Wi-Fi Signals Power Battery-Free Camera – The Days Of Wirelessly Charging IoT Devices Is Here

Regular Wi-Fi signals have been successfully tweaked to keep a battery-free camera powered on continuously. The breakthrough, achieved by researchers in the United States, allows for powering multiple electronics that are beginning to comprise the Internet of Things (IoT).

A regular battery-free surveillance camera is being run solely on the tweaked Wi-Fi signals. What’s equally important is that the researchers haven’t impeded on the router’s data transfer speeds. In simpler words, the Wi-Fi router could keep devices powered-on as well as offer data connectivity simultaneously. The development significantly overcomes the primary challenge when it comes to the larger concept of IoT. Researchers have always dreamt of putting a chip inside all our household appliances and bring them online, but to keep them powered would mean a huge jungle of chords.

Extracting energy from electromagnetic waves broadcast by Wi-Fi routers isn’t a new concept, but the primary challenge had always been to do so continuously and reliably. Interestingly, a team from the University of Washington in the U.S. managed to overcome the challenge by simply changing the way a router broadcasts. They even have a catchy name coined for their solution – power over Wi-Fi – PoWi-Fi.

Extoling the virtues and the potential of the technology, MIT’s Technology Review said:

“The ability to deliver power wirelessly to a wide range of autonomous devices and sensors is hugely significant. PoWi-Fi could be the enabling technology that finally brings the Internet of Things to life.”

The secret of the technology lies in the inherent limitation of Wi-Fi routers and how to overcome it. Popular Wi-Fi routers never send out continuous blasts of electromagnetic waves. To allow data connectivity, they send out waves on single channel in bursts. To facilitate a constant charge, researchers needed a continuous stream of electromagnetic waves that pumped out at least 300 millivolts.

By programming a router to broadcast “noise” on multiple channels, even when it wasn’t sending and receiving data, researchers were able to boost the signals and in turn obtained a continuous flow of millivolts they needed to power electronics. The current prototypes can not only power battery-free temperature and camera sensors using Wi-Fi signals from a distance of six and five meters respectively, but can charge a range of coin-cell batteries at distances of up to nine meters.

The only drawback about the technology is that it will undoubtedly hinder the operation of Wi-Fi routers nearby owing to the excessive transmission of “noise” to wirelessly power the electronics. Being acutely aware of the same, researchers are already tinkering to narrow down the signals so that these wireless power-stations do not interfere with other Wi-Fi routers nearby.

[Image Credit | Christopher Gould/Getty Images]