Davebait 3 - The everlasting battery ?

[PinheadBE]

I disclaim all side effects that this article could have on Dave's health, nor take any responsability into the rant storm that could flood the youtube channel in the coming centuries 

Here's one that is worth the reading : https://gizmodo.com/this-aa-battery-sucks-power-right-out-of-the-air-1821966213

So, what's your opinion ?    or  ?

[Rerouter]

There example of using it in a remote is probably a fair use case, it would have a capacitor and a regualtor inside it, so by blowing out probably 10W of radiated power i could easily forsee it covering some channel surfing,

The biggest issue relates to why people use batteries, generally you battery power a device because you don't want it to be locked to 1 location, e.g. you go out on your porch but want the TV on showing a game of sport, well you have just gained 8 meters away from the transmitter, and it may begin copping out over that distance.

The IOT devices they hint at, honestly there are very few times where i expect something to be both wifi enabled, and battery powered.

[PinheadBE]

Let's consider we use this without the power hungry transmitter (yes: what about efficiency ?).

They claim that the battery would also load itself with the ambiant RF waves (isn't it ?).   I wonder what power could effictively be retrieved that way.

[Rerouter]

ambient radio waves... unless your in a cafe in the center of the city, your looking at micro-watts to possibly milliwatts, there antenna is tiny to fit in an AA casing, its likely obstructed by the PCB that the battery holder is over, etc,

Linear tech has plenty of ambient RF grabbing demo boards if you want a real world example, but for most devices its not really going to work,

Part of me forsees someone trying it out in a fire alarm because lets face it no one likes changing the battery in them each year, wonder what the legal process would be there, a powercut making a reliable device disabled.

[tszaboo]

It is totally worth spending 100 EUR+ on a device to avoid replacing a couple of 0.3 EUR batteries every half decade.

[nanofrog]

Way too expensive for remote control batteries. 

And in the case of smart phones (and presumably other devices over time), there are already established and far less expensive ways to make a device induction charger capable. Heck, it's even easily added to older smart phones (just add the coil).

I do see it as a better solution on a commercial/industrial scale than the current methodology though, as a single charger eliminates the need for 1 device per charger on a large scale. It would also allow users to keep their device/s on their person (true mobility). Assuming it genuinely will work once it's out in the wild of course.

[PinheadBE]

I would give an arm to see Dave make the maths 

[paulca]

There are such things as ever lasting batteries.  Ever owned a Casio watch or calculator?  (tehe)

[ogden]

Oh, geez 

This is basically microwave oven steering it's energy all over the place.

Some excerpts of their specs:

Freq = 2.8 GHz
range up-to 30ft
8W radiated for 1W delivered

Best part: "To operate within the FCC’s (Federal Communications Commission’s) safety standards the rate of power transmission is one-third to one-fifth of standard USB charge speed" To charge iPhone, 18 hours are needed

Antennas are not ideal. They do not radiate "RF lasers". Sidelobes exist no matter how good antenna is. Beamforming is no different. So while your phone is charging, some sidelobe can be frying your eyeball as well... Or just saturating LNA of WiFi deice you are using rendering it useless during "wireless charge"

[PinheadBE]

There are such things as ever lasting batteries.  Ever owned a Casio watch or calculator?  (tehe)

Point taken !
Those beasts were well ahead of their time in terms of energy savings !

Oh, geez 

This is basically microwave oven steering it's energy all over the place.
(....)

YES !  Come on, come on....  Dave's not far away 

[Towger]

[PinheadBE]

Will this charge my cell phone ? 

1°) This faint energy does NOT come out of nowhere
2°) It is so faint that it could also be only some variations in Earth's magnetic field, or the movement could be produced by subtle tectonic moves

But, we are order of magnitudes away from charging a cell phone, aren't we ?

[glarsson]

There are such things as ever lasting batteries.  Ever owned a Casio watch or calculator?  (tehe)

The battery in my old Minolta SRT101 was replaced sometime in the second half of the seventies. Now 40 years later the 1.35V PX625 battery still works, just like when it was new. These batteries were so good they had to be banned. 

[Red Squirrel]

One of these days Dave is going to get an aneurysm on camera from these BS inventions. 

Also what is with this obsession of wireless electricity, is it really that hard to plug something in?  Any form of wireless electricity that would be usable would probably have lot of health risks.

Wireless is probably the #1 buzzword of this century.

[SiliconWizard]

Very funny indeed.

Especially since wireless transmission of energy has been studied and done extensively by resonant inductive coupling.

Doing the same with RF, just because it looks hype, seems not only stupid (unless it's aimed at ultra-low power, such as with UHF RFID, which has its uses) and inefficient, but also forms a health hazard and has a rather low chance of getting regulatory approved.

[Kontakr]

12.5% power delivered? I want to know what range they were at to hit that high of an efficiency.