this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2024

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Researchers discover battery-free technology which harvests power from radio and Wi-Fi signals for low-powered devices (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/18426215

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

The dawn of the Matrix is almost here chunmers!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Isn't that one of Nikola Tesla's inventions? Free electricity through the air?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nah, that was just blasting a microwave beam at a collector. It would work and be meh on efficiency, but also bake everything between the two points...neat innovative theory, bad idea. Tesla was a smart dude, but his bad ideas were left ignored for a reason.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (3 children)

That's not right... He was trying to achieve wireless power through Earth resonance. Which AFAIK is pretty much now completely debunked as never going to work ... but it tracks with Tesla's world view.

It's kind of crazy how much you can build without a complete understanding... There's probably stuff we think we understand now that we really don't and other stuff left to discover.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

This sort of thing is already being done with many commercial devices. See www.powercastco.com for one of the companies.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Once its implementation is feasible and it can extract the waste energy efficiently, this innovation will enable new types of devices and uses that will be critical for commercial, scientific, medical and personal.

Sounds like it's still more theoretical than realized, at this point. Still, I can't help thinking this would be really cool for something like a watch or hearing aids.

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[+] [email protected] -12 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I would find this super cool if it wasnt for the fact that all of the radio frequencies are owned by the military and corporations. Outdoor IoT could be amazing, but it is kind of dead because you cant actually connect it to the internet without laying down cable or using 4G which is horrible for low power applications.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (3 children)

This is the same take as people thinking wind energy steals wind, or solar energy reduces the sun's efficacy.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

You are confusing what i am talking about. See my other response.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Wind energy does.

It's just that we can't extract sufficient energy from it to have any meaningful impact.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Exactly my analogy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Technically, a properly tuned receiver that's using the signal for power can create radio "shadows" behind the device. People have also been caught with giant coils in their attic siphoning power from nearby radio stations and high voltage power lines, because they can detect the power draw.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't know what kind of idea you are getting. Radio and wi-ifi are waves. The wave is what can be used, you don't care who generated it. To say it somehow the wave is in the air and you just take advantage of it being there to convert it to energy. Doesn't matter what the wave could have been read as. In general a radio station is not going to stop working for a whole region just to stop you from using it.

[+] [email protected] -8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

Maybe i left out too much context.

Im not talking about the research itself, but about how it could be utilized.

Their idea (having small devices that can be powered by nothing but stray radiowaves) apparently works and is great by itself.

However its usefullness is limited if you cant somehow connect those devices with the rest of the world. Thats the issue im complaining about.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Huh?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There are tons of small devices that don't have to be connected to be useful. Lots of personal items or small sensors.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Anything that can be powered by this research, can also be powered by a button sized battery for weeks if not not longer. I thinks its more intended for very off grid stuff but maybe im just too uncreative.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What are you asking for here? Some sort of worldwide free ISP?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There are already lots of concepts for low power wireless communication for example LoRaWAN The issue is not the ISP its the technology used to establish a connection between devices. We need hardware that can run with the low power requirements that come with this research.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

That's not any sort of legal issue stopping you, that's physics. If you're trying to create say, some sort of mesh network, and the device is using all of the signal's power just to run itself, there's no power left to retransmit. You don't get something from nothing. We're talking microamps and smaller with these devices.

If you've ever used a crystal radio, you can get an idea for how weakly powered stuff like this is.

Edit: look up the channel "EEVBlog" on YouTube, dude has a dozen videos on various such devices and goes into the actual math and viability of each.

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