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Turning Your Home Wiring Into a Giant Antenna

An anonymous reader writes with this IBT snippet: "Imagine if you could run a wireless sensor device for years without ever having to replace the battery. Turns out, the idea of a battery-less wireless device might not be too far off. Researchers at the University of Washington and the Georgia Institute of Technology developed a small node sized device that uses the residential wiring from a building or home and transmits information to and from almost anywhere else from within. The device is called Sensor Nodes Utilizing Powerline Infrastructure, or SNUPI. It uses basic copper wiring as a giant antenna to receive wireless signals at a set frequency. When the device is within 10 to 15 feet of electrical wiring, it uses the antenna to send data to a single base station." (For "node-sized," think "size of a breakfast cereal prize.")

8 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Oldhat by symes · · Score: 2, Insightful

    here is one someone knocked up a 120 years ago.

  2. After wide-spread adoption, hence the scam. by interval1066 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    IF this is widely adopted, place your bets on how long it takes for snoopers and sniffer to start stealing your sensitive data. I'm guessing a scant week after a city touts a complete success at a city-wide installation a report will come out on how a scammer scams that town out of kajillions.

    --
    Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
  3. Oh the Hams are going to love this....NOT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    These powerline 'type' technologies are like just bad bad news for Hams and shortwave enthusiasts as it wipes out the bands, unless notch filters are employed, which I doubt it.

  4. EMC... by Guillaume+le+Btard · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How can this ever be approved? I imagine this can cause all sorts of problems. The power grid in a normal house is not designed for this, same thing goes for the ethernet over power crap. There are all sorts or regulations about keeping net pollution down, and using it as a transmission medium goes directly against this.

  5. Units by Locke2005 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For "node-sized," think "size of a breakfast cereal prize."?

    For those of us that haven't eaten cereal that comes with prizes for at least 40 years now, can you express that in more traditional units, e.g. volkswagens, libraries of congress, or common US coins? Alternatively, you you just give the fucking dimensions.

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  6. Re:Easier ways by claytonicforce · · Score: 2, Insightful

    i too sir know this shameful fact. :(

  7. Building wiring as TV antenna by RomulusNR · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When I was in college, kids in the university's then-tallest building would not bother getting cable service, which the dorm was pre-wired for. But despite not having cable service, they plugged their TV's into the cable jacks anyway -- and it increased their OTA reception fourfold. The cable wires running through the building served as a huge 100-foot antenna.

    --
    Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
  8. Re:They didn't describe the powerline! by e9th · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My house was built in 1957. All interior wiring is in EMT or IMC (plus a little Greenfield to the fixed appliances) or within steel conduit bodies and device boxes. Not an inch of NM.