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EnOcean Wireless Sensors Don't Need Batteries (Video)
'The EnOcean technology is an energy harvesting wireless technology used primarily in building automation systems; but is also applied to other applications in industry, transportation, logistics and smart homes,' says Wikipedia. There's also a Siemans spinoff company called EnOcean, and today's video is an interview with its president, Jim O'Callaghan. But EnOcean technology is the real star here. The idea is that energy-efficient sensors can be powered by energy harvesting, i.e. drawing energy from their surroundings, including such low-level sources as light, temperature changes, and pressure, which can be the pressure of your finger on a switch or even changes in barometric pressure. The EnOcean Alliance has a professionally-produced video that describes their technology and notes that self-powered wireless sensors not only save energy but save miles of wire between sensor nodes and controllers, which means it's possible to install more sensors sensing more parameters than in the past. (Alternate Video Link)
ITYM Siemens
What do you mean? Is there supposed to be a video up there?
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The video says 'You have a missing plug-in.'
"Professional" video.
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Not all energy harvesting products are scams.
I only see a blank, white space as if some idiot entered 25 line break tags into the content.
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This device doesn't use radio waves to power itself. It derives energy from solar (proven, simple), mechanical motion generators (proven, simple), thermal difference (proven, simple).
Deriving energy from radio waves is very possible, Tesla demonstrated it himself. It is also wildly inefficient unless the energy is directed for that purpose. Thus why iFind was probably a scam, since it required more than the most minute amount of power possible. It would be a complex problem to harvest enough to do much of value, whereas solar, motion, and thermal derived electrical energy are so simple and plentiful you can do all three in your home right now AND generate enough power to do something worthwhile (Solar calculator? wind up or shake flashlight? Reverse your car cooler 'fridge'?)
First you're drawing energy from your surroundings, including such low-level sources as light, temperature changes and the next thing you know, you're sucking the energy out of a Star Ship's Warp Coils.
Slippery Slope if I ever saw one.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The Hue lighting PoC was pretty lame, not a lot of use cases there. I'd rather just use the thing that is always in my pocket (and has a battery) . Nothing else seemed very close to being ready for market. Solar is obviously the most common "ambient" power source. That booth just looks very fluffy to me.
So I can power the sensors for my smart home that doesn't need switches, by the pressure of my finger on a switch? I'll take a dozen!
I have a toll transponder sticker attached to the inside of my windshield and it doesn't have a battery. It's powered by the transmission that the toll gantry sends to my device. So I'm pretty sure powered by RF is possible.
Long signatures suck.
I live in my parents' cold, dark basement you insensitive clods!
As usual the devil is in the details. Harvesting enough energy from the environment to run a very low power IC in short bursts to do simple sensor measurements? Completely feasible. Charging your cellphone from ambient radio waves? Complete bullcrap.
I read the internet for the articles.
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I thought we called those bombs?
I thought powered by RF was impossible and a scam?
First part: Incorrect. Powering something by RF is very much possible. Just look at crystal radios - usable amounts of sound from a device lacking any batteries.
Second part: Correct. That particular instance would have much larger power needs with less area for gathering the power.
Why was that a scam and this is not?
1. They specify low power sensors, not transmitters.
2. They specify a number of different methods to gain power, not just RF.
3. Siemans spinoff indicates access to real engineers and technology.
In this case the vagueness of the claims helps as well. When you start getting specific we can break out the slide rules and do 'rule of thumb' analysis to make sure you're not claiming to be able to break the laws of thermodynamics.
I don't read AC A human right
If you had actually bothered to watch the video, or read the transcript, you'd know that EnOcean is not using RF harvesting to power any of their devices. They are using mechanical, solar, and thermoelectric energy harvesting techniques to power ultra-low power sensors, and to generate RF signals to control other powered appliances (e.g. desk lamps). They are using clever engineering, but they are not making any claims that violate the laws of physics.
iFind was a scam. There was no way that a device that size could harvest, store, and utilize RF energy at the levels claimed by them. Not to mention that the so-called "inventor", supposedly with multiple advanced degrees in engineering and medicine, had absolutely no presence or history on the web.
And Slashdot didn't "kill" iFind. Kickstarter killed it, after performing a little due diligence and realizing that something was fishy with WeTag. But if Slashdot helped pushed Kickstarter into checking into the background of WeTag's principals, then so much the better.
Energy harvesting from ambient RF does work, but to capture significant amounts of energy requires lots of area (e.g. an antenna or large pickup coil), or to have RF energy beamed directly at the device. At no time does EnOcean claim to be using RF harvesting to power their devices; they are only using ultra-low power RF radio bursts for short-range communication.
Why was that a scam and this is not?
Because that they have working products and aren't grubbing around for the great unwashed's loose change on Kickstarter, for a start.
That past Slashdot story was about the many questions that were already being floated about iFind. That's why it was a story in the first place.
So, really, your question is a bit like asking why a story about Steve Jobs kicking a puppy results in more negative comments about the subject than one about Bill Gates single handedly saving 20 children from an orphanage fire.
Incidentally I think you credit Slashdot with way too much influence if you think it can bring down a startup in a couple of days. Those guys were already on their way out (this, again, being what the story was more or less about).
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
... but it had me thinking the product was maritime sensors that harvest energy from the oceans.
There's indeed a number of potential energy sources in the ocean, that is sun, wind, waves and water constantly pushing you in various directions or even living and dead organic matter.
I believe we badly need thousands upon thousands of sensors floating in the oceans, because they're poorly known and we have many severe changes going on (collapse and blooms of species, warming of layers, acidification), we need to understand about the sixth extinction and about dangers and opportunities.
Whoever said iFind was a transmitter? For all we know it "Beeped' when lost. In fact, I assumed that's how it would work. Why the hell would it transmit? Even if it did transmit, the most power it could transmit by law would be 1 watt. Why is that unfeasible?
1. The website trying to sell it.
2. In order for a locating device(your cellphone) to find it.
3. 1 watt is a HUGE amount of power for these sorts of devices. Normally you're looking at milliwatts
And that has what to do with the price of tea in china? So only 1 of there several methods of charging is a scam?
This article is about a company that's releasing a number of different sensors, each presumably mated with a charging system designed for it's deployment zone and power needs. Why different sources of charging(well, powering)? Because they'll be deployed in different environments. iFind had a specific purpose and claim for what it would be powered by, as well as dimensions for the packaging. If EnOcean came out with a package that was, for example 'sonar buoy, solar powered, 1 meter diameter', we could analyze that and realize that ~.7 square meters of solar panel is quite a bit of power. 'passive sonar buoy, anchored, tidal powered' would still make sense, though I'd think they'd have to be very clever to get the power demands that low.
right... because they used to work at Siemans, they are fully backed by that companies brand name? lol
Keep loling at that strawman. That it's a spinoff means that it's a serious product, if probably somewhat risky. It's much less likely to be a hoax than random people off the internet. It has history.
I don't read AC A human right
Powerharvester stuff is designed for use with a base station that transmits 1-3 W of power, and has a maximum range listed as 40-50 ft for such a base station. That is not designed for use with ambient RF.
There are other systems for collecting ambient RF, but their power is considerably less without a large antenna. Even Powerharvester supplies ~6" antennas for use with their dev kits.
I have an 80+ year old Atmos torsion pendulum mantel clock. It never needs winding, it harvests energy from atmospheric pressure changes (or temperature changes). Air pressure in a sealed can will run the clock for a week on just a 2F degree swing in ambient temperature.
You have to do more than overcome the internal resistance of the battery, you also have to supply energy faster than the natural discharge rate of the battery.
I read the internet for the articles.