energy harvesting News - Page 2 of 6 - CNX Software

July 1, 2022July 1, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Wirelessly powered sensor evaluation kit comes 1W power transmitter, two battery-free sensors

Energous WattUp wireless power technology delivers power at various ranges (up to a few meters), and so far, we’ve seen it in wearables like garments, as well as smart glasses and earbuds development kits. The company has now launched a wirelessly powered sensor evaluation kit for the Internet-of-Things (IoT) based on the 1W WattUp PowerBridge transmitter with Bluetooth LE 5.0, plus two battery-free sensor nodes based on Atmosic ATM3202 Bluetooth LE 5.0 Cortex-M0 microcontroller with energy-harvesting capabilities. Wirelessly powered sensor evaluation kit content & features: 1W WattUp PowerBridge transmitter Bluetooth LE microcontroller Energous EN4100 transmitter IC Energous EN3210 power amplifier 2x Atmosic battery-free sensors MCU – Atmosic ATM3202 Cortex-M0 microcontroller @ 16 MHz with integrated RF energy-harvesting using MPPT (maximum power point tracking) algorithm to maximize harvesting performance Sensors – Temperature & humidity sensor, 3-axis accelerator Power consumption – A 1/4th of the power consumption of a typical BLE beacon […]

January 21, 2022January 21, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Bluetooth LE 5.0 module enables batteryless sensors thanks to Renesas RE01B MCU

RELOC RM-BE1 BLE 5.0 module energy harvesting

RELOC RM-BE1 Bluetooth 5.0 module with embedded energy harvesting capabilities for batteryless sensors adds to the list of energy harvesting news we’ve written about since the beginning of the year, with UEI chip for remote controls, a devkit with a smart coffee cup, and Atmosic ATM33 BLE 5.3 chip. The RM-BE1 module is powered by Renesas RE01B Arm Cortex-M0+ Bluetooth microcontroller that leverages Renesas’ SOTB (Silicon on Thin Buried Oxide) process technology enabling ultra-low power. We’ve been told the chip can run at 35uA/Mhz with internal LDOs and <20uA/Mhz with additional external DCDCs, as well as around 600nA in standby mode. RELOC RM-BE1 module key features and specifications: MCU – Renesas RE01B Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ 64 MHz with 1.5MB flash, 256KB SRAM Connectivity Bluetooth LE 5.0 with Long Range (up to 400 m) and high data throughput (2 Mbps) support RF output power – Up to +4 dBm Receiver […]

January 20, 2022January 20, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Atmosic ATM33 – A Bluetooth LE 5.3 Cortex-M33 MCU with energy harvesting capabilities

ATM33e energy harvesting evaluation board

Atmosic ATM33 is a Bluetooth LE 5.3 compliant Cortex-M33 microcontroller with optional energy harvesting capabilities that can enable up to 5x longer battery life and even battery-free solutions. The 64 MHz MCU also comes with 64 KB ROM, 128 KB RAM, 512 KB non-volatile memory, hardware security features, and SensorHub hardware block that allows data to be managed while the majority of the SoC, including the MCU core, is in a hibernated state. Atmosic ATM33 specifications: MCU core – Arm Cortex M33F core @ 64 MHz Memory/Storage 64 KB ROM, 128 KB RAM, 512 KB NVM Retention RAM configuration: 16 KB to 128KB in 16 KB step sizes Wireless Connectivity Bluetooth Low-Energy 5.3 compliant 2 Mbps, 1 Mbps 500 kbps, and 125 kbps PHY rates Supports Bluetooth Angle-of-Arrival (AoA) and Angle-of-Departure (AoD) direction finding Tx: 0 to 10dB 0.7mA receiver 16 MHz / Optional 32.768 kHz Crystal Oscillator Atmosic SensorHub […]

January 19, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Wiliot Starter Kit for retailers features a smart coffee cup tracking temperature, fill level, location, etc…

smart coffee cup with sensors, energy harvesting

Wiliot Starter Kit aims to demonstrate the ability of the Wioliot’s self-powered IoT Pixel and cloud services to retailers with a kit including a Coffee cup that’s capable of tracking liquid temperatures, fill level, motion, location changes, humidity, and proximity. The kit was previously only available to larger retailers through a “controlled release model”, but the company has now switched to an “open model” so that any retailers can use the technology to track products and packages. Let’s what’s included inside the start kit, and try to understand how the Wiliot solution works. Wiliot Starter Kit includes the following hardware: 1 x IoT Pixel-ready Coffee Cup 5 x Single-Band IoT Pixels mounted on cardboards 5 x Dual-Band IoT Pixels mounted on cardboards 1 x Single-Band Bridge Device 1 x Dual-Band Bridge Device You’ll also get 6 months of Wiliot Cloud Services, access to the Wiliot community forum & support Portal, […]

January 10, 2022January 10, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

“Extreme low power” chip with energy harvesting provides lifetime battery solution for remote controls

QuickSet extreme low-power-energy-harvesting chip remote controls

Most people probably don’t mind changing batteries in remote controls every so often, but it contributes to e-waste especially if you’re not using rechargeable batteries, and I always find it’s pain as I don’t usually have stock, or don’t feel like waiting for several hours to recharge the batteries. Universal Electronics Inc, or UEI for shorts, claims to have a solution with a family of QuickSet-certified chips using “Extreme Low-Power”, energy-harvesting and “high-performance technology” that would provide lifetime battery life to Bluetooth, voice remote controls. The main goal is “to help transition the world towards a more sustainable future, by reducing primary battery waste throughout the life of the product, which in turn reduces the cumulative CO2 footprint”. We don’t have a lot of information about the chip, but the company provides some of the key benefits of the Bluetooth 5.2 SoC: Arm-based with Trustzone security Up to 2.5 times […]

November 3, 2021November 3, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Conexio Stratus – An nRF9160 board with solar energy harvesting capability (Crowdfunding)

Conexio Stratus board is equipped with Nordic Semi nRF9160 System in Package (SiP) with LTE-M (eMTC) & NB-IoT cellular IoT connectivity as well as GPS support through a pair of u.FL connectors for antennas, together with 500MB of mobile data valid for ten years. Designed for battery operation, the devkit comes with built-in battery charging, monitoring, and energy-harvesting circuitry, plus an accelerometer and a temperature and humidity sensor that makes it ideal for prototyping cellular IoT systems such as asset-tracking applications, environmental monitoring, and smart-meter monitoring, among others. Conexio Stratus board Conexio Stratus specifications: SiP – Nordic Semi nRF9160 system-in-package with Arm Cortex M33 MCU, 1 MB Flash, 256 kB RAM, cellular IoT modem, and GPS. Cellular Connectivity 3GPP LTE release 13 Category M1 and NB1 compliant 3GPP release 14 NB2 compliant RF Transceiver for global coverage supporting bands: Cat-M1: B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B8, B12, B13, B14, […]

October 7, 2021February 4, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

WattUp 1W active energy harvesting developer kit enables at-a-distance wireless charging

WattUp 1W Active Energy Harvesting Transmitter

Two years ago, we noted Energous’ WattUp hearables developer kit that would charge earbuds with the company’s WattUp near-field wireless charging technology. The company has now introduced the WattUP 1W active energy harvesting developer kit capable of charging multiple IoT devices with at-a-distance wireless charging. The kit is said to be “active” because there’s a 6-inch transmitter, let’s call it a power gateway, and several IoT devices that harvest energy from it. Traditional passive solutions will harvest ambient energy from the surrounding environment, and may not deliver enough power, and do so unpredictably. The developer kit comes with the transmitter, plus one or more receiver units, and relies on the following main chips: Transmitter Dialog Semiconductor DA14682 SmartBond Bluetooth 5.0 Cortex-M0 SoC Dialog Semiconductor DA4100 Wireless Power Transmitter SoC Dialog Semiconductor DA3210 1W Power Amplifier A discrete rectifier and a DA2210 WPT rectifier Receiver(s) Dialog Semiconductor DA14531 Cortex-M0+ BLE 5.1 […]

March 30, 2021March 30, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Renesas RE01B Bluetooth 5.0 LE MCU harvests energy for battery maintenance-free IoT devices

EB-RE01B Bluetooth-5.0-Energy Harvesting Board

Nobody likes to change or recharge batteries in their IoT nodes, so any new development related to energy harvesting or batteryless devices is welcomed. Renesas RE01B is a new Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy (BLE) Arm Cortex-M0+ MCU that consumes at little as 35 µA/MHz during operation and 600 nA during standby making it suitable for battery maintenance-free IoT devices, or even batteryless IoT devices thanks to its energy harvesting controller. Renesas RE01B microcontroller’s features and specifications: CPU – Arm Cortex-M0+ core up to 64MHz GPU – 2D graphics accelerator Memory – 256KB SRAM Storage – 1.5MB flash Connectivity – 2.4 GHz radio with Bluetooth 5.0 Low Energy; up to 400m range (Long Range) and 2 Mbps data rate I/Os 8x PWM outputs 7x 14-bit A/D converters (ADC, Analog inputs) SCI (UART), I2C, SPI Timers 1x 32-bit Timer, 3x 16-bit Timer, 2x 8-bit Timer 2x Watchdog Timer, 1-second event timer, stopwatch […]