The uBeam FAQ

[sdpkom]

The fact that uBeam says they have low cost transducers..... does not necessarily mean they do.
Making something really low cost is extremely difficult, and takes special expertise I did not see among the uBeam team members....

They have a novel new technique apparently that can make manufacturing much cheaper for given sensistivity

Without a cheap transducer their large arrays would be dead in the water, so they have to claim they have a way to get cost under control. However, a lot of markets, like flow meters, have been hampered by the cost of ultrasonic transducers, so every transducer maker has been working hard on the cost issue for a number of years. Who would you bet on?

Did you hear that from somebody other then uBeam?

I take this saying with similar skepticism to the saying on being able to charge a phone .

[StillTrying]

I think Dave's source is feeding him duff info.

The good news is that with that rate of size reduction it will vanish completely in less than 1 year.

It did.

[brainwash]

...equipment is rarely worth bothering with. It won't stop them trying to sell it for a few months, but there's a reason I suggested the best return was to just give the staff 60 days notice, close it down, and return the money for about 20c on the dollar average (heavily weighted to certain investors).

I don't understand this part. Why heavily weighted against certain investors? Do they hold board seats or have the "advantage" of being the first seed? I'm really obtuse to this stuff but I thought the equity/return is proportional to the investment, unless subsequent rounds had an effect of raising the [perceived] value.

[coppice]

Without a cheap transducer their large arrays would be dead in the water, so they have to claim they have a way to get cost under control. However, a lot of markets, like flow meters, have been hampered by the cost of ultrasonic transducers, so every transducer maker has been working hard on the cost issue for a number of years. Who would you bet on?

Did you hear that from somebody other then uBeam?

I take this saying with similar skepticism to the saying on being able to charge a phone .

Did I get what from someone othe than uBeam? If you look at uBeam's pitch, with a fairly large array of transducers, they just have to get the cost per transducer under control or they can't get off the starting block. I have done quite a lot of work on ultrasonic utility flow metering, and currently its unclear whether water and gas meters will make a massive move to ultrasonic measurement, due to cost. The transducers are a key part of that cost. Various other proximity applications need cheap ultrasonic transducers to be economically viable, and are being inhibited right now. People like Murata, and various Chinese suppliers, really want to get costs to the point where more high volume markets can take off.

[EEVblog]

The fact that uBeam says they have low cost transducers..... does not necessarily mean they do.
Making something really low cost is extremely difficult, and takes special expertise I did not see among the uBeam team members....

They have a novel new technique apparently that can make manufacturing much cheaper for given sensistivity

Without a cheap transducer their large arrays would be dead in the water, so they have to claim they have a way to get cost under control. However, a lot of markets, like flow meters, have been hampered by the cost of ultrasonic transducers, so every transducer maker has been working hard on the cost issue for a number of years. Who would you bet on?

I wouldn't bet on uBeam of course, I'm just saying that they have some tech and IP in transducers that is novel, and that it may be worth something to someone.
They also haven't been able to turn that novel approach into any sort of decent production yield though I'm lead to believe.
If I was Murata I'd just let uBeam go broke (almost inevitable) and pick up the dregs for peanuts.
As for my source 

[ivaylo]

...equipment is rarely worth bothering with. It won't stop them trying to sell it for a few months, but there's a reason I suggested the best return was to just give the staff 60 days notice, close it down, and return the money for about 20c on the dollar average (heavily weighted to certain investors).

I don't understand this part. Why heavily weighted against certain investors? Do they hold board seats or have the "advantage" of being the first seed? I'm really obtuse to this stuff but I thought the equity/return is proportional to the investment, unless subsequent rounds had an effect of raising the [perceived] value.

The investors, creditors, etc parties are rarely equal - https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/corporate-liquidation-unpaid-taxes-wages.asp . Every round of investment could be negotiated differently, I guess, but the biggest investors can usually get their portions first. The employees of course are last...

[sdpkom]

I don't understand this part. Why heavily weighted against certain investors? Do they hold board seats or have the "advantage" of being the first seed? I'm really obtuse to this stuff but I thought the equity/return is proportional to the investment, unless subsequent rounds had an effect of raising the [perceived] value.

Usually,
The last investor gets his money back, then the one before him, etc....

If there is anything left, it is split according to share....

[PaulReynolds]

I don't understand this part. Why heavily weighted against certain investors? Do they hold board seats or have the "advantage" of being the first seed? I'm really obtuse to this stuff but I thought the equity/return is proportional to the investment, unless subsequent rounds had an effect of raising the [perceived] value.

Not all investors are equal. At the simplest level, some have preferred stock, and others have common stock, and preferred get paid before common. Debt gets paid before any of them, which means had it not been for that recent funding round, those who had convertible debt from the 2015 round may have been higher on the food chain than even the preferred stock holders (not that there would be much to divvy up to begin with). See what Fortress Group did with Theranos at the end and ended up owning everything that could be of value. Even within preferred stock, there could be liquidation preferences of greater than one which means those stock holders would get a multiple of their investment back before anyone else does. Normally in a failing company it doesn't matter as there is nothing to split up, but here uBeam IMO still have a 7 figure sum in the bank. Worth fighting over or do lawyers get most of it?

https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2017/12/theranos-gets-100-million-funding-is-it.html    - on Fortress Group and Theranos
https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2017/05/raising-capital-for-startup-convertible.html   -  on fundraising and convertible notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidation_preference - wikipedia on liquidation preferences

[PaulReynolds]

Did I get what from someone othe than uBeam? If you look at uBeam's pitch, with a fairly large array of transducers, they just have to get the cost per transducer under control or they can't get off the starting block. I have done quite a lot of work on ultrasonic utility flow metering, and currently its unclear whether water and gas meters will make a massive move to ultrasonic measurement, due to cost. The transducers are a key part of that cost. Various other proximity applications need cheap ultrasonic transducers to be economically viable, and are being inhibited right now. People like Murata, and various Chinese suppliers, really want to get costs to the point where more high volume markets can take off.

Indeed - there's a reason many of my blog posts discuss the cost of a transmitter or receiver. If it's a consumer device you need the COGS to be 1/3 or less of what you sell to the public at, so if you claim $30 for a phone case your COGS have to be $10. Assuming that's all in the transducers (not true, there's electronics etc), then for an iPhone X case at 14.4 by 7.1 cm it's approx 100 cm^2, or 10 cents per cm^2. Murata transducers which sell to car manufacturers in huge volumes are in bulk around $1 per cm^2, so that means you need a >10x improvement in cost on an area basis. You then also need to be transmitting at 145 to 155 dB according to uBeam, which is around 30 to 300 times as much power as the Murata devices (assuming a 130dB max at source for Murata). You also need to be smaller, so your element spacing doesn't cause grating lobes to be formed and insonify places you didn't intend, so let's say a factor of 5 in area per device. You also can't have a 1cm thick block on the back of your phone (thicker than the phone!) so they have to be much thinner, let's say 5x again, so 25x in volume total improvement. And each and every device has to work under all conditions, from arctic to desert temperatures, in a dry or humid room, with each and every one of millions of others made for years to come.

So 10x better on price, 30 to 300x better in power, 25 times better in volume, meet all other existing requirements.

As I said in my second blog post "In theory, it can be done in limited cases, but in practice cost and efficiency issues will likely render it impractical."

[PaulReynolds]

uBeam are exhibiting at CES in January. Looks to be one of the private rooms so likely not public.

https://ces19.mapyourshow.com/7_0/exhibitor/exhibitor-details.cfm?ExhID=T0009085

"uBeam is a technology leader in the wireless power industry by utilizing airborne ultrasound to transmit power to create a true contact free charging ecosystem. By using proprietary transmitters and receivers, uBeam is able to deliver the necessary power to charge a range of devices from portable electronics to IoT sensors at various distances. uBeam’s wireless power solution removes power constraints for system designers and decreases battery-related issues to enable performance enhancements and system robustness, thereby creating a new dimension in power delivery and design paradigm."

Short blog post on it here: https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2018/11/ubeam-at-ces-2019.html

[Fungus]

uBeam are exhibiting at CES in January. Looks to be one of the private rooms so likely not public.

No surprise. "Exhibiting" their product at major shows is an important bullet point on the quarterly investor report. It helps keep them alive even though nobody will see anything other than a carefully staged demo.

(maybe the exact same demo they saw last year)

Plus they get to party in Vegas for a weekend, all expenses paid.

[Cyberdragon]

The fact that uBeam says they have low cost transducers..... does not necessarily mean they do.
Making something really low cost is extremely difficult, and takes special expertise I did not see among the uBeam team members....

They have a novel new technique apparently that can make manufacturing much cheaper for given sensistivity

Without a cheap transducer their large arrays would be dead in the water, so they have to claim they have a way to get cost under control. However, a lot of markets, like flow meters, have been hampered by the cost of ultrasonic transducers, so every transducer maker has been working hard on the cost issue for a number of years. Who would you bet on?

I wouldn't bet on uBeam of course, I'm just saying that they have some tech and IP in transducers that is novel, and that it may be worth something to someone.
They also haven't been able to turn that novel approach into any sort of decent production yield though I'm lead to believe.
If I was Murata I'd just let uBeam go broke (almost inevitable) and pick up the dregs for peanuts.
As for my source 

Sure, and I can make an LED bulb that's cheaper and brighter than the rest.

It only blows up after 10 minutes...

[EEVblog]

uBeam are exhibiting at CES in January. Looks to be one of the private rooms so likely not public.

https://ces19.mapyourshow.com/7_0/exhibitor/exhibitor-details.cfm?ExhID=T0009085

"uBeam is a technology leader in the wireless power industry by utilizing airborne ultrasound to transmit power to create a true contact free charging ecosystem. By using proprietary transmitters and receivers, uBeam is able to deliver the necessary power to charge a range of devices from portable electronics to IoT sensors at various distances. uBeam’s wireless power solution removes power constraints for system designers and decreases battery-related issues to enable performance enhancements and system robustness, thereby creating a new dimension in power delivery and design paradigm."

Short blog post on it here: https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2018/11/ubeam-at-ces-2019.html

The trick is in the wording:

By using proprietary transmitters and receivers

Doesn't say anything about the actual transducers, it could simply mean the TX/RX circuitry

[sdpkom]

Jacqueline McCauley is interim CEO of uBeam for 5 months now according to her linkedin page....
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquelinemccauley/

Meredith Perry stepped down in mid September.

I wanted to ask who was managing the company between July and September, but then figured I might as well ask who managed it from 2012 till now?

 

[EEVblog]

I wanted to ask who was managing the company between July and September, but then figured I might as well ask who managed it from 2012 till now?

They have never had adult supervision.

[EEVblog]

On the shelves in 2013 
http://fortune.com/2012/10/11/more-under-40s-mobilizers/

[StillTrying]

On the shelves in 2013 

Fully shelved in Sep. 2018.

[PaulReynolds]

On the shelves in 2013 
http://fortune.com/2012/10/11/more-under-40s-mobilizers/

I still get surprised by some of these that I had never seen before, you lot do a great job digging them up.

For those who liked the last anecdote about working at uBeam, here's another.

https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-ubeam-handshake.html

[Bud]

Re your latest anecdote...Holy crap.... someone needs urgent medical attention.

[EEVblog]

That V insertion variant has got to be grade-A sexual harassment and #MeToo worthy these days, surely?

[PaulReynolds]

That V insertion variant has got to be grade-A sexual harassment and #MeToo worthy these days, surely?

I disagreed with Perry about a lot of things, but I never got the impression that when she did things like that it was from maliciousness towards any individual group.

[EEVblog]

That V insertion variant has got to be grade-A sexual harassment and #MeToo worthy these days, surely?

I disagreed with Perry about a lot of things, but I never got the impression that when she did things like that it was from maliciousness towards any individual group.

Sarcasm 

[Fungus]

I disagreed with Perry about a lot of things, but I never got the impression that when she did things like that it was from maliciousness towards any individual group.

No group except those pesky "engineers".

[Richard Crowley]

I disagreed with Perry about a lot of things, but I never got the impression that when she did things like that it was from maliciousness towards any individual group.

It is often difficult to distinguish between malice and simple ignorance (or impudent chutzpah).
There are whole YouTube channels specializing in things that went wrong when the experts (engineers, etc.) were ignored.

[Howardlong]

That V insertion variant has got to be grade-A sexual harassment and #MeToo worthy these days, surely?

I disagreed with Perry about a lot of things, but I never got the impression that when she did things like that it was from maliciousness towards any individual group.

Sarcasm 

Careful, sarcasm is banned in certain Australian universities. 

The one other place it's banned? North Korea.