Author Topic: The uBeam FAQ  (Read 641573 times)

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Offline StillTrying

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1025 on: November 10, 2017, 11:56:50 pm »
All I can think of is that they're going to say, "Look at all this space we've got, we can start mass production as soon as we get more funding".  :-DD  :horse:  |O  :-BROKE  :palm:
.  That took much longer than I thought it would.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1026 on: November 14, 2017, 11:08:50 am »
MORE FUNDING!  :palm:
Just got this email:

Quote
OurCrowd is investing in uBeam, a US based company pioneering long-range wireless charging for electronic devices. In an era when consumers are attached to electronic devices, one of the most common pain points is poor battery life. uBeam has developed an innovative solution which enables untethered long-range wireless charging for battery-powered devices.

We are joined in this round by Andreessen Horowitz (Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Skype), Upfront Ventures (Bill Me Later, Ring), Founders Fund (SpaceX, Palantir, Lyft), Ludlow Ventures (AngelList, Product Hunt) and Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks.

We’re hosting a webinar/conference call (Wednesday, November 15th at 7:00PM Israel / 12:00PM New York / 9:00AM San Francisco) for investors to meet CEO Meredith Perry and learn more about uBeam.

Register

The Need for Untethered Wireless Charging

Everyone who owns a mobile phone or device has encountered the struggle of low battery life. To solve this, uBeam has developed an innovative solution which enables true wireless charging for battery-powered devices. uBeam works by harnessing the power from ultrasound. The system wirelessly transmits focused beams of ultrasonic energy to devices outfitted with their proprietary receiver. The ultrasonic receiver technology (which can be attached to or built into a range of devices) converts acoustic energy into electrical energy, which charges the device. The solution is expected to be capable of delivering energy to charge devices like smartphones, wearables, IOT devices and more in real-world scenarios such as coffee shops, office space, homes, gyms, airports, or anywhere a transmitter can be placed.

Unique Solution with Fully Functional Prototype

uBeam has already built and demonstrated several fully functional, prototype wireless power transfer systems, which can charge multiple smartphones in the air simultaneously, even while the phones are in use. uBeam’s solution has been deemed the wireless power “category winner” by some of the largest electronics companies worldwide as it can transmit the most power over the largest distance to the greatest number of devices simultaneously while staying safe, within regulatory limits, and without issues of interference. uBeam’s technological approach has a clear advantage over others as it is the only known wireless power technology that doesn’t use electromagnetic energy for power transmission. As ultrasound isn’t on the electromagnetic spectrum, uBeam is therefore not limited by the regulatory, safety, and interference hurdles of its competitors. uBeam’s technology does not interfere with other electromagnetic technologies that use RF and microwaves such as standard communication systems and devices (WiFi, radio, cell phones, etc.). The Company has a strong intellectual property portfolio with 92 domestic and international patent assets, and 17 granted patents.

>>>View full diligence material on uBeam here

Market Opportunity

According to Allied Market Research, the global wireless charging market is set to reach $37.2B by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 44.7% from 2016 to 2022. Research shows that increased sales in the portable electronics and wearables market, as well as in the electric vehicles market, have created demand for new forms of energy, further driving the growth of the wireless charging market. uBeam believes their technology has applications that extend well beyond power transmission - into haptics, autonomous vehicles, rear parking sensors, and more. The rear parking sensor market alone is a several billion dollar industry.

Skilled Management Team

uBeam is led by CEO Meredith Perry, who was selected for Forbes’ prestigious ‘30 Under 30: Energy’ list, and for Fast Company’s ‘100 Most Creative People In Business’ list. Meredith is joined by EVP & CTO, Larry Pendergrass, a physicist and former engineering executive at Tektronix/Keithley, Agilent, and HP, as well as COO Kostas Mallios, who recently sold his last two companies to major corporations in a span of 24 months. Kostas was a GM at Microsoft for 15 years and was also the Vice President of Intellectual Ventures.

I'm Interested

In the long term, the investment committee at OurCrowd believes that uBeam could become an infrastructure technology similar to Wi-Fi, providing seamless charging, data transfer, and seemingly infinite battery power.

Looking forward to you joining us on the call,
OurCrowd Investments
 

Offline ChrisLX200

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1027 on: November 14, 2017, 11:40:47 am »
You should change the link: '>>>View full diligence material on uBeam here'   to something more appropriate and send to all recipients :)
 

Offline StillTrying

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1028 on: November 14, 2017, 11:48:03 am »
Someone should send the id investors some useful links and videos.

"rear parking sensors, and more. The rear parking sensor market alone is a several billion dollar industry."

As if uBean can do receiving, and all the little white rectangles painted all over the place would look a mess. :)

"In the long term, the investment committee at OurCrowd believes that uBeam could become an infrastructure technology similar to Wi-Fi, providing seamless charging, data transfer, and seemingly infinite battery power."

Well erm, you're wrong.  :horse:

"Looking forward to you joining us on the call,"

It's tempting.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2017, 11:53:23 am by StillTrying »
.  That took much longer than I thought it would.
 

Offline Fungus

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1029 on: November 14, 2017, 11:50:57 am »
Still 24h left to throw a spanner in the works.

Ideas?
 

Offline StillTrying

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1030 on: November 14, 2017, 11:56:13 am »
.  That took much longer than I thought it would.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1031 on: November 14, 2017, 12:16:47 pm »
You should change the link: '>>>View full diligence material on uBeam here'   to something more appropriate and send to all recipients :)

Unfortunately you have to have an account with OurCrowd to get the info.
http://bit.ly/2zWb4Zu
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1032 on: November 14, 2017, 12:21:59 pm »
Quote
According to Allied Market Research, the global wireless charging market is set to reach $37.2B by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 44.7% from 2016 to 2022. Research shows that increased sales in the portable electronics and wearables market, as well as in the electric vehicles market, have created demand for new forms of energy, further driving the growth of the wireless charging market. uBeam believes their technology has applications that extend well beyond power transmission - into haptics, autonomous vehicles, rear parking sensors, and more. The rear parking sensor market alone is a several billion dollar industry.

The inevitable pivot is in the works?
 

Offline coppice

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1033 on: November 14, 2017, 01:24:33 pm »
Quote
According to Allied Market Research, the global wireless charging market is set to reach $37.2B by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 44.7% from 2016 to 2022. Research shows that increased sales in the portable electronics and wearables market, as well as in the electric vehicles market, have created demand for new forms of energy, further driving the growth of the wireless charging market. uBeam believes their technology has applications that extend well beyond power transmission - into haptics, autonomous vehicles, rear parking sensors, and more. The rear parking sensor market alone is a several billion dollar industry.

The inevitable pivot is in the works?
Using parking sensors as a potential market is hilarious. Because it is a multi-billion dollar business everyone with a history in automotive electronics had attacked it quite aggressively, and robust low cost solutions already exist. How is anyone without a track record in the automotive industry going to get anywhere with that? The after-market market offers some possibilities, but there are already plenty of keen high volume Asian electronics companies serving that with low cost offerings.
 

Offline Cerebus

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1034 on: November 14, 2017, 02:57:28 pm »

Quote
According to Allied Market Research, the global wireless charging market is set to reach $37.2B...

Ya gotta love the spurious precision in "$37.2B" when in truth the estimate is probably only marginally better than throwing yarrow stalks in the air and seeing how they land.
Anybody got a syringe I can use to squeeze the magic smoke back into this?
 

Offline coppice

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1035 on: November 14, 2017, 03:08:20 pm »

Quote
According to Allied Market Research, the global wireless charging market is set to reach $37.2B...

Ya gotta love the spurious precision in "$37.2B" when in truth the estimate is probably only marginally better than throwing yarrow stalks in the air and seeing how they land.
Its a basic principle used in market research. The number of digits quoted is inversely proportional the confidence it is reasonable to have in the estimate. Hence, based on a steady long term trend someone might say "I think we'll see a 4 or 5% growth next year", while someone stepping into the unknown will say "we estimate there will be 282,345 subscribers by the close of next year". A great example of this was CT2, the home digital cordless telephone they tried to fudge into a public system. UK market researchers quoted large estimates for subscriber take up, down to the very last subscriber. Actually, it was a shot in the dark, failed badly, and only handfuls signed up.
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1036 on: November 14, 2017, 03:25:45 pm »
Why are you all so worried about stupid investors putting their money on a scam? It's their money. (Hopefully, at least! If not, we should be concerned about something else than what they are buying with it...)

I'd understand this reaction if this was some well-crafted scam that's easy to fall into.

But everybody already knows this is a scam. By just Googling "uBeam", the first result page shows several disturbing hits to severely criticize it - including, but not limited to, Dave's debunk video.

I'd assume an investor at least uses 1 minute to Google the name of the company they're going to invest in.

And, I'd assume a sensible investor would check out the huge alarm bells going off everywhere, when they do that 1-minute Googling. You know, dig a bit deeper. Use $200 to get an opinion from an engineer consultant first. Things like that.

The fact someone invests in this kind of totally obvious and already well exposed scam shows they are either complete idiots, or just have too much money and they don't care about spending it in random scams the slightest.

But this is, indeed, interesting to follow  :popcorn:
« Last Edit: November 14, 2017, 03:27:30 pm by Siwastaja »
 

Offline Fungus

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1037 on: November 14, 2017, 04:42:04 pm »
But everybody already knows this is a scam. By just Googling "uBeam", the first result page shows several disturbing hits to severely criticize it - including, but not limited to, Dave's debunk video.

Nope.

Remember that everybody sees different things when they use google. Potential investors might only see glowing reviews and paid-for news articles because they don't live in your world.

FWIW: When I tried it I didn't see any major criticisms until page 2 and Dave's video didn't appear at all unless I want to videos (where it was half way down the page). The first video I see is the uBeam demo where it's obviously "working"*. If an investor sees that one before they see Dave's, who will they believe?



(*) Working in the sense that you can get 1mA of charge if you hold a huge brick at just the right angle in front of the (multi)kW transmitter array.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2017, 05:03:13 pm by Fungus »
 

Offline Fungus

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1038 on: November 14, 2017, 04:55:47 pm »
You should change the link: '>>>View full diligence material on uBeam here'   to something more appropriate and send to all recipients :)
Unfortunately you have to have an account with OurCrowd to get the info.

"Due diligence" for this type of investors means making sure no patents are being infringed and that it's not going to kill anybody in any obvious way.

eg. From the uBeam site:
"Over the last two years, as part of the extensive due diligence of our investors, we have employed third party ultrasound and safety regulation experts to investigate the uBeam system for both performance and safety. They were fully satisfied that uBeam exceeds all safety and regulatory requirements."

 

Offline ChrisLX200

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1039 on: November 14, 2017, 05:30:38 pm »
Well it damn near killed me laughing at it, does that count?
 

Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1040 on: November 14, 2017, 06:16:33 pm »
MORE FUNDING!  :palm:
We’re hosting a webinar/conference call (Wednesday, November 15th at 7:00PM Israel / 12:00PM New York / 9:00AM San Francisco) for investors to meet CEO Meredith Perry and learn more about uBeam.
:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
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Mike's Electric Stuff: High voltage, vintage electronics etc.
Day Job: Mostly LEDs
 

Offline Siwastaja

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1041 on: November 14, 2017, 06:55:51 pm »
If an investor sees that one before they see Dave's, who will they believe?

If a competent investor sees a critical video from a third party, they'll at least want to test: "is this true?" If they enter that mode, they should have no problem finding the info they need.

But indeed, not all investors are competent, or even sane. Some just want to believe, like the consumers as well.

Stupid people do exist, and availability of money does not necessarily correlate with the ability to use it wisely.

And how do we even know the real motives of said investors? They can play complex games too. So maybe they are not stupid at all, but know a way to play along with the scam and win money in the end. If that's the case, I guess Perry will be the one who needs to take all the blame in the end; that's how the story would be written.

But most likely, just a relatively uninterested investor throwing some peanuts around.

In any case:  :popcorn:
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1042 on: November 14, 2017, 08:27:05 pm »
Why are you all so worried about stupid investors putting their money on a scam? It's their money. (Hopefully, at least! If not, we should be concerned about something else than what they are buying with it...)

I'd understand this reaction if this was some well-crafted scam that's easy to fall into.

Because it could be pension money involved or something like that.
Also, if something has no hope of working as claimed, people should know that, as not everyone is capable of making engineering valuations. We as community need to do that for them.
 
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Offline EEVblog

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1043 on: November 14, 2017, 08:28:44 pm »
You should change the link: '>>>View full diligence material on uBeam here'   to something more appropriate and send to all recipients :)
Unfortunately you have to have an account with OurCrowd to get the info.

"Due diligence" for this type of investors means making sure no patents are being infringed and that it's not going to kill anybody in any obvious way.

eg. From the uBeam site:
"Over the last two years, as part of the extensive due diligence of our investors, we have employed third party ultrasound and safety regulation experts to investigate the uBeam system for both performance and safety. They were fully satisfied that uBeam exceeds all safety and regulatory requirements."

It's the "in theory it's possible" camp  :palm:
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1044 on: November 14, 2017, 08:31:54 pm »
(*) Working in the sense that you can get 1mA of charge if you hold a huge brick at just the right angle in front of the (multi)kW transmitter array.

And that's the problem, it certainly "works".
It's the engineering behind making a practical marketable product that is the problem, and Joe Average finds it hard to understand the that hard to understand subtleties of that unfortunately. Hence the 2nd whiteboard in my video tried to address that.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1045 on: November 14, 2017, 08:49:28 pm »
Rumor has it there is a pitch deck for the new crowd funding investors floating around. Anyone got it?  ;D
 

Offline Cerebus

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1046 on: November 14, 2017, 08:53:43 pm »
eg. From the uBeam site:
"Over the last two years, as part of the extensive due diligence of our investors, we have employed third party ultrasound and safety regulation experts to investigate the uBeam system for both performance and safety. They were fully satisfied that uBeam exceeds all safety and regulatory requirements."

It's the "in theory it's possible" camp  :palm:

You're missing something. There's a particular way of presenting things that is intended to get you to mentally fill in something that is not there, so when challenged later the writer can say "we didn't say that" and it's being used here.

Quote
"Over the last two years, as part of the extensive due diligence of our investors, we have employed third party ultrasound and safety regulation experts to investigate the uBeam system for both performance and safety. They were fully satisfied that uBeam exceeds all safety and regulatory requirements."

Notice how they tested for performance and safety - but only safety appears in the claim about the results of those tests. If you're not careful your brain will supply the missing 'performance' from the second sentence because of the "X and Y" structure in both sentences.

It falls into that category of things I call "lawyers lies", completely true, deliberately misleading, and you can't prove the latter in a court even though you know it's true.
Anybody got a syringe I can use to squeeze the magic smoke back into this?
 
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Offline PaulReynolds

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1047 on: November 15, 2017, 05:28:15 pm »
 

Offline l0rd_hex

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1048 on: November 15, 2017, 08:21:24 pm »
I'm about halfway through this documentary and the similarities are... startling:

"I haven't paid taxes in six years, and I'm not getting busted by a damn sandwich." - Benjamin Franklin
 
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Offline StillTrying

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Re: The uBeam FAQ
« Reply #1049 on: November 15, 2017, 08:40:58 pm »
So will the conference call, or a transcript of it be posted on-line as proof of uBean's fantastical developments and future possibilities?

I think it would be a laugh a minute.
.  That took much longer than I thought it would.
 


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