Many know-how firms arrive at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, the world’s largest tech present. They typically make daring claims in regards to the life-changing potential of their improvements, nevertheless it’s uncommon to see something that truly lives as much as the hype.
If you do see one thing really particular, however, it could possibly look like magic. That is precisely how I felt once I skilled the wi-fi charging demo from Finnish firm Willo, a deep-tech startup that is simply emerged from stealth mode.
“Seeing is believing,” Willo co-founder and President Marko Voutilainen tells me as I sit in a Las Vegas lodge suite to witness what the corporate hopes shall be a revolution in wi-fi energy. It may render the charging cables that rule our lives and clog up our drawers out of date for good.
Wi-fi energy has lengthy posed a conundrum to tech firms. There must be excellent alignment between a tool and the charger, which implies that it is typically simply as handy to easily plug a cable into your telephone. Wi-fi charging immediately appears like a half-baked answer.
The tech that Willo confirmed me does not depend on charging pads, line of sight, directional concentrating on and even instant proximity. As an alternative, it permits units to be charged just by current inside the pressure discipline of the ability supply.
The demo I am being proven seems to be unassuming. They inform me I should not get caught up an excessive amount of with the shape issue of the ability supply — a easy gray-white dice. This is not a shopper system that is on the market, merely a method to reveal the know-how to me.
Willo CEO Hari Santamala picks up a number of receivers, black bins formed like telephones with LEDs on the highest. As he strikes them to inside 15 inches or so of the ability supply, the LEDs mild up. He strikes them across the dice, rotating them in numerous instructions. The LEDs stay lit.
I am seeing. I am believing.
Making energy cables the floppy disks of tomorrow
Sadly, I am not allowed to take any photos or movies. This week at CES, Willo is rising from stealth mode to point out the world what it could possibly do, nevertheless it’s nonetheless taking part in its playing cards near its chest.
The core know-how relies on greater than a decade of analysis by the corporate co-founder and CTO Nam Ha-Van. The corporate is claiming plenty of world firsts with its wi-fi energy tech, together with the flexibility to rotate units at any angle whereas charging, together with the flexibility to cost a number of units directly.
Santamala talks me via his imaginative and prescient for the way it could exist within the dwelling. “It’s a must to construct the transmitter in a means that it is type of a pure a part of your setting,” he says. “Ideally, we do not see any of this,” he provides, gesturing to the dice.
You possibly can sit on the couch together with your telephone in your pocket, and it could be quietly charging whilst you watch TV. In case you have been working from dwelling, you can transfer freely round your home together with your laptop computer, by no means having to fret about plugging it in.
“We need to do to energy cables, what floppy disks are to us immediately,” Voutilainen says. “They’re remnants of the previous.”
It feels just like the factor we have been ready for — the best way wi-fi charging was at all times purported to be. So when can we count on to get it?
Willo is right here at CES assembly journalists like me, but additionally the type of companions it might want to undertake this know-how and take it out into the world. Voutilainen and Santamala are cagey about their ideally suited technique for doing this, nevertheless it appears like they’re hinting in direction of one thing open and large-scale. Comparisons to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are thrown round.
“This could actually change our on a regular basis lives if launched appropriately in a really type of open and driving-the-market-forward type of means,” Santamala says. The corporate’s tech is “fairly prepared” for industrialization, he provides — it simply is dependent upon their companions’ use instances and timelines.
I depart from the demo suite, hoping that what I’ve seen is as viable as I have been led to consider. Willo clearly thinks it has one thing particular on its arms, and if the remainder of the tech business agrees, this would possibly simply be step one towards a future freed from charging cable fuss and inconvenience.
