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This Battery-Free Computer Sucks Power Out Of Thin Air (fastcodesign.com)

Posted by msmash on from the fascinating-gadget dept.

An anonymous reader shares an article on Fast Co Design (edited and condensed for clarity): Researchers at University of Washington's Sensor Lab have created the WISP, or Wireless Identification and Sensing Platform: a combination sensor and computing chip that doesn't need a battery or a wired power source to operate. Instead, it sucks in radio waves emitted from a standard, off-the-shelf RFID reader -- the same technology that retail shops use to deter shoplifters -- and converts them into electricity. The WISP isn't designed to compete with the chips in your smartphone or your laptop. It has about the same clock speed as the processor in a Fitbit and similar functionality, including embedded accelerometers and temperature sensors. [...] It has about the same bandwidth as Bluetooth Low Energy mode, the wireless power-sipping technology which drives most Bluetooth speakers and wireless headphones.

60 comments

  1. RFID tags already do this by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 5, Informative

    RFID tags use the energy from the reader to provide a RF response. This seemingly useless project is not exactly some breakthrough.

    1. Re: RFID tags already do this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      RFID tags are boring. Now we have an awesome tech with no use case, and that's something to get excited about!

      But think of the possibilities -- you can be walking down the street, battery-less wristwatch, LED earrings, and backpack embedded speaker, while holding your RFID reader that you wave all over like spraying electricity on your gadgets (and inefficiently also in between and around your gadgets)

      Can't wait for that future!

    2. Re:RFID tags already do this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Surprise, the summary mentions this:
      "Instead, it sucks in radio waves emitted from a standard, off-the-shelf RFID reader -- the same technology that retail shops use to deter shoplifters -- and converts them into electricity."

    3. Re:RFID tags already do this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RFID tags use the energy from the reader to provide a RF response. This seemingly useless project is not exactly some breakthrough.

      There are contactless smart card chips too, this just seems like an evolution of those I guess.

    4. Re:RFID tags already do this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The 1920's called. They want their technology back.

    5. Re:RFID tags already do this by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      A good first step. Given the amount of energy available from natural, and synthetic sources. Maybe those that are looking for funding could consider other energy storage solutions?

    6. Re:RFID tags already do this by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      Not a breakthrough but certainly doing something that should have been done years ago. Though RFID gets it's energy via radio we haven't had any CPU's that do it. This could power the equivalent of a fitbit without charging or a battery and that is at least new. It should have been done years ago.

      There is so much RF energy out there in the WIFI spectrum I'm surprised it's taken this long to get a wifi powered CPU even if it has minuscule computing power. Afterall the arudino isn't going to win any compute contests but if you could use one without having to provide power they would be a lot more common.

    7. Re:RFID tags already do this by religionofpeas · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This could power the equivalent of a fitbit without charging or a battery and that is at least new. It should have been done years ago.

      Probably not, unless you want to carry a RFID transmitter in your other hand.

      There is so much RF energy out there in the WIFI spectrum

      No there isn't. At a reasonable distance from an access point, you may get something like -70dBm, which is 100 picoWatt. Running something like an Arduino at low speed takes 1milliWatt, or 10 million times as much.

    8. Re: RFID tags already do this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you'll be the coolest kid at the rave!

    9. Re:RFID tags already do this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is so much RF energy out there in the WIFI spectrum

      5w at a transmitter is about 3mw @10m (1/r^2) assuming zero losses.

    10. Re:RFID tags already do this by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      So what is new about this device? Capturing energy from RF was done over a century ago. Energy harvesting for sensors and microcontrollers has been common for several decades. The only difference that I can see about this device is that it requires pairing with an RFID transmitter, while many other devices harvest from ambient sources, so that makes this device worse that what has been available for decades.

    11. Re:RFID tags already do this by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      Yea, your right. You couldn't draw enough power from a single AP in a perfect conditions. Now if you could figure out how to reduce the numbers of APs so you could actually prove that.

    12. Re: RFID tags already do this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you are near 10 million APs, you probably have bigger problems than charging your fitbit.

    13. Re:RFID tags already do this by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

      Yes of course, even the summary explains that this is based on RFID tag technology. What's new here is the end-user programmability of these chips to do things OTHER than just respond with a fixed ID.

      Arduino and Raspberry Pi aren't interesting because they do something new. They are limited in power and capabilities. What they do deliver is a significant amount of computing power at a very low cost and very small size.

      While I don't see RFID-powered computers taking over the smarphone space, I do see the potential for many clever implementations we haven't even thought of yet.

    14. Re:RFID tags already do this by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      The summary and article imply that using power from the RFID reader is something new. It simply isn't. And neither are low powered sensors.

      So, you see the potential for things you haven't thought of? OK.

    15. Re: RFID tags already do this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah, typical Slashdot self-appointed genius with no imagination who shits on everything and invents nothing or does anything remotely useful or creative. You must be proud.

    16. Re:RFID tags already do this by Sir+Holo · · Score: 1

      RFID tags use the energy from the reader to provide a RF response. This seemingly useless project is not exactly some breakthrough.

      Yes.

      Further, don't forget that battery-less AM radio from Heath-Kit (TM) that you built in the 1970s.

      Also, Tesla's "wireless electricity distribution system" – from long before any of us were born.

  2. "Air" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This Battery-Free Computer Sucks Power Out Of Radio Waves

    Fixed.

    1. Re:"Air" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This Battery-Free Computer Sucks Power Out Of Radio Waves

      Fixed.

      Yes. It is important to note that this technology will work in a total vacuum, which is the amount of information contained in the article.

    2. Re:"Air" by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      This Battery-Free Antenna Receives Power From Radio Waves

      Even more fixed

    3. Re:"Air" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a huge advantage for apartment dwellers. Imagine lining the walls of apartments with something like that. Not only are the signals that go beyond the walls typically wasted, they also interfere with the wifi for the neighbors.

      Tuning the system to wifi signals and then feeding the power back into the transmitter, you could drastically reduce the amount of wasted power, while also allowing devices to make better use of the spectrum.

    4. Re:"Air" by tetraverse · · Score: 1

      Aren't the new editors of slashdot aware that most of the readers here are dyed-in-the wool techies.

    5. Re:"Air" by radiumsoup · · Score: 1

      it would be CONSIDERABLY less expensive just to buy batteries for whatever it is you're trying to power with your WiFi.

    6. Re:"Air" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tuning the system to wifi signals and then feeding the power back into the transmitter, you could drastically reduce the amount of wasted power, while also allowing devices to make better use of the spectrum.

      For a very broad definition of drastically.

  3. WISP. by sims+2 · · Score: 1

    Not to be confused with WISP or wireless Internet service provider.

    --
    Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    1. Re:WISP. by zenlessyank · · Score: 1

      White Irish Saxon Protestant?? -- Yes, the disable adverts is broken. Fix it whipslash!!

    2. Re:WISP. by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Those aren't adverts, they're targeted links. Totally different thing.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re:WISP. by zenlessyank · · Score: 1

      When I check the box it says ok and disables them. The screen refreshes and ads are gone. THEN when I click ANYTHING on the page the screen refreshes with ads and the box UNCHECKED. I know the difference between them. I'm a 300 baud kind of guy.

  4. No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bluetooth Low Energy mode, the wireless power-sipping technology which drives most Bluetooth speakers and wireless headphones.

    Who makes up that bullshit? Don't you know where you are?

  5. Looks like a weak chip, not a comptuer by ITRambo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Someone's looking for funding. Stay away, as this technology is no where near being useful.

    1. Re:Looks like a weak chip, not a comptuer by R_Ramjet · · Score: 1

      I suspect "useful" somewhat depends on what you want to use it for....

    2. Re:Looks like a weak chip, not a comptuer by ljw1004 · · Score: 1

      Someone's looking for funding. Stay away, as this technology is no where near being useful.

      Seriously? This work, and the previous work by the same U.W. lab, look to me like one of the most exciting future developments.

      Maybe I'm just too excited from the sci-fi books I read where they have "motes", tiny little sensors all over a room or building or landscape, that pick up anything and everything. We're not going to power those things with batteries. Every single one will have to harvest what it can from radio waves, eke out enough to do a small amount of computing, and crucially get a "free" way to send signals back to the base station. This article describes getting enough power from an RFID scanner to power a bluetooth radio; the previous research was about passive wi-fi.

      Nowhere near being useful? It honestly sounds to me like this lab is either almost there, or already there, on the radio side. I don't know how far they've come on the "sensor" side (camera / audio).

  6. OH yes sign me up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can I get that in BIG ASS TURBO mode. I don't want to miss out on any radiation.

  7. Funding, you say... by rmdingler · · Score: 1
    Now that you have your checkbooks out, you may be interested in this energy collection breakthrough we're working on over here at Slow Co Design:

    we are literally pulling energy out of thin air by mimicking plants.

    Using light ray collectors that harness the sun's energy, we hope to transform tomorrow by revolutionizing energy collection today.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:Funding, you say... by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 2

      Hah, you think that's impressive, wait till you see my breakthrough for extracting energy out of thick air.

    2. Re: Funding, you say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hello Mr. D this is China. We are very interested in your technology to get energy out of thick air as we currently have that with abundance.

      Q: if we adopt your technology do we have to keep our air thick for it to wotk? If so maybe we will be less interested.

    3. Re:Funding, you say... by wbr1 · · Score: 1

      Hey, I have a patented rotating device that extracts energy from the pressure gradient between thick and thin air.

      --
      Silence is a state of mime.
    4. Re: Funding, you say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not every single invention needs to be novel. Technology happens in small incremental steps sometimes. If you shut your pie hole once in a while and opened your mind you might see a useful application of this device.

  8. Downvote parent. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unlike the WISP, conventional RFID tags are black boxes that cannot execute arbitrary computer programs, and do not support sensors.

    That doesn't sound very useless to me. It's also quite an improvement over RFID. Please downvote the parent as wrong.

  9. "Sucks" by stevegee58 · · Score: 1

    Gotta love the headline for a new device with the word "sucks" in it.

  10. Bathing in 900 MHz transmitter exhaust by DesertNomad · · Score: 1

    This is like you putting stadium lighting in your living room to use a solar cell to charge your phone.

    For those who care, this requires the widget to be in the main beam of a transmitter belching out 900 MHz (or lower, or higher) radio waves at sufficient power to be useful. See FCC Part 18 for details. I'd rather be on the back side of that antenna than living in the beam.

    1. Re:Bathing in 900 MHz transmitter exhaust by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      The maximum transmitter power is just a few Watts, of which only a small portion is absorbed by your body and turned into heat. Compared to the 75 Watts your body generates itself, it's not going to be noticeable.

  11. Maxwell's demon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can beat that, my new computer is powered by a Maxwell's demon and moves around using an EMDrive

  12. Um, no. by wwalker · · Score: 1

    They had me at sucks.

  13. What's the energy efficiency of the device? by Streetlight · · Score: 1

    If the RF transmitter uses several watts of power to put RF energy over a large volume of space and the device (or even multiple devices) uses only milli watts (micro watts?) it sounds like a terribly inefficient use of energy. If one is walking around with these things and no transmitter is nearby, they won't work and if no one is near a transmitter with one of these things it's just wasted use of energy. Even if they're in a fixed position there's a lot of waste. Batteries are are pretty useful as is plugging things into a wall outlet.

    --
    In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
    1. Re:What's the energy efficiency of the device? by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      I can see where this could be useful if you stick a bunch of these devices on a bridge, and then drive over them with a scanner, reading something like stress forces from each one. Or maybe a cooled transport, where you can check the temperature of each passing item. A big limitation, however, is still that the device isn't working when there's no transmitter nearby, so you could only measure immediate sensor values.

  14. Crystal radio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like they re-invented the old crystal radio, invented 111 years ago. Entirely powered by RF energy "from thin air", uses no transistors, no tubes, no batteries, and no AC.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_radio

    1. Re:Crystal radio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except of course crystal radio did not compute.

  15. two of them=perpetual charge? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    if you put two of these side by side, would they ignore entropy and charge each other perpetually?

  16. They've got two things confused. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    They've got BlueTooth and BlueTooth Low Energy (BLE) confused. That's not too surprising, since they're defined by the same organization, named as of the latter is a part of a latter version of the former rather than a separate thing, described in the same, 3,000+ page, poorly-written, standards document, modern chips do both (with separate "radios" internally), and these guys are NOT working with that protocol.

    BlueTooth and BLE are very different protocols near the metal and on the air. And though they share some stuff farther up the stack they're different even there.

    BLE is the BlueTooth SIG's answer to other protocols (notably ZigBee) that were gaining market share in IoT things like smartmeters.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  17. Computer runs on power from ambient RF field by tetraverse · · Score: 1

    "Researchers .. have created the WISP .. it sucks in radio waves emitted from a standard, off-the-shelf RFID reader .. and converts them into electricity.

    Similarly to how a crystal set works, that uses the ambient RF field to power itself, as invented around 1900. And it doesn't 'suck' anything out of the air, it absorbs rf energy through electro-magnetic induction. ref

  18. Re:America needs COMMUNISM NOW! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Capitalism is for the lazy: a man need only work for himself - or, with enough capital, he need not work at all.

    Communism is for the hard workers: a man works for himself, and then works for others too.

  19. Imagine.... by inode_buddha · · Score: 1

    Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these! You could power an LED with them! Eventually the technology will scale, and we can clean up our EM pollution. Its win-win for the environment!

    --
    C|N>K
  20. Old tech by LiENUS · · Score: 1

    I bought a couple of these early last year. Computers that are powered over nfc are common place. It's just a contactless smartcard *yawn*

  21. This Machine Was Invented by John Galt by tmjva · · Score: 1

    And Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart are looking for him.

    --
    Tracy Johnson
    Old fashioned text games hosted below:
    http://empire.openmpe.com/
    BT
  22. Invented by Tesla! by vandamme · · Score: 1

    And that's how he powered his Pierce Arrow car.

    All you need is somebody to transmit the power to you, for free.