Texas Instruments offers industry first Qi certified dev tool and chipset for wireless power

There is no shortage of cases and charging plates on the market in all sorts of brands that allow the user to charge their smartphone and other gear without having to connect cords. The coolest and most promising of those use Qi power tech, which is a standard that will allow any brand of gadget supporting Qi to be charged on any other charge pad with Qi inside.

Texas Instruments has announced that it has released the industry's first Qi certified chipset and development tools for designing Qi wireless power devices. The new dev kit will allow developers to design all sorts of gadgets with wireless power integrated. The kit is aimed at designers of digital cameras, smartphones, MP3 players and lots more.

TI calls the dev kit the bqTESLA kit and it includes a single channel transmitter, a direct-charge receiver, and the associated magnetic for applications that need 5W of power or less. There is no software required for the system and TI is selling the dev kit now for $499.