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CleanSpace CO Sensor Runs On Freevolt RF Harvesting
mspohr writes: A few years ago, a Kickstarter was set up to develop a locator tag powered by free radio frequency (RF) energy harvested from the environment. This was called a scam here on Slashdot and was shut down before it was funded on Kickstarter. However, it now appears that the concept is not as far-fetched as some predicted. A UK company CleanSpace has developed a carbon monoxide (CO) sensor which is powered by free RF. A review of the product has been posted on YouTube. It uses Freevolt technology to keep a battery charged and the CO sensor running. Since they have several thousand of these devices collecting data, they do appear to work and it seems to be in the 'not a scam' department.
You can run a CO detector on it. You might be able to run a smoke detector on it, although you'd think they'd be doing that if they could. Perhaps you could run a wireless keyboard or mouse over a very short range. Harvesting radio noise isn't a new idea.
It's not a general battery replacement. Their website says "RF Energy Harvesting For the Low Energy Internet of Things" which is a fairly ugh slogan, but it seems relatively accurate. I don't see any reason why you couldn't fire up a microcontroller, do a little bit of sampling, and report your results before going back to sleep until the next time your capacitor was full.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Stolen? No. Settled law.
Back in the 80s a new 100kw FM transmitter was setup in Colorado right next to an EEs house. He couldn't get away from the noise, on the land line, TV etc etc.
He set up a 'faraday wall' (between 99 ft antenna towers) and inverter, harvested about 20% of the stations output, and sold it back to the power company. The FM station sued, they lost.
In the end they worked out an agreement, IIRC the EE got something like 2 or 3 times fair market value to go away.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
One of the side-effects of this device, implicit in its design, is that it will re-radiate mixing products of all received signals. This tends to interfere with nearby radio reception.
Bruce Perens.
I built an AM radio – with no battery – that would audibly play local stations. This was in the 1970s.
Surely many slashdotters did the same. Heath-Kit.