Neue Erfindung nutzt Umgebungssignale von WLAN und Bluetooth zur Stromversorgung kleiner Geräte

Small devices like light sensors or network components could soon harvest power from background Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals — using a sophisticated new component that can turn even the faintest electromagnetic waves into electricity.

Researchers have created a highly sensitive „rectenna,“ or rectifying antenna, a component that exploits quirks of quantum physics to efficiently convert electromagnetic energy into direct current (DC) electricity. The researchers used this novel approach of capturing electrons to power a commercial thermometer.

In a study published July 24 in the journal Nature Electronics, the scientists suggested this technology could be scaled up to power Internet of Things (IoT) devices and sensors using a small proportion of the excess radiofrequency (RF) signals they use to communicate with one another.

This makes a lot of sense, as they are radiations after all, they should have their solar panel equivalents.

The question is not whether we can but rather whether we should. I would assume that those Wifi-Bluetooth powered devices would sap a certain amount of intensity; I wonder how that would affect the quality of the signal with a large amount of these devices.

This isn’t exactly new. There have been inumerous board that power themselves with RF (radiofrequency). There are even DIY radios that power themselves using the own radiowaves.

It’s a more efficient method of Radio Frequency Induction relying on extremely specific atomic structures to exploit differences in [electron spin](https://youtu.be/EK_6OzZAh5k), to more efficiently power extremely low-energy devices like thermometers and other sensors using the background radio waves our devices blast around constantly.

There are some potentially interesting applications, and if it’s as effective as claimed then IoT devices could see a significant increase in power efficiency.

It’s essentially a far more efficient version of the method used for RFID tags, just on a smaller scale, with slightly different phenomena being exploited, requiring atomic scale engineering to implement.