Plug in your device and you also get energy, end of story. The most you will pay is a couple more dimes in your electricity bill, and that is if you are at home. But in a public space like cafe or an airport where free, wireless Powermat is now setting up billing stations, the cost will probably be a bit of your data.

Powermat is among the leading sellers of wireless. Last year it reached a deal with Starbucks to install its charging stations in the firm’s coffee shops across America and in the U.K. Powermat installs them in the center of night, drilling into the tables using a particular tool and making the Gorilla-glass billing surface flush with all the wood that a cup of coffee can slide around without shedding it. Up to now, customers adore it. “It was the last telephone (He designed!” he clarifies, grinning.)

Powermat has charging stations in McDonald’s factory outlets, Madison Square Gardens and much more to come. Wireless billing has been slow to come as the trio of associations competing standards to market. You might have learned of Qi this week because Ikea made a huge statement about it: it is selling furniture with wireless billing abilities built in, supporting Qi.

Powermat needs to do much more than simply sell its technology to other businesses like Ikea. Among the key manners the standard of Powermat is distinct from the others is that not only energy but apparatus data is transferred by it, and that is an important business opportunity for Powermat. It means it could sell to coffee chains like Starbucks who’ve recurring customers who the others can increasingly monitor and employ with through WiFi programs, and now electricity itself.

“These billing areas on the table, they are linked to a data management service layer,” Heins describes. “The site owner can see where folks sit, how long they remain and how frequently they come back. The following level will assist the site increase revenue.”

Heins says people are being hired by Powermat with data analytics expertise and cloud direction to lay the basis for a much more complete intelligence service.

At the moment, Starbucks can just see frequently the customers that use people are coming back, and just how many billing stations are used, as Powermat develops its data management service layer, but that advice may be improved over time.