Energy Harvesting

Energy consumption is now probably the most important problem whenever technology is being considered. We scream at oil prices. We cry at our dead batteries. And we love to be unplugged.
Last week I had an interesting discussion on the future of Intel and ARM and my last statement was "would you trade half of the performance of your latest smartphone for doubling the battery life?". Ask the question yourself. Would you? I would. Many would. All of us would.

We have arrived at the point where the average performance of an average electronics gadget (a smartphone, a tablet, a computer) is more than an average consumer needs. Again - is your laptop too slow? Or does the battery last too short?

But leaving the CPU (Intel vs ARM) wars aside, let me focus on the new important trend that starts emerging. The energy harvesting.

We, at wiho.me, are doing a lot of ultra low power wireless communications. Wireless communications is an enormous freedom. No need to explain that. But until today we have been able to do wireless only for a limited time span. A phone has to dock for charging every day. A laptop even more often than that. In our current designs, a wireless motion sensor or a wireless wall switch can last for four years on a single battery. Four years is not bad. But it is only four years. Meaning we have to design the enclosure and mount to allow taking the device off, opening it and replacing the batteries. We have to design the software to monitor the battery levels and alert the users (or system service providers) to replace them in advance. This is not a full freedom. This is a fake freedom - the freedom on a long leash.

Recently we have started working with technologies that involve microprocessors and radio transmission modules and software, but do not require any power source. Energy harvesting. Imagine a switch. A wall switch that turns the light on and off. In the beginning there was a wire to every switch led through the wall. It cost copper and drilling to place the wire. Then the switch became wireless. A tiny radio transmitting on/off keypresses to the light bulb. The radio in the switch was powered by long lasting batteries. No wires needed - costs of copper and the drilling mess taken away. Only a small pocket in the wall behind the switch had to be drilled to house the batteries. And now there is the ultimate solution available. Called EnOcean, it is both a wireless transmission standard and a company with a respectful portfolio of energy harvesting patents, spun off Siemens more than 10 years ago.

To me an EnOcean wall switch is a symbol of true wireless freedom. Meaning no wires, ever. It is less than 1cm thin. You peel off a double sided sticky tape and stick it to the wall. No drilling No wires. No battery pockets. You press the switch and the light comes up. The microprocessor module inside the switch and the radio transmitter are powered by... you! When you press the physical button, the force you apply is converted to energy and used to power the electronics and run the software inside. They have more than a switch: window handles transmitting whether they are opened or closed, universal magnetic contact sensors, solar powered temperature and motion / presence sensors. And actually the price of the switch is likely to be less than an ordinary wired switch, if you consider the wires and drilling costs. And it lives forever. EnOcean states 25 years with 100 presses a day. Certainly longer than enough.

Energy harvesting will bring completely new use cases to our lives. This is the ultimate goal of making the "things" around us "free". We are surrounded by fields of energy. Those who can harvest from those fields will deliver the freedom and win.