Author Topic: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!  (Read 20515 times)

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Online EEVblogTopic starter

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EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« on: July 18, 2021, 01:29:33 pm »
WiGL have raised almost 5 MILLION dollars on StartEngine.
What's worse than another wireless charging technology startup? - One that doesn't really have any original technology!
This one is just embarrassing.
And they want to comepete with Energous, WiTricity, Ossia and others, LOL.

Sorry for the length, here are some handy time markers:
00:00 - WiGL Raised $5M on StartEngine
02:50 - A look at the StartEngine campaign
07:15 - It's like WiFi for Power! Where have we heard this before?
12:02 - Let's comete with Enerous, HUAWEI, WiTricity, and Ossia. LOL
13:52 - Brand Dominance!
16:00 - Let's watch the promo video!
17:38 - The AMAZING WiGL Energy Unit technology!
23:07 - A whopping 2.5mW!
25:56 - All hail the White Paper!
29:40 - The Patent
34:12 - Let's charge an iPhone!
36:58 - Their latest technology demonstrator!
38:15 - WiGL Tech Talk with the founder showing off their latest tech!
45:26 - INFINITE POWER!
46:23 - We've already done it! No, no you haven't.
47:49 - Uh-Oh! We have a SKEPTIC!

WiGL Video: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp8St2LrfCuHuPd1UoXfjng
StartEngine: https://www.startengine.com/wigl
White Paper: https://wiglpower.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/WigL-White-Paper-Download.pdf
Home page: https://www.wiglpower.com/
Patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2018212805A1/en?oq=9985465

 

Offline Neilm

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2021, 05:17:19 pm »
This technology could be used to charge a smart phone or electric car.

All it needs to do is transfer enough power to switch a logic signal driving a relay connected to the mains
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Offline daqq

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2021, 06:38:03 pm »
The applications are limitless! This could suck the money from dumb people! It could suck money from dumber people! It could suck money from rich and poor dumb people alike! Wow!
Believe it or not, pointy haired people do exist!
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Offline jonovid

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2021, 12:42:02 am »
just use imagination
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Online EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #4 on: July 19, 2021, 02:50:16 am »
For a near identical product, and one that contains some actual original tech to try and do 5W wireless charging, see my debunk of the Xiaomi wireless charger. This is EXACTLY what the WiGL will have to be if it wants to receive 5W directed RF power. The numbers and issues will be exactly the same, so just replace the word Xiaomi with WiGL and you have another Part 2 debunk of WiGL:
 

Offline 777arc

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #5 on: July 19, 2021, 04:30:35 am »
I bet Virginia Tech could (and should) sue the crap out of them, they claim their tech talk was at "Virginia Tech University" on their website and StartEngine, but the tech talk was really at a place called "Tech Center" which is a BS tech incubator not associated with Virginia Tech.   There is no such college/uni called "Virginia Tech University" but there is Virginia Tech, where I went, and it wouldn't be crazy to claim that saying  "Virginia Tech University" implies Virginia Tech university.  When I first saw the video I was really disappointed in my school, before realizing it wasn't actually at Virginia Tech.  Would it be slander or trademark infringement or something?
 
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Offline MrMobodies

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #6 on: July 19, 2021, 04:55:56 am »
I guess this is how they WiGGLE out of it with the information they don't bombared you with in the small print after the 18 months is up and all the wages have been paid.

Notice: "Important Message" in small font size like the rest below but not as "important" to be as large like the marketing materials above:
Quote
Important Message
IN MAKING AN INVESTMENT DECISION, INVESTORS MUST RELY ON THEIR OWN EXAMINATION OF THE ISSUER AND THE TERMS OF THE OFFERING, INCLUDING THE MERITS AND RISKS INVOLVED. INVESTMENTS ON STARTENGINE ARE SPECULATIVE, ILLIQUID, AND INVOLVE A HIGH DEGREE OF RISK, INCLUDING THE POSSIBLE LOSS OF YOUR ENTIRE INVESTMENT.

www.StartEngine.com is a website owned and operated by StartEngine Crowdfunding, Inc. (“StartEngine”), which is neither a registered broker-dealer, investment advisor nor funding portal.
Unless indicated otherwise with respect to a particular issuer, all securities-related activity is conducted by regulated affiliates of StartEngine: StartEngine Capital, LLC, a funding portal registered here with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and here as a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), or StartEngine Primary, LLC, a broker-dealer registered with the SEC and FINRA/SIPC. You can review the background of our broker-dealer and our investment professionals on FINRA’s BrokerCheck here. StartEngine Secondary is an alternative trading system regulated by the SEC and operated by StartEngine Primary, LLC, a broker dealer registered with the SEC and FINRA.

Investment opportunities posted and accessible through the site are of three types:
1) Regulation A offerings (JOBS Act Title IV; known as Regulation A+), which are offered to non-accredited and accredited investors alike. These offerings are made through StartEngine Primary, LLC (unless otherwise indicated). 2) Regulation D offerings (Rule 506(c)), which are offered only to accredited investors. These offerings are made through StartEngine Primary, LLC. 3) Regulation Crowdfunding offerings (JOBS Act Title III), which are offered to non-accredited and accredited investors alike. These offerings are made through StartEngine Capital, LLC. Some of these offerings are open to the general public, however there are important differences and risks.
Any securities offered on this website have not been recommended or approved by any federal or state securities commission or regulatory authority. StartEngine and its affiliates do not provide any investment advice or recommendation and do not provide any legal or tax advice with respect to any securities. All securities listed on this site are being offered by, and all information included on this site is the responsibility of, the applicable issuer of such securities. StartEngine does not verify the adequacy, accuracy or completeness of any information. Neither StartEngine nor any of its officers, directors, agents and employees makes any warranty, express or implied, of any kind whatsoever related to the adequacy, accuracy, or completeness of any information on this site or the use of information on this site. See additional general disclosures here.
By accessing this site and any pages on this site, you agree to be bound by our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, as may be amended from time to time without notice or liability.
Canadian Investors
Investment opportunities posted and accessible through the site will not be offered to Canadian resident investors.
Potential investors are strongly advised to consult their legal, tax and financial advisors before investing. The securities offered on this site are not offered in jurisdictions where public solicitation for offerings is not permitted; it is solely your responsibility to comply with the laws and regulations of your country of residence.
California Investor Only - Do Not Sell My Personal Information

INVESTMENTS ON STARTENGINE ARE SPECULATIVE
So someone could just start a campaign offering a one way trip to heaven and that's fine on Startengine as it's all speculative investments and fraud don't seem to apply to them.

Sounds worse than IndieGoGo and I'd thought Dave said that was "the scammers platform of choice" in one of his videos.

So the 80% investment that goes into wages to pay that one person just to give back in investments of 20% or whatevers left after "research and developments" to the investors in their slotted amount and it looks like the have got it planned out for them.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2021, 05:08:14 am by MrMobodies »
 

Offline daqq

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #7 on: July 19, 2021, 08:14:17 am »
Hey Dave, he's a fan!
Believe it or not, pointy haired people do exist!
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Online EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #8 on: July 19, 2021, 09:41:21 am »
Hey Dave, he's a fan!



LOL, not falling for it.
He wants the interview so he can use it as marketing leverage, just like he used the other guy.

Multiple transmitters will solve everything :palm:
They already pumped out 3W into a large antenna array and got the entirely predictable 10's of mW output.
He will need 500W+ input power to get anything practically usable to charge a phone, exactly as I calculated here, the numbers and issues are identical.

 

Online EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #9 on: July 19, 2021, 09:52:33 am »
Turns out you can comment on campaigns without backing it, you just need an email account.
https://www.startengine.com/wigl

 

Online EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #10 on: July 19, 2021, 10:35:06 am »
 ::)

 

Online EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #11 on: July 19, 2021, 10:50:46 am »
The comments section is a hoot!  :popcorn:
They have invented to use of a capacitor for trickle charge storage!

But I've now lost two comments, it seems buggy, so I won't be posting any more.

 
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Online EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #12 on: July 19, 2021, 11:00:26 am »
Post'em all

 

Online EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #13 on: July 19, 2021, 11:03:13 am »
More

 

Online EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #14 on: July 19, 2021, 11:05:15 am »
Something tells me they wouldn't be so happy with my video and skepticism and a "big fan" if they hadn't already raised $4.8M, with only 200k to go.
Can you pull your funding from StartEngine before the campaign ends?
 
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Offline nctnico

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #15 on: July 19, 2021, 01:07:08 pm »
Turns out you can comment on campaigns without backing it, you just need an email account.
https://www.startengine.com/wigl
Do give up on inverse square law when dealing with wireless power transfer. It doesn't apply; you'll see it yourself if you actually study magnetic beam forming for example. There are several papers available online which show the math and test results over various distances (>1m) with way over 1W of power transfer at better than 80% efficiency.

For example: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.06602.pdf
« Last Edit: July 19, 2021, 01:11:13 pm by nctnico »
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Offline DrG

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #16 on: July 19, 2021, 01:33:40 pm »
Can you pull your funding from StartEngine before the campaign ends?

From: https://sec.report/Document/0001665160-20-001595/offeringmemoformc.pdf

• Investment Cancellations: Investors will have up to 48 hours prior to the end of the offering
period to change their minds and cancel their investment commitments for any reason. Once within 48
hours of ending, investors will not be able to cancel for any reason, even if they make a
commitment during this period.
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Offline ssander

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #17 on: July 19, 2021, 01:48:33 pm »
WiGL may have posted it on one place but over on another, it is not getting as much interest, well zero interest on another.

https://crowdlustro.com/search/3002-WiGL-on-StartEngine  :-DD

Are these people even real? Sounds like a Uni assignment where you have to set up a fictitious product and do a marketing campaign.
 

Offline madires

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #18 on: July 19, 2021, 02:52:02 pm »
It's hilarious! Possibly their way to WiGL money out of the pockets of many victims might be even legal.
 

Offline MrMobodies

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #19 on: July 19, 2021, 05:46:46 pm »
Can you pull your funding from StartEngine before the campaign ends?

From: https://sec.report/Document/0001665160-20-001595/offeringmemoformc.pdf

• Investment Cancellations: Investors will have up to 48 hours prior to the end of the offering
period to change their minds and cancel their investment commitments for any reason. Once within 48
hours of ending, investors will not be able to cancel for any reason, even if they make a
commitment during this period.


In that PDF document it looks to me that they left out that the top bit in the small print at the bottom of the website:

Quote
A crowdfunding investment involves risk. You should not invest any funds in this offering unless you can afford to lose your entire investment.
...
In making an investment decision, investors must rely on their own examination of the issuer and the terms of the offering....

https://www.startengine.com/wigl
Quote
Important Message
IN MAKING AN INVESTMENT DECISION, INVESTORS MUST RELY ON THEIR OWN EXAMINATION OF THE ISSUER AND THE TERMS OF THE OFFERING

I wonder why they didn't that include it on the top with the rest.

In other words: They should not invest any money unless they can effectively afford to give it all away.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2021, 05:49:25 pm by MrMobodies »
 

Offline thm_w

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #20 on: July 19, 2021, 08:46:20 pm »
So they admit all they have is the name Wigl, which is nothing because any major company can come up with their own branded name (eg iCharge, whatever).

Also, probably not illegal, but, the main Ahmad guy straight up stating he will use DOD funding to pay for the R&D of his private company? wow. How is that not in the contract, unless its a blanket grant with no restrictions at all.

I bet Virginia Tech could (and should) sue the crap out of them, they claim their tech talk was at "Virginia Tech University" on their website and StartEngine, but the tech talk was really at a place called "Tech Center" which is a BS tech incubator not associated with Virginia Tech.   There is no such college/uni called "Virginia Tech University" but there is Virginia Tech, where I went, and it wouldn't be crazy to claim that saying  "Virginia Tech University" implies Virginia Tech university.  When I first saw the video I was really disappointed in my school, before realizing it wasn't actually at Virginia Tech.  Would it be slander or trademark infringement or something?

Virginia tech puts out some amazing sports research, so didn't believe when they said VT had anything to do with this.
You could pass the youtube link on to schools lawyers, but I don't know if its enough for them to care. They didn't say "sponsored by VT", or "approved by VT" or anything implying an actual relationship.
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Offline DrG

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #21 on: July 19, 2021, 09:09:00 pm »
When a company, e.g., Wireless electrical Grid LAN, WiGL, Inc. is regulated by the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission and incorporated in a state in the US, a standard investigator tool is to go look at their SEC filings.

In the instant case, these can be found here: https://sec.report/CIK/0001836728

My recollection is that old timer "Individual Investors" were always cautioned about "pink sheet" stocks .... the generic "penny stock".  Back then, it was harder to get the information that you can now get with a few clicks. I never bought a penny stock in my life. There were a few cases, many years ago, where I would research extensively some new offering, penny stock or whatever. This, because I knew a great deal about the subject matter. I am comfortable with my decisions in those cases.

I am not going to opine on whether this stock is a good or bad investment, period. In fact, I do not know a great deal about the subject matter. It is your money and it is your risk.  My point here is that I would hope that folks who spend cash on stocks do some research and make informed and evidenced-based decisions. I am distinctly disinclined to support the YOLO mentality.

I enjoyed the video.

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Offline robca

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #22 on: July 19, 2021, 10:27:02 pm »
From one of Dr. Ahmad G. replies to a comment

Quote
WiGL is all about owning “what we call wireless power”. How we package and sell wireless power. And that race has started my friend.

The debate on Inverse Square Law, system power demands and power versus distance are best suited for our competitors 🙏🏽 who make Tx and Rx. Sadly folks have seen the words wireless power and “assumed” we are offering a new version of those old mouse traps. That’s not WiGL🙈. WiGL is “wireless electrical grid “local area networks”. Using existing steerable beam tech and capacitors in the loop

What he seems to be saying is that they have no IP in the power Tx/Rx space. Their "innovation" is a branding name and some unspecified DRM overlay onto existing Tx and Rx hardware. In his SEC documents and the answers on the Startengine page, all that matters seems to be "being first in creating a brand for wireless power so that consumers will ask for it". And somewhere else in one of his replies, he says that consumers will pay a Wigl subscription to receive power

Their only assets are a trademark, a cute logo and a patent that says that they can manage wireless power delivery. One of their PR Newswires (https://www.prweb.com/releases/2018/06/prweb15545051.htm) says "The full text for patent number 9,985,465 is for systems, devices, and/or methods for managing electrical energy.".  And once more here (https://patents.justia.com/patent/20200067341) the patent is called "Systems, Devices, and/or Methods for Managing Wireless Electrical Grid Location or Personal Area Network (WiGL) Energy"

So, I assume, some sort of a Rx that upon sensing a "Wigl-enabled Tx" will negotiate securely to receive beamformed power to the device from one or more Wigl-enabled Tx in a local area. They seem to have no interest in developing the Tx and Rx tech, as much as in finding partners to design and manufacture Tx and Rx pars using the Wigl branding. Their SEC document doesn't talk about unique IP in the transmission or reception of wireless power. https://sec.report/Document/0001665160-21-000533/. That's why they have no problems using existing third party devices in their demos. They have no idea on how to build better Tx or Rx (apart from adding capacitors  ::)). That's why he can write off Dave's and other people concerns, since he's not worried about what every EE is immediately aware of: physics is a problem.

Here is what he says:

Quote
5. And yes again, anyone can steal the Tx signal in space if they are in the field of regard, so we are building software controls and have partnered with Espre (and others) for cyber hardening of our MVPs. This is where the subscriptions come into play. No subscription + crypto key = no WiGL. Again, a lot like the cellular model where no subscription equals no coverage.
6. WiGL’s novelty is connecting these dots and advancing the small amount of tech needed to “integrate”…Existing Tx+Rx+SW
7. WiGL is all about connecting the dots.
8. Most important, we are after naming rights…meaning when wireless power is at your hotel or offered in your car in 2030…what do you call it? And who has monetized the name. We are betting on “WiGL”.

Note the focus on naming and integrating existing Tx+Rx... And, yes, that's as delusional as it sounds  :-DD

Note to self: check out Startengine, it seems to be the ideal vehicle to scam poor sods out of their money. So much more efficient than even the previous champion, IndieGoGo.  >:D
« Last Edit: July 19, 2021, 10:37:40 pm by robca »
 
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Online EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #23 on: July 19, 2021, 10:56:50 pm »
Turns out you can comment on campaigns without backing it, you just need an email account.
https://www.startengine.com/wigl
Do give up on inverse square law when dealing with wireless power transfer. It doesn't apply; you'll see it yourself if you actually study magnetic beam forming for example. There are several papers available online which show the math and test results over various distances (>1m) with way over 1W of power transfer at better than 80% efficiency.

For example: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.06602.pdf

That paper is about directed magnetic resonat coupling and near-field. This is not how WiGL works works it seems, it's claims are far-field, and there is absoutely no mention of resonance in any of their documentation or patent. It's siple beamformed RF with direct wideband RF-DC conversion.

I spoke to Shahriar from the signal path about the Xaiomi charger and it's an identical problem, and he says you are going to lose 50% right off the bat for RF-DC conversion at high frequencies.
And you need significantly more than 1m to be practical.
And then you will always have the capture area of the antenna and practical orientation of the phone. It's an impractical boondoggle.
I have no doubt you can get something halfway decent as a bench example.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2021, 11:06:01 pm by EEVblog »
 

Online EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #24 on: July 19, 2021, 11:13:15 pm »
Virginia tech puts out some amazing sports research, so didn't believe when they said VT had anything to do with this.
You could pass the youtube link on to schools lawyers, but I don't know if its enough for them to care. They didn't say "sponsored by VT", or "approved by VT" or anything implying an actual relationship.

And that's how these people work. They get people like universities, or the inventor of the RFdigagnostics chip, or UL (in the case of Batteriser for example) to verify some small aspect of their work, very likely without telling them the full scope of their grandiose impractical claims. And then they use that snippet to imply endorsement. And the neat thing is they aren't technically lying.
That's the reason why they want me to interview them, so they can use it as marketing fodder.

Just look at the VT video, it's 5 seconds of some professor pushing the cart. No opinion, no commentary, no other info.
 

Online EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #25 on: July 19, 2021, 11:16:34 pm »
Just look at the VT video, it's 5 seconds of some professor pushing the cart. No opinion, no commentary, no other info.

LOL, the July 2021 demo at the university has been REMOVED!

« Last Edit: July 19, 2021, 11:25:53 pm by EEVblog »
 
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Offline DrG

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #26 on: July 19, 2021, 11:23:06 pm »

Note to self: check out Startengine, it seems to be the ideal vehicle .....

After you do, could you please explain to me what you get for the 3.5% (apparently of gross raised amount?) platform fee. How does that compare to traditional sources bring shares to market like in the more usual IPO?
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Offline coppice

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #27 on: July 19, 2021, 11:24:21 pm »
Virginia tech puts out some amazing sports research, so didn't believe when they said VT had anything to do with this.
You could pass the youtube link on to schools lawyers, but I don't know if its enough for them to care. They didn't say "sponsored by VT", or "approved by VT" or anything implying an actual relationship.

And that's how these people work. They get people like universities, or the inventor of the RFdigagnostics chip, or UL (in the case of Batteriser for example) to verify some small aspect of their work, very likely without telling them the full scope of their grandiose impractical claims. And then they use that snippet to imply endorsement. And the neat thing is they aren't technically lying.
That's the reason why they want me to interview them, so they can use it as marketing fodder.

Just look at the VT video, it's 5 seconds of some professor pushing the cart. No opinion, no commentary, no other info.
The term for this is the motte and bailey fallacy. Make a big dodgy claim. When pushed, retreat to a smaller indisputable claim. When nobody is looking return to the big claim.

 
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Online EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #28 on: July 19, 2021, 11:28:03 pm »

Note to self: check out Startengine, it seems to be the ideal vehicle .....

After you do, could you please explain to me what you get for the 3.5% (apparently of gross raised amount?) platform fee. How does that compare to traditional sources bring shares to market like in the more usual IPO?

You get the visibility of the platform, and the ease of use of just clicking a button to invest.
There are people who trawl these sites all day looking for now things to invest in, or Indiegogo or Kickstarter for projects to back. These sites even give badges to people who have backed a certain number of projects.
 

Offline DrG

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #29 on: July 19, 2021, 11:31:51 pm »

Note to self: check out Startengine, it seems to be the ideal vehicle .....

After you do, could you please explain to me what you get for the 3.5% (apparently of gross raised amount?) platform fee. How does that compare to traditional sources bring shares to market like in the more usual IPO?

You get the visibility of the platform, and the ease of use of just clicking a button to invest.
There are people who trawl these sites all day looking for now things to invest in, or Indiegogo or Kickstarter for projects to back. These sites even give badges to people who have backed a certain number of projects.

Sounds like we are all doomed - I would rather knock on Katie Hopkins' door.
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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #30 on: July 19, 2021, 11:33:52 pm »
Prepare for WiGL to join the chat!  :popcorn:
And if they do, please be nice to them and keep it technical.

 

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #31 on: July 19, 2021, 11:40:18 pm »
Just look at the VT video, it's 5 seconds of some professor pushing the cart. No opinion, no commentary, no other info.

LOL, the July 2021 demo at the university has been REMOVED!

It's been set to private
 

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #32 on: July 19, 2021, 11:43:07 pm »
Peer reviewed paper incoming!  :popcorn:
And it's kinda funny how this guy can't send their latest demo video to his friends because they have removed it from Youtube.

 

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #33 on: July 19, 2021, 11:57:11 pm »
I just want to post this again with a highlight, because I suspect we'll keep coming back to it.

 

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #34 on: July 20, 2021, 12:20:29 am »
It's all about the capacitors and some magic networking woo-woo.

 

Offline MrMobodies

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #35 on: July 20, 2021, 04:25:13 am »
Note to self: check out Startengine, it seems to be the ideal vehicle to scam poor sods out of their money. So much more efficient than even the previous champion, IndieGoGo.  >:D

Just looking through the comments and noticed this:




So there are 9 days left from now but a month ago it was 6 days left and then they extended to 30 days.

They can change the state of their campaign as they please and seems to be looking scammier the more I read into it.

Joke: One thing I like about the platform, the replies to comments are hidden by default so I don't have to see the owner's dribble seeing how Dr. Ahmad G seems to reply to them a lot.
« Last Edit: July 20, 2021, 04:28:19 am by MrMobodies »
 

Offline SL4P

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #36 on: July 20, 2021, 04:59:09 am »
They’re right… it’s not just another mousetrap!
A mousetrap would emit more harvestable energy than a WiGLmitter.
Don't ask a question if you aren't willing to listen to the answer.
 

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #37 on: July 20, 2021, 05:33:13 am »
So there are 9 days left from now but a month ago it was 6 days left and then they extended to 30 days.
They can change the state of their campaign as they please and seems to be looking scammier the more I read into it.

AFAIK they can't extend any further because they have hit their $5M high end max offering. Doing so would change the legal terms of everyones shareholding and effectively dilute the value.
 
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Offline MrMobodies

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #38 on: July 20, 2021, 05:45:02 am »
I see so they are restricted by the amount they have to raise not time.

LOL, the July 2021 demo at the university has been REMOVED!

They should also take down that WiGL eNERGY Animation Disclaimer video, I only heard a few seconds speaking about batteries devices being "smartly charged" and the combination of the background music that I find insulting. Just noticed it has DISCLAIMER in the actual title. I question the word "smart?" I ask myself what is that suppose to mean?

Quote
00:26 the martin's day starts fully charged all their devices have been smartly :bullshit: and wirelessly charged
Well I was warned with a disclaimer.

Not many feedback in relation to views but quite a few negative:

FIU - July 2021 WiGL Demo 427 View - 1 Jul 2021 (Removed)
2 UP 0 DOWN

WiGL + Guinn Partners 1,170 views 29 Mar 2021
UP 25 DOWN 29

Join StartEngine Waitlist (Part of the Wireless Power Future) 304 views 10 Feb 2021
UP 4 DOWN 23

WiGL Wireless Power Saltwater Generator 800 views on 29 Jan 2021
UP 98 DOWN 21

Final WiGL eNERGY Saltwater (AFWERX Challenge) 293 views on 22 Jan 2021
UP 7 DOWN 12

WiGL eNERGY Device | Electrical Power from Saltwater 142 views 22 Jan 2021
UP 11 DOWN 11

MFE Present MFECast | WiGL & MFE 381 views 21 Jan 2021
UP 2 DOWN 10

WiGL AFWERX Microgrid | Wireless Power 533 views 20 Jan 2021
UP: 15 DOWN: 8

WiGL eNERGY Animation Disclaimer 421 views 7 Dec 2020
UP 14 DOWN 14

WiGL Tech Talk July 2020 w/ Virginia Tech University 1,151 views 4 Dec 2020
UP 23 DOWN 18

WiGL Wireless Electric Power Demonstration 2,358 views 3 Aug 2020
UP 82 DOWN 55

WiGL Tech Talk at VA Tech University (Wireless Power) 443 views on 3 Aug 2020
UP 10 DOWN 15

WiGL FIU Demo (Futuristic UI Demonstration) 2,403 views 29 Jul 2020
UP 10 DOWN 23

G38 Wi GL RF Demonstration (Radio Frequency Demonstration) 292 views 17 Jan 2018
UP 5 DOWN 14


As I was checking the ratings I also overheard this:
 youtube.com/watch?v=CUN3hoG3ou0
WiGL AFWERX Microgrid | Wireless Power
Quote
00:21 our solution uses far-field wireless rf
power transmission to get rid of wires reduce heat  reduce weight
and reduce dependency on batteries for our small devices

Reduce heat? but here they admit it's for small devices.


« Last Edit: July 20, 2021, 06:07:38 am by MrMobodies »
 

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #39 on: July 20, 2021, 07:28:07 am »
That 5 second video of a guy wheeling a cart contained "trade secrets"!  :-DD
The exact same hardware which can be seen in the live stread video in much closer detail and also with tech specs and a technical explanation from the WiGL guy.

« Last Edit: July 20, 2021, 07:33:27 am by EEVblog »
 
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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #40 on: July 20, 2021, 07:43:04 am »
This is interesting, did Virginia Tech have anything to do with this at all?





 

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #41 on: July 20, 2021, 08:07:20 am »
The waffle doesn't stop with this guy  :=\

LOL that that it contains trade secret stuff they haven't published yet.



 
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Offline madires

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #42 on: July 20, 2021, 10:21:18 am »
Has WiGL violated the US FCC rules with their demos? If I understand the rules correctly, the 36 dBm limit for the 2.4 GHz ISM band is only applicable for digital communication. Just transmitting a carrier can't be called digital communication.
 

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #43 on: July 20, 2021, 01:14:46 pm »
So there are 9 days left from now but a month ago it was 6 days left and then they extended to 30 days.
They can change the state of their campaign as they please and seems to be looking scammier the more I read into it.

AFAIK they can't extend any further because they have hit their $5M high end max offering. Doing so would change the legal terms of everyones shareholding and effectively dilute the value.

I am not sure that they can't extend further or that the max offering is a limit.

The extension of the offering appears as the latest SEC filing, extending to 7-28-21. Under "nature of the amendment" it says "Issuer is extending the length of their campaign by 29 days. Updating Offering max due to error of last filing - new audited financials have been approved.". I don't know what rules there are for extending.

On the maximum limit of the offering, I notice that the filing checks 'yes' for over-subscriptions allowed, suggesting they can exceed that limit. Maybe the excess can only be for the bonus shares, but language in a filing also indicates 'at the issuers discretion'.

Something else that is noteworthy:

The CEO is listed as holding 83,600,000 shares, which is characterized as 88% of the total shares [note the number of total shares can be affected by subsequent dilution]. So, the maximum offering, in terms of shares is only a small fraction of the total shares (something like 8.5 million shares).

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Offline madires

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #44 on: July 20, 2021, 01:49:02 pm »
So the plan could be:
1. take the salary (roughly 1 million for each board member?)
2. if it becomes a temporary hype and the value of the shares increase significantly sell shares
 

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #45 on: July 20, 2021, 02:09:39 pm »
So the plan could be:
1. take the salary (roughly 1 million for each board member?)
2. if it becomes a temporary hype and the value of the shares increase significantly sell shares

No, I don't think so as it is not that simple.

The projected salaries are listed in the SEC docs and they are not that outrageous.

There are restrictions on selling these shares. They are also listed in the SEC docs. I have already spent too much time with this stuff, but basically you have to hold them for a year (I think) with certain exceptions - like selling to an accredited investor - and I think that has a specific legal definition see https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=51ceecc51a260e02d918a0282157d1ba&term_occur=999&term_src=Title:17:Chapter:II:Part:227:Subpart:A:227.100

If I am understanding correctly, these shares could be sold in an IPO within the first year. It is confusing to me because this (the crowdfunded sale of equities) looks like what I think of as an IPO, but maybe there are differences.

Also, you can not just dump millions of shares without the price approaching 0, if you could find sellers.

If I remembering correctly, early in Dave's video, he suggested that one route that this could go is to simply be finished after 1 year or so of 'trying' - legally no harm, no foul - we tried but we were not able to do it - see ya later - that kind of thing. That may be exactly what happens and the warnings and disclaimers are loud and clear for those who can see it that way.

If they get the 5M the company says that they can last 18 months [I think I read that correctly].
« Last Edit: July 20, 2021, 02:11:59 pm by DrG »
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Offline DrG

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #46 on: July 20, 2021, 02:30:07 pm »
This may be a little off topic, but the take home message for me is learning more about crowd funding as a means to sell stock in a start up company. What has been enlightening is how this process has moved away from Wall Street, so to speak and into other hands. I just did not know - Ok fine, I have been doing other things :)

Do you know that the situation is such that the US actually has laws to limit how much cash a 'novice' can throw at these crowd funded startups? If I am understanding correctly (and please anyone correct me if I am wrong), these crowd funded stocks are exempted for some kinds of SEC listing controls or somehow differentiated. As such, they limit how much you can spend on them and the limitations are expressed as a percentage of your net worth. Again, CFR - to me, that means it is by law and the law includes 17 CFR § 227.100. Seems to me that these restriction apply to the company and the crowd funding 'platform' (The transaction is conducted through an intermediary) that lets you click and buy.

See: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/227.100

*damn* I'm going back to my cave.....
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Offline robca

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #47 on: July 20, 2021, 03:45:52 pm »
So there are 9 days left from now but a month ago it was 6 days left and then they extended to 30 days.
They can change the state of their campaign as they please and seems to be looking scammier the more I read into it.

AFAIK they can't extend any further because they have hit their $5M high end max offering. Doing so would change the legal terms of everyones shareholding and effectively dilute the value.
More than that: thanks to the link provided by DrG in the post above mine (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/227.100) the SEC Crowdfunding regulation they are using has a hard limit of $5M.

In the past, if you wanted to invest in a scammy business like this one, you had to be certified (or self certified) as sophisticated investor https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/trading-investing/sophisticated-investor/. Basically that you had enough money to know better, and that losing that money won't put you in the poorhouse. The Crowdfunding rule allows everyone to be taken advantage of invest. But for no more than $5M.

So $5M is the max you can bring home using Startengine. Still, not a bad reward for putting together a few docs with many buzzwords and a couple of poorly shot videos
 

Offline MrMobodies

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #48 on: July 20, 2021, 06:12:54 pm »
Makes me wonder how much they may get without that hard limit being in place with the amount of money and people they lured into it.

Quote
Rimpelbekkie K. a day ago At Dr. Ahmad Glover:
I see in the comments and your replies that EEVBlog and other engineers "don't get what Wigl is about".
We're engineers and like to learn new things. We will point out and challenge the things we think are not going to work.
Then your reply is that we "don't understand". OK, THEN MAKE US UNDERSTAND.


Quote
Dr. Ahmad Glover:We were informed that some of the raw footage has WiGL "trade secrets"
... "But as soon as the team is comfortable with the edits/blurring…the will be back up.

Dr. Ahmad Glover: You engineers don't get what WiGL is about
Rimpelbekkie K: OK, THEN MAKE US UNDERSTAND
Dr. Ahmad Glover: some of the raw footage has WiGL "trade secrets" and we have to blur it out then we'd feel comfortable making you understand.

Trade secrets using off the shelf parts and a bank of capacitors.

Fancy giving this guy the bullshit award of the year?
« Last Edit: July 20, 2021, 06:50:27 pm by MrMobodies »
 

Offline Austin.Trunk.Monkey

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #49 on: July 20, 2021, 10:42:27 pm »
If the above detractors are correct, then why did Motorola invest/spend millions for this company?

https://guru.inc/
 

Offline MrMobodies

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #50 on: July 20, 2021, 11:10:02 pm »
https://guru.inc/try-guru/


That's interesting, maybe they could send Dave out one of these to tear down and verify their claims to see how they achieve it or how well it works.

Quote
The Eval Kit contains key elements of GuRu’s solution in a convenient desktop form factor. A generator unit (GU) and a recovery unit (RU) are included to demonstrate wireless power transfer from GU to RU at various distances.

FCC NOTICE: This kit is designed to allow:

(1) Product developers to evaluate electronic components, circuitry, or software associated with the kit to determine whether to incorporate such items in a finished product and

(2) Software developers to write software applications for use with the end product. This kit is not a finished product and when assembled may not be resold or otherwise marketed unless all required FCC equipment authorizations are first obtained. Operation is subject to the condition that this product not cause harmful interference to licensed radio stations and that this product accept harmful interference. Unless the assembled kit is designed to operate under part 15, part 18 or part 95 of this chapter, the operator of the kit must operate under the authority of an FCC license holder or must secure an experimental authorization under part 5 of this chapter.”
 

Offline nanotube

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #51 on: July 20, 2021, 11:53:01 pm »
Short answer is Guru was founded by Ali Hajimiri. That name itself is enough to attract investors like Motorola in anything RF electronics or photonics. There is no need for scammy crowdfunding.

Long answer is Guru is using phased array to focus RF energy in the mm-wave range. You can learn more from their patent here: (just google) US10,880,688.
 

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #52 on: July 21, 2021, 03:27:11 am »
If they get the 5M the company says that they can last 18 months [I think I read that correctly].

18 months for $5M?  :o
What kind of salary are they on?
IIRC one commenter said they are only spending $50k on R&D or something?
 

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #53 on: July 21, 2021, 03:34:31 am »
If the above detractors are correct, then why did Motorola invest/spend millions for this company?
https://guru.inc/

Mark Cuban invested $15M in uBeam  :-DD

Here is how it happens:
Guru pitches to Motorola. Who saw the pitch deck and demo is dazzled beyond belief. So they ask the engineers "does this actually work?" and the engineers go "Well, yeah, it ""works"" (insert finger quote gestures) but..." and that's where menegment cut them off with "Thanks, that's all we needed to know."
« Last Edit: July 21, 2021, 03:39:15 am by EEVblog »
 

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #54 on: July 21, 2021, 03:40:38 am »
Long answer is Guru is using phased array to focus RF energy in the mm-wave range. You can learn more from their patent here: (just google) US10,880,688.

Exactly the same as Xiaomi Mi :

 

Offline DrG

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #55 on: July 21, 2021, 04:55:15 am »
If they get the 5M the company says that they can last 18 months [I think I read that correctly].

18 months for $5M?  :o
What kind of salary are they on?
IIRC one commenter said they are only spending $50k on R&D or something?

From the SEC filing (Form C): https://sec.report/Document/0001665160-21-000384/
__
How long will you be able to operate the company if you raise your maximum funding
goal?

The company plans to be able to operate for 18 months should this offering meet its
maximum ( - $5M) funding goal. Ultimately, the company has an agile structure and
can quickly scale its operating expenses according to surrounding circumstances and
operate effectively through all types of fundraising scenarios.
At a proposed burn rate of 0.83%, the maximum raise allows the company to operate
for 18- additional months.

WiGL, Inc.
ProForma Burn Rate Projections $5,000,000/$277,777per month = 18-months

__

18 month salaries total (benefits, taxes) = 2,956,000 - As you would expect in an offering everything is detailed [edit: i.e., financial plan details].

« Last Edit: July 21, 2021, 02:33:26 pm by DrG »
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Offline GreggD

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #56 on: July 21, 2021, 01:25:29 pm »
This looked like a good investment.
Name: Orbsat Corp
Stock symbol: OSAT
If in the year 2003 you has 20.25 billion shares it would be one share worth $7 today.
They don't have the decency to go out of business.

Aug 19, 2019   1:15  Reverse Stock Split
Mar 08, 2018   1:150 Reverse Stock Split
Apr 21, 2014   1:150 Reverse Stock Split
Aug 25, 2009   1:150 Reverse Stock Split
Dec 29, 2003   1:400 Reverse Stock Split
 

Offline nanotube

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Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
« Reply #57 on: July 21, 2021, 02:23:03 pm »
    Long answer is Guru is using phased array to focus RF energy in the mm-wave range. You can learn more from their patent here: (just google) US10,880,688.

    Exactly the same as Xiaomi Mi :



    Thanks - I haven't seen that video about the Xiaomi. A couple of things:
    • the Xiaomi Air video is not about "physically impossible," but more about market failure, which is different from WiGl's problem at the moment. Like the Xiaomi, GuRu does not defy the law of physics;
    • I'm not sure if I can say GuRu is "exactly the same as" Xiaomi Mi Air. For example, the below CES demo (of 17 months ago) shows GuRu's phased array can focus to a tight (perhaps a couple inch, 2:29 in the video) spot that your hand would feel hot if blocking it. Ali is a well regarded professor in Caltech and you should feel free to talk to him. If anything, he literally wrote the book on low noise RF oscillators with Tom Lee, and his research in the past 10 years have made significant contribution to mm-wave phased array chips on silicon.

    https://youtu.be/ZyPha9MdKko
     [/list]
     

    Offline madires

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    Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
    « Reply #58 on: July 21, 2021, 03:12:12 pm »
    The story is about efficiency. You can build a classic AM crystal radio set which is powered by RF energy. Does it provide sufficient power to charge a mobile phone in a reasonable time? No! If you want to do that in the 2.4 GHz band you need a transmitter comparable to a microwave oven. 850W microwaves aren't particular healthy. It's the same nonsense over and over again.
     

    Online EEVblogTopic starter

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    Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
    « Reply #59 on: July 22, 2021, 12:36:26 am »
      Long answer is Guru is using phased array to focus RF energy in the mm-wave range. You can learn more from their patent here: (just google) US10,880,688.

      Exactly the same as Xiaomi Mi :



      Thanks - I haven't seen that video about the Xiaomi. A couple of things:
      • the Xiaomi Air video is not about "physically impossible," but more about market failure, which is different from WiGl's problem at the moment. Like the Xiaomi, GuRu does not defy the law of physics;
      • I'm not sure if I can say GuRu is "exactly the same as" Xiaomi Mi Air. For example, the below CES demo (of 17 months ago) shows GuRu's phased array can focus to a tight (perhaps a couple inch, 2:29 in the video) spot that your hand would feel hot if blocking it. Ali is a well regarded professor in Caltech and you should feel free to talk to him. If anything, he literally wrote the book on low noise RF oscillators with Tom Lee, and his research in the past 10 years have made significant contribution to mm-wave phased array chips on silicon.

      https://youtu.be/ZyPha9MdKko
       [/list]

      You missed the entire point of the video. It doesn't matter GuRu works slightly differently, or is slightly more efficienct or whatever. There stil remains the same fundamental practical problems of charging a phone wirelessly at a distance. As always, you can make these things "work" in the lab, but in practice they are doomed to market failure for a multitude of reasons.
       

      Offline heliosh

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #60 on: July 23, 2021, 11:54:46 pm »
      Good luck with that in Europe, 100 mW EIRP max. in the 2.4 GHz ISM band.

      The TX antenna has 10 dBi gain? 10 mW transmit power limit for you.

       

      Offline MrMobodies

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #61 on: July 24, 2021, 12:23:03 am »
      When asked by a commenter to make the engineers understand better whilst being challenged by Dave they start talking about trade secrets/pulling down video's to blur bits out of it.

      The video has already been seen what difference is it going to make now.

      It just sound bullshit to me and it seems to getting sillier.

      Are they really? :palm: :-DD Morons! Bet they are gonna turn off ratings and comments now too. Hell, maybe they'd even try to copyright claim against Dave because that's what idiots on YT do. ::)


      FIU July 2021 Demo V2




      It looks like they don't seem to be liking the comments so they turned them off and I can still see the "trade secret" behind that blur.

      Actually I wonder if is has anything to do with them categorizing that video for kids by accident.

      Ratings not look good for that one.

      Just noticed something else that all their videos are between 720p - 1080p but they reduced this one to 480p.
      « Last Edit: July 24, 2021, 01:16:14 am by MrMobodies »
       

      Offline madires

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #62 on: July 24, 2021, 01:35:37 pm »
      I'm not sure, but the blurred "trade secret" looks like a bunch of the energy harvesting PCBs mounted side by side in an acrylic glass using SMA connectors.
       
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      Offline Bud

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #63 on: July 24, 2021, 02:08:27 pm »
      So how do you fit this contraption on or in an aviation helmet to charge it  :-DD
      Facebook-free life and Rigol-free shack.
       

      Offline madires

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #64 on: July 24, 2021, 02:26:43 pm »
      Maybe with some hot glue. I wonder if it's a good idea to turn military aircraft into flying hot spots. ;D
       

      Online hans

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #65 on: July 24, 2021, 06:10:21 pm »
      Probably taking this whole scam way too seriously... but anyway
      I do research in RFID and backscatter radio technologies, and this stuff makes me absolutely cringe. I've already seen papers from "asia" let's say that have looked at the math of "mesh" IoT devices that can "transmit power" to neighbours and perform communication. I see those papers as fantasy;  the English was probably up to standard (or not checked) and math looked fancy: they absolutely went crazy with optimization problems on this 'application' . But never taken into account some realistic RF channel properties or real world applications... Sadly, for some conferences this is what "peer reviewed" means.

      Anyway, back to EE. RF-DC conversion is indeed absolutely inefficient. Just take a look at page 32 of this survey paper on the state of RFID, energy harvesting and IoT: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7404333

      Most RFID passive tags (which are RF powered) have power sensitivities in the order of -10dBm to -15dBm incident power. The best RF energy harvesters top out at an (impressive) 30-40% efficiency with incident powers of -15 to -20dBm. So principally, if this technology is to become ubiquitous (e.g. you can use it anywhere without obvious deadspots), then atleast that amount of incident power must be present for *ANY* slow charging (microWatt's!) to occur. Oh.. and then start the problems:

      Most modern RF chipsets halt operation if an incident power of that magnitude is present.  WiFi coordinators have collision avoidance that waits until the occupied channel(s) to become free again. The thresholds for this behaviour should be standardized, but turns it's not (some routers crap out at e.g. -80dBm blocker power, while others don't care). WiFi clients suffer from reduced throughput due to blocked subcarriers in the OFDM modulation.

      Then there is also the problem that RF transceivers are not designed for in-band blockers, obviously, but also have limits for moderately strong out-of-band blockers. E.g. a Bluetooth transceiver may have a sensitivity of -95dBm, but also have an adjacent channel rejection ratio of only 50dB at 3 or 6MHz. That means it's sensitivity will go down proportional to an incident power that is stronger than -45dBm [assuming that ACRR remains a fixed value for any stronger incident power, which does not have to be case when e.g. clipping occurs].

      And then not to say you can potentially damage RF frontends if a strong  signal of e.g. > -10dBm  is present. The aforementioned RFID tags or RF energy harvesters typically use detector-diode based circuits (e.g. Avago HSMS-28xx or Skyworks SMS7630/7621); which are discrete components that can handle powers up to 10dBm or so. But integrated circuits often cannot. Due to square law the variability of standing 1 or 2meters from a 30dB source is very large, and therefore, how is a "smart" or mesh network going to change anything to that? It's a fundamental problem of physics.

      Ofcourse they will argue that transmission of wideband noise is going to solve this problem; but in my view, that will only problems worse. It will likely not only break WiFi, but a wideband Tx in 2.4GHz also kills Bluetooth FHSS interference mitigation. Bluetooth is typically quite resilient to work in noisy environments. IMHO it's also classic anecdote that impossible challenges steer to wideband solutions. RF-based localization technologies is also being researched for many years, and although I'm not an absolute expert in it, IIRC most accurate localization/ranging solutions also only work with ultra wideband signals. And a regulatory body is not going to allow that, because of the aforementioned issues.

      So summarizing:

      - To have sufficient power to charge anything, you will blow up any other surrounding electronic device (and bake your brain in the process) :-DD.
      - To work with low power transmitters, you're fighting low-end power limits of RF energy harvesters caused by silicon junction thresholds.
      - Using many many wireless transmitters to illuminate 1 receiver is absolutely ridiculous.

      At that point buy a cable. Or if it's a really wire-constrained application, use solar panels.
      « Last Edit: July 24, 2021, 10:19:03 pm by hans »
       
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      Offline robca

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #66 on: July 24, 2021, 08:46:40 pm »
      I'm not sure, but the blurred "trade secret" looks like a bunch of the energy harvesting PCBs mounted side by side in an acrylic glass using SMA connectors.
      Yes, that's how it looked like when that video was not blurred. A carrier PCB with a bunch of those existing energy harvester PCBs side by side, each fed by one od the antennas below
       

      Offline nctnico

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #67 on: July 24, 2021, 09:18:36 pm »
      Ofcourse they will argue that transmission of wideband noise is going to solve this problem; but in my view, that will only problems worse. It will likely not only break WiFi, but a wideband Tx in 2.4GHz also kills Bluetooth FHSS interference mitigation. Bluetooth is typically quite resilient to work in noisy environments. IMHO it's also classic anecdote that impossible challenges steer to wideband solutions. RF-based localization technologies is also being researched for many years, and although I'm not an absolute expert in it, IIRC most accurate localization/ranging solutions also only work with ultra wideband signals. And a regulatory body is not going to allow that, because of the aforementioned issues.
      You forget that the energy is not transmitted around randomly but directed to one point; namely the receiver. First the receiver is detected using a low RF setting. Once power levels are negotiated, high energy is transmitted while being directed at the receiver and there will be safeguards against the energy being obsorbed by anything else then the intended receiver. With magnetic coupled wireless power transfer you already have this problem; any metal object in the path will get hot quickly so the receiver and transmitter need to communicate some information about the power levels so the transmitter can determine whether it is safe to keep transmitting.
      There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
       

      Online hans

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #68 on: July 24, 2021, 10:13:55 pm »
      Beam forming can only steer beams in direction, but not in depth, therefore it's not exactly a single point. As you say, anything that is between Tx and Rx is subject to potentially high incident powers, but also behind it. So that can still create problems for a similar range, and potentially even a larger range if higher transmit powers is used.

      Theoretically you could setup multiple Tx, phase lock them, identify all devices in the area that need/dont need power, and then use both beam forming and each Tx's phase to control the standing waves to create antinodes for charging devices and nodes for sensitive devices.
      I haven't looked into research articles yet if this has been done before. It probably is, maybe in some incoherent modulations.. I suppose it's doable in static environments, but I think it becomes very challenging when even the smallest amount of fading occurs.

      edit:/ I fixated a little bit on dislocated setups, but cool to see that phased-arrays can accomplish power spheres already ;)
      « Last Edit: July 25, 2021, 07:17:33 am by hans »
       

      Offline nanotube

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #69 on: July 24, 2021, 10:55:38 pm »
      Beam forming can only steer beams in direction, but not in depth, therefore it's not exactly a single point. As you say, anything that is between Tx and Rx is subject to potentially high incident powers, but also behind it. So that can still create problems for a similar range, and potentially even a larger range if higher transmit powers is used.

      Here is an academic paper that gives some background introduction of the algorithm and hardware of RF focusing. I only took a brief look but FIGs. 40-41 appear to be an experimental demonstration of focusing in depth (around 1 meter).
      https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347177646_Dynamic_Focusing_of_Large_Arrays_for_Wireless_Power_Transfer_and_Beyond
       

      Offline MrMobodies

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #70 on: July 25, 2021, 12:41:14 am »
      I'm not sure, but the blurred "trade secret" looks like a bunch of the energy harvesting PCBs mounted side by side in an acrylic glass using SMA connectors.
      Yes, that's how it looked like when that video was not blurred. A carrier PCB with a bunch of those existing energy harvester PCBs side by side, each fed by one od the antennas below

      Zooming onto the pcb looks a bit unclear to me (I checked on Youtube player set at 1080p) on the original footage from Dave's debunking video without the blur and it looks like they put the capacitors underneath their custom pcb. Resolution now reduced to 480p in their revised footage and zoomed into a bit. It was filmed at 1080p as checked by Dave see attachment. I don't know what they are playing at... oh the 5 million they are trying to raise.



      Youtube transcripts:

      37:08 - 38:12
      Quote
      here's their uh july 2021 wiggle this was only two weeks ago
      where i haven't looked at this one yet so let's let's have a look
      at this.

      yep yep oh i'm sold i'm sold look at that okay this is
      interesting look let's can we get yeah we got full full resolution
      on that this is their latest demo as of a couple of weeks ago

      it looks like they've got okay so the big pcb is just split in the middle they've
      used two is that just like a giant dipole antenna using two you know fr4 pcb
      plates little patch antennas so they got two four six eight ten ten patch
      antennas receivers

      so they got the same off the shelf energy harvesting units like that they might
      now have they  might now have a custom pcb like that but once again that that's
      that that's all they show is that it dries past and it switches on
      right what what does that even show

      oh it showed that it switched off at the end there it switched off
      i i i don't, what so they get in tens of milliwatts now maybe

      42:31 - 42:51
      Quote
      really in the real application you would have noticed in generation one
      which they're called large capacitors on there now just to point out
      you'll see the capacitors look at that they're huge they're absolutely enormous
      you can store a lot of energy in those so they don't tell you how long they've been
      harvesting the energy to put into those
      « Last Edit: July 25, 2021, 12:53:35 am by MrMobodies »
       

      Offline StillTrying

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #71 on: July 26, 2021, 12:38:24 pm »
      They seem a bit obsessed with these loopy capacitors. :palm:   :bullshit::horse:

      "Please note that WiGL adds a capacitor in the loop. This is often lost when people consider our method(s) and differentiation.
      Meaning the point-to-point and point-to-multi point transmissions (Tx’s) beams of directed energy are being used to “recharge the capacitors” (read as, standard power bank charger). Today’s consumer is not willing to wait days for our devices (i.e…phone’s battery) to recharge on a slow trickle recharging network. So the power bank recharges the phone…while the WiGL network manages and slow trickle recharges the power bank(s) using directed energy (not omnidirectional).
      ...
      As we’ve presented here, the capacitors can be software managed, remotely recharged or tracked via the WiGL enabled Gen-1 Rx Dongle or planned Gen-2 Rx inside the mobile devices."
      .  That took much longer than I thought it would.
       

      Offline robca

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #72 on: July 26, 2021, 05:26:14 pm »
      I also can't help noticing that nobody from the company has joined this thread. They said a few times they would and that they welcomed the discussion with engineers, but they must have been rethinking after seeing that their buzzword rich vaporware technology was not flying around here.

      Or, more likely, since they raised a whopping $4,999,105, just $895 short of their goal, there was no upside. They called it a success 6 days ago on their updates page, and decided it was time to start enjoying the loot the next phase of development: even more "software managed" loopy capacitors  :-DD, see below one of their latest replies (same as the post above mine, I just included ore of it and the part at the end). All they are pursuing is the goal to name  and license what anyone can do today with off the shelf devices, possibly adding some sort of harebrained DRM overlay onto it, and trickle charging a capacitor over time with pitiful amounts of wireless power. There's no real technological breakthru/innovation, just a delusional hope that once they start going around promoting their naming licensing, all companies will go "of course, how could not we see it before?!? WiGL!. Sign me up!". It's like a marketer just read a blog about capacitors and started going crazy about the possibilities of trickle charge, thinking no one else realized it before
       
      Quote
      Please note that WiGL adds a capacitor in the loop. This is often lost when people consider our method(s) and differentiation.

      Meaning the point-to-point and point-to-multi point transmissions (Tx’s) beams of directed energy are being used to “recharge the capacitors” (read as, standard power bank charger). Today’s consumer is not willing to wait days for our devices (i.e…phone’s battery) to recharge on a slow trickle recharging network. So the power bank recharges the phone…while the WiGL network manages and slow trickle recharges the power bank(s) using directed energy (not omnidirectional). The beauty of WiGL’s patented methods is that as you mentioned, all the tech to build a WiGL enabled system exists today. For example our competi-mates make FCC approved Tx’s at 2.4-24GHz and are within approved transmission limits. A number of companies also make RF-to-DC converters. And every major big box store or your local airport sells power bank chargers. For our demonstrations, WiGL has used these off the shelf products (with modifications to make them WiGL enabled system) to demonstrate our patented system and methods…with great results (soon to be published).

      Like you, we are very hopeful that one day wireless power Tx-to-Rx tech will mature to recharging or powering handheld mobile device without a battery/capacitor, but the state of wireless power tech today requires capacitors in the loop to meet end user fast (faster/fastest) recharging demands (i.e…WiGL enabled Rx embedded in the phones case).

      As we’ve presented here, the capacitors can be software managed, remotely recharged or tracked via the WiGL enabled Gen-1 Rx Dongle or planned Gen-2 Rx inside the mobile devices.

      [...]
      Lastly, WiGL’s #1 goal is name dominance.

      Meaning…In the year 2030…what will we universally call wireless power? WiGL’s business case and value proposition is that all forms of wireless power will be called WiGL. And we are patenting the tech so consumers can pay subscriptions for the convenience of wireless power services; similar to how consumer pay today for internet or WiFi…hence the name WiGL.
      « Last Edit: July 26, 2021, 05:41:12 pm by robca »
       
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      Offline madires

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #73 on: July 26, 2021, 06:54:10 pm »
      So you need to leave your WiGL receiver at home all day long to be able to charge your mobile phone a tiny bit in the evening. What a great and innovative concept! :palm:
       
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      Offline nctnico

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #74 on: July 26, 2021, 07:10:35 pm »
      They seem a bit obsessed with these loopy capacitors. :palm:   :bullshit::horse:

      "Please note that WiGL adds a capacitor in the loop. This is often lost when people consider our method(s) and differentiation.
      Meaning the point-to-point and point-to-multi point transmissions (Tx’s) beams of directed energy are being used to “recharge the capacitors” (read as, standard power bank charger). Today’s consumer is not willing to wait days for our devices (i.e…phone’s battery) to recharge on a slow trickle recharging network. So the power bank recharges the phone…while the WiGL network manages and slow trickle recharges the power bank(s) using directed energy (not omnidirectional).
      ...
      As we’ve presented here, the capacitors can be software managed, remotely recharged or tracked via the WiGL enabled Gen-1 Rx Dongle or planned Gen-2 Rx inside the mobile devices."
      I guess the marketing droid got confused between a battery and capacitor. Maybe Google translate didn't work... It makes less than zero sense to wirelessly charge a power bank which then charges a phone through a cable.
      There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
       

      Offline langwadt

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #75 on: July 26, 2021, 07:37:56 pm »
      They seem a bit obsessed with these loopy capacitors. :palm:   :bullshit::horse:

      "Please note that WiGL adds a capacitor in the loop. This is often lost when people consider our method(s) and differentiation.
      Meaning the point-to-point and point-to-multi point transmissions (Tx’s) beams of directed energy are being used to “recharge the capacitors” (read as, standard power bank charger). Today’s consumer is not willing to wait days for our devices (i.e…phone’s battery) to recharge on a slow trickle recharging network. So the power bank recharges the phone…while the WiGL network manages and slow trickle recharges the power bank(s) using directed energy (not omnidirectional).
      ...
      As we’ve presented here, the capacitors can be software managed, remotely recharged or tracked via the WiGL enabled Gen-1 Rx Dongle or planned Gen-2 Rx inside the mobile devices."
      I guess the marketing droid got confused between a battery and capacitor. Maybe Google translate didn't work... It makes less than zero sense to wirelessly charge a power bank which then charges a phone through a cable.

      even less when the average energy is less than the phone uses
       

      Offline jchabloz

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #76 on: August 01, 2021, 06:17:39 pm »
      Here is an academic paper that gives some background introduction of the algorithm and hardware of RF focusing. I only took a brief look but FIGs. 40-41 appear to be an experimental demonstration of focusing in depth (around 1 meter).
      https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347177646_Dynamic_Focusing_of_Large_Arrays_for_Wireless_Power_Transfer_and_Beyond

      I have taken a good look at the paper of Hajimiri et al. as referenced by nanotube in his post. BTW, this paper has been published in the July issue of the IEEE JSSC, so it is very fresh!
      It is a great read, providing all the serious engineering that we expect from a team out of Caltech. The paper focuses on the practical implementation of the necessary dynamic microwave beamforming and is extremely interesting since it seems they have done what WIGL should have in terms of theoretical analysis and HW prototyping.
      Notably, they calculate the theoretical upper bound (stressing "theoretical", everything is optimal and simplifying assumptions are made) for the wireless power transfer (WPT) efficiency as a function of parameters such as the sizes of the antenna arrays, carrier wavelength and the transmission distance (and yes, let's not WIGL, the result is in the best case inversely proportional to the square of the distance, this is actually not a debate). If we focus on ca 2.45GHz carrier frequency (which corresponds to the WIGL "demo" case), a theoretical upper bound of 10% at 1m is calculated for reasonable antenna arrays sizes (10cm x 10cm for the RX). With similar conditions, a >80% theoretical efficiency should be reached for a 10GHz frequency (which corresponds to the Caltech/Guru HW setup used for the paper).
      As a conclusion, it seems that they indeed demonstrated that the transmission of a >2W DC power at ca 1m of distance seems to be feasible with some clever adaptive beamforming.

      This being said, one specific thing bothers me a lot in this paper; I have not seen anywhere (unless I missed it) any mention of the power transmission efficiency, nor alternatively, any figure of the transmitted or consumed power by their so-called "generation unit" (GU) to obtain the figures shown. You'd think that they should have, given that they propose a way to calculate the theoretical upper bound for such an efficiency at the beginning of the paper. It would have been interesting to compare their results with the theory.

      Anyway, I think that the discussion here would be more interesting based on the serious results proposed by the Caltech/Guru team rather than to continue blabbing about the marketing nonsense of the WIGL guys.
      Any engineer from the Caltech/Guru team reading this? It would be very interesting (and fun) to continue the discussion and maybe see if you could challenge some of Dave's skeptical assertions on wireless power transfer.

      As for me, I share the skepticism of many here, with the following key considerations:

      • The main issue is always going to be the transmitted power. As already highlighted in several of the previous posts, even assuming a more-than-ideal situation where the wireless power transfer (WPT) would be 100% efficient, for applications where several Watts of available power would be required, we are always going to be outside any reasonable regulatory boundaries, especially considering the fact that the beamforming (by definition a non isotropic radiated power) needs to be factored in when calculating the EIRP compliance (or maybe some specific regulations could/should apply?)
      • This is made even worse if you'd like/need to share the same power source between multiple consumers. You'd need to find a way to share it. In the Caltech/Guru paper, they propose a time multiplexing scheme, which in itself makes sense. However, you also have to consider that the average power available is also going to be divided by number of user (independently of the sharing scheme, no suprise here)!
      • Even if regulatory requirements could be taken care of, thanks to heavy lobbying, you'd need to consider potential health hazards; do you really want to have your mobile phone charged by a focused microwave beam of >1W in your pocket right next to some interesting parts of your anatomy ?
      • ... and I'm not even talking about cohabitation. Maybe easier if we don't target the crowded 2.4GHz ISM band, however, the rest of the spectrum is not free either! Not sure how this is proposed to be tackled... Maybe by getting specific spectrum allocated?
      • Practical size(s) aspects; obviously, and this is clearly explained, the efficiency also depends directly on the sizes of the TX and RX antenna arrays. Depending on the targeted applications, this could obviously be a very limiting factor
      • Environmental considerations; is it ethical to develop and promote a technology that, even if optimized, will always be significantly less efficient (energy wise) compared to using wires? Since this errs on the fringe of this forum's terms (no political topics), let's put it aside and focus on technical stuff, but still...
       
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      Online EEVblogTopic starter

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #77 on: August 02, 2021, 05:50:49 am »
      When asked by a commenter to make the engineers understand better whilst being challenged by Dave they start talking about trade secrets/pulling down video's to blur bits out of it.

      The video has already been seen what difference is it going to make now.

      It just sound bullshit to me and it seems to getting sillier.

      Are they really? :palm: :-DD Morons! Bet they are gonna turn off ratings and comments now too. Hell, maybe they'd even try to copyright claim against Dave because that's what idiots on YT do. ::)


      FIU July 2021 Demo V2




      It looks like they don't seem to be liking the comments so they turned them off and I can still see the "trade secret" behind that blur.

      Actually I wonder if is has anything to do with them categorizing that video for kids by accident.

      Ratings not look good for that one.

      Just noticed something else that all their videos are between 720p - 1080p but they reduced this one to 480p.

      Yep, reduced to 480p and blur.
      They did this not because it actually shows some advanced new tech they didn't want released, it's so they can claim exactly that to their audience, and let people's imaginations run wild. Classic marketing trick.
      You can see the original full res version in my video, it's just a bunch of capacitors whacked onto the same energy harvesting units.
      They say it's 1W, and yep, they'd be transmitting 1W and receiving 10's of mW, and the bulk capacitance is storing the charge for the phone.
      Nothing new here, move along now :=\
      « Last Edit: August 02, 2021, 05:53:52 am by EEVblog »
       

      Online EEVblogTopic starter

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #78 on: August 02, 2021, 05:58:37 am »
      As for me, I share the skepticism of many here, with the following key considerations:

      • The main issue is always going to be the transmitted power. As already highlighted in several of the previous posts, even assuming a more-than-ideal situation where the wireless power transfer (WPT) would be 100% efficient, for applications where several Watts of available power would be required, we are always going to be outside any reasonable regulatory boundaries, especially considering the fact that the beamforming (by definition a non isotropic radiated power) needs to be factored in when calculating the EIRP compliance (or maybe some specific regulations could/should apply?)
      • This is made even worse if you'd like/need to share the same power source between multiple consumers. You'd need to find a way to share it. In the Caltech/Guru paper, they propose a time multiplexing scheme, which in itself makes sense. However, you also have to consider that the average power available is also going to be divided by number of user (independently of the sharing scheme, no suprise here)!
      • Even if regulatory requirements could be taken care of, thanks to heavy lobbying, you'd need to consider potential health hazards; do you really want to have your mobile phone charged by a focused microwave beam of >1W in your pocket right next to some interesting parts of your anatomy ?
      • ... and I'm not even talking about cohabitation. Maybe easier if we don't target the crowded 2.4GHz ISM band, however, the rest of the spectrum is not free either! Not sure how this is proposed to be tackled... Maybe by getting specific spectrum allocated?
      • Practical size(s) aspects; obviously, and this is clearly explained, the efficiency also depends directly on the sizes of the TX and RX antenna arrays. Depending on the targeted applications, this could obviously be a very limiting factor
      • Environmental considerations; is it ethical to develop and promote a technology that, even if optimized, will always be significantly less efficient (energy wise) compared to using wires? Since this errs on the fringe of this forum's terms (no political topics), let's put it aside and focus on technical stuff, but still...

      Sound an awful lot like what this guy said here ;D

       

      Offline jchabloz

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #79 on: August 02, 2021, 04:52:29 pm »
      Sound an awful lot like what this guy said here ;D

      Right! Definitely should've watched it again prior to making my points...  :-X
       

      Offline Brumby

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #80 on: August 03, 2021, 01:04:27 pm »
      I do research in RFID and backscatter radio technologies, and this stuff makes me absolutely cringe.
      Most of us here don't - but we are all cringing.

      Quote
      - To have sufficient power to charge anything, you will blow up any other surrounding electronic device (and bake your brain in the process) :-DD.
      That perfectly sums up my first reaction to the idea!!
       

      Offline varmpatel224

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #81 on: September 14, 2021, 08:00:07 pm »
      I do research in RFID and backscatter radio technologies, and this stuff makes me absolutely cringe.
      Most of us here don't - but we are all cringing.

      Quote
      - To have sufficient power to charge anything, you will blow up any other surrounding electronic device (and bake your brain in the process) :-DD.
      That perfectly sums up my first reaction to the idea!!

      A team from FIU (authors of this Scientific Reports piece) seem to disagree: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97528-5
       

      Offline thm_w

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #82 on: September 14, 2021, 08:53:22 pm »
      A team from FIU (authors of this Scientific Reports piece) seem to disagree: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97528-5

      Good paper and data, but, did you read it?

      "The system consists of continuous wave source (Tx) to generate RF power at 2.4 GHz, which is amplified to approximately 1 W power (in compliance with FCC regulations14) and fed into an antenna array with 22 dBi gain."

      "The received power was recorded using a spectrum analyzer. As shown on the graph, power as high as 4.5 dBm (3 mW) is obtained."

      0.3% efficiency, can't get much worse than that.
      Profile -> Modify profile -> Look and Layout ->  Don't show users' signatures
       

      Offline madires

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #83 on: September 15, 2021, 09:34:38 am »
      "The system consists of continuous wave source (Tx) to generate RF power at 2.4 GHz, which is amplified to approximately 1 W power (in compliance with FCC regulations14) and fed into an antenna array with 22 dBi gain."

      That's about 158 W EIRP which exceeds the EU limit of 100 mW EIRP for the 2.4 GHz band by 1580 times.
       

      Offline StillTrying

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #84 on: October 02, 2021, 08:11:18 pm »
      Looks like it's all going grate. :horse:

      Why I get a message saying my invest is not complete?

      Has anyone received any updates from WiGL? The email bounced back the first time I emailed them and no response to any emails since.

      Please forward to me a cell or phone number of your investor party or customer service. I am worried that this might have been scam?

      I have been charged $275 for ownership, and 1035.05 for WIGL. I like to talk to someone about this investment. I am not sure how this money is invested, and how can I see if its making

      I emailed: Investor@WiGLInc.com. I got a message back saying the email address was not found.

      https://www.startengine.com/wigl
      « Last Edit: October 02, 2021, 08:13:52 pm by StillTrying »
      .  That took much longer than I thought it would.
       

      Offline madires

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #85 on: October 03, 2021, 11:47:57 am »
      https://www.wiglinc.com: This site is under construction :popcorn:
       

      Online Kean

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #86 on: October 03, 2021, 12:42:42 pm »
      https://www.wiglinc.com: This site is under construction :popcorn:

      Their website is https://wi-gl.com/
      They presumably only use wiglinc.com for email, but the least they could do is set up a redirect to wi-gl.com
       

      Offline TomWinTejas

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #87 on: September 23, 2022, 06:35:53 am »
      And it looks like they're looking to raise another $20M again. 
       

      Online EEVblogTopic starter

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #88 on: September 26, 2022, 06:58:13 am »
      And it looks like they're looking to raise another $20M again.

      Isn't that continuation of the video I did a while back?
       

      Offline robca

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #89 on: September 26, 2022, 04:58:40 pm »
      And it looks like they're looking to raise another $20M again.

      Isn't that continuation of the video I did a while back?
      It is. And they raised another ~$900k from the date of your latest video, unbelievable. The funniest comments in their Startengine page are from the scammers with $30M in a bank looking for someone to help them transfer the money  :-DD

      If I may, one thing that you didn't cover enough, is that for energy harvesting, the big receiver antenna *and* the big capacitors must be in the device being wirelessly powered. Want to charge your smartphone? Either buy a smartphone 5 times bigger than today's, or carry with you a WiGL gizmo that harvests power and every now and then you connect it to your phone to dump the energy in the capacitors. Or, you know, you could buy either a smartphone with a bigger battery or one of those "newfangled" power banks, which will be much smaller than any WiGL receiver (and work much better). They can talk about future development all they want, but the antenna size can't be reduced without directly impacting the power receiving ability. So any wirelessly powered WiGL device must be big

      Also, a smartphone with 10mW will not charge. Will just discharge a tiny bit slower. So the 5x bigger smartphone idea won't work either, because even assuming you can continuously stay in the sweet spot at 3' from the charger, you still get less energy than the phone uses in standby
       
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      Offline TomWinTejas

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #90 on: February 26, 2023, 08:42:59 am »
      And the bullshit continues... predictably they have begun to pivot to distract investors they have been misleading towards magnesium-air batteries as portable power source to charge your electric vehicle.  My guess is that they're going to use batteries to provide actual power in their demos to charge a mobile phone and then show how they're transmitting power to the charging circuit, neglecting to show how little power is input versus output.  By adopting magnesium-air batteries they can try and dazzle investors with new technology that makes them look even more innovative while distracting the investors from their inability to deliver usable power wirelessly.  They're already doing this bait and switch with lithium ion USB battery banks, but that's not quite as sexy.

      The discussion section on the investing page has some real gems from the founder.  He claims that using 3 x 3W transmitters they can charge an iPhone from 0% -> 100% in under 2 hours.... of course this too is when there are USB battery banks in the path, so just ignore that part of course.  He also says, "We were pulled into the internet web of debates about wireless power last year and made a corporate decision to stop explaining the whole industry and concept(s) of wireless power….and just focus/show/prove our niched part of touchless Wireless Power Transfer (tWPT) + results." 
       
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      Online EEVblogTopic starter

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #91 on: February 26, 2023, 09:18:28 pm »
      WTF they just raised another $2.8M?  :palm:
       
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      Online SiliconWizard

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #92 on: February 26, 2023, 09:29:41 pm »
      Why, of course! :-DD

      Oh and the investors will be poor victims! :-DD
       

      Offline robca

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #93 on: February 27, 2023, 08:26:39 am »
      WTF they just raised another $2.8M?  :palm:
      Don't forget that people invested in Theranos and FTX, among many other scams. "There's a sucker born every minute", some of them with enough money to throw away.

      A lot of small retail investors (who can't afford to lose money) are in full FOMO mode, and they are ready to fall for scams like these, open to everyone. They see all those rich people making money with crypto and other crazy investments, and want a way to make money, too
       

      Offline rthorntn

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #94 on: March 11, 2023, 05:32:34 am »
      Probably much more feasible:

      https://www.monash.edu/news/articles/scientists-discover-enzyme-that-turns-air-into-electricity,-providing-a-new-clean-source-of-energy

      In this Nature paper, the researchers extracted the enzyme responsible for using atmospheric hydrogen from a bacterium called Mycobacterium smegmatis. They showed that this enzyme, called Huc, turns hydrogen gas into an electrical current.

       

      Offline nixxon

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      Re: EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!
      « Reply #95 on: June 19, 2023, 08:53:41 pm »
      Unfortunately TED Talks has recently hosted this GURU guy, Ali Hajimiri, to spread his wireless power BS: https://youtu.be/RxrB7PDLJ18


      Long answer is Guru is using phased array to focus RF energy in the mm-wave range. You can learn more from their patent here: (just google) US10,880,688.

      Exactly the same as Xiaomi Mi :


       
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