability to power technology could be “achieved with very little thought.”

“TesLink surpasses our expectations,” he said.

With the TesLink products a tenant will be able to pick up a device and know it will be charged and ready to go.

“Our goal in developing this project was to reinvent how buildings were designed and erected as well as how people interact within them,” Leconte said.

Tenants access the iUnit mobile app, which allows them to pay the rent, file maintenance requests, handle access to the building for guests, control wireless appliances within their apartments and track their energy efficiency. iUnit’s goal is to create a net-zero carbon footprint in each of its buildings.

“We're excited to have been chosen as the solution for wireless charging in this first-of-its-kind apartment complex," said Brad Miller, chief technology officer for Gill Electronics.

Gill introduced the first commercially available and the first FCC-certified resonant wireless charging applications for mobile devices compliant to the A4WP/Rezence standard, now known as AirFuel.