The uBeam FAQ

[EEVblog]

I think we should also look at the financial side of charging/powering devices. Some numbers about recharging your gadgets via the standard SMPSU based on the average price for power in Germany (EUR 0.30 per kWh) which is quite expensive. The yearly cost for recharging daily:
- smartphone EUR 1 - 1.50
- tablet EUR 4
- laptop EUR 10

Any wireless charging solution has to compete with those numbers. A few bucks more for the convenience of not dealing with a cable might be acceptable. But anything much less efficient or much more expensive is a show stopper.

On a large scale and for a business there does need to be a compelling case that the cost of inefficient charging does allow a valuable function to be performed or saves other expensive functions like labour. For individuals it's a matter of convenience and people will pay for that - I can guarantee you 99% of people have no idea what it costs in a year to charge your phone every day. So if you ask it like this "Imagine you never have to plug in your phone, ever, and it just keeps being powered up. What would you pay every year for that convenience?" and then say "$1, $10, $100, $1000". Basically everyone will say yes to $1 and $10, I think a majority (but not large majority) will say yes at $100, and basically no-one will say yes at $1000. So that says that with a yearly charge cost of say $1 at 100% efficiency, you need to keep real world efficiency at >1%, or ideally >10% (very hard to do but you can get marketing covering for that). So while you are correct, I actually don't think this is the primary show stopper (the massive inefficiency meaning 500 million people block doing this every day adds around 200 PWh to the yearly power demand, not very green).

That's why regulations like EnergyStar exist, to protect ignorant Joe Public from being able to choose deliberately inefficient designs.

[EEVblog]

I think we should also look at the financial side of charging/powering devices.

No point when it's demonstrably not practical from a usability point of view.

[nctnico]

I think we should also look at the financial side of charging/powering devices. Some numbers about recharging your gadgets via the standard SMPSU based on the average price for power in Germany (EUR 0.30 per kWh) which is quite expensive. The yearly cost for recharging daily:
- smartphone EUR 1 - 1.50
- tablet EUR 4
- laptop EUR 10

Nobody cares about efficiency. Especially if the costs is just a drop in a bucket. For example: A typical European refrigerator consumes between 250kWh and 600kWh each year (between 60 and 200 euro depending on the fridge and where you live).

[StillTrying]

- smartphone EUR 1 - 1.50
- tablet EUR 4
- laptop EUR 10

Nobody cares about efficiency. Especially if the costs is just a drop in a bucket.

I think they'd notice when when their yearly charging costs increase from 15.5 to 3,000.

[jonovid]

is been blasted by KW's of ultrasound all day dangerous?  and its got to be the most inefficient wasteful way to power anything!
you lots of coal fired power stations just to run it 

[EEVblog]

Be afraid, be very afraid...
PerryCAD!

[EEVblog]

It gets worse...

[djos]

It gets worse...

Oh boy, I don't know whether to   or

[EEVblog]

Rob Janssen wins The Internet!

[The_Next_Theranos]

It gets worse...

Notice how the first half of the question uses the "work with" wording, implying a relationship among peers, but then in the next half of the question she immediately transforms this into a management issue, implying a superior-subordinate relationship.

The leopard doesn't change its spots. Reminds me of her slip of the tongue in 2012, where she was so eager to say that she had "four of the top ultrasonic engineers in the world working for me". She then quickly corrects herself, saying, "working with me". Watch it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukgnU2aXM2c&feature=youtu.be&t=850

[Fungus]

Be afraid, be very afraid...
PerryCAD!

Why doesn't she ask her design department? 

[sdpkom]

It gets worse...

Oh boy, I don't know whether to   or

I guess Elizabeth Holmes told her a trial period is really something to avoid.....

[Fungus]

It gets worse...

Go on Youtube and see if there's any TED talks where they trash people who have actual real-life experience and proclaim that can all be replaced just by "thinking outside the box".

It also helps if the other person hasn't a clue about technical matters and can't ever tell you when you're wrong.

Notice how the first half of the question uses the "work with" wording, implying a relationship among peers, but then in the next half of the question she immediately transforms this into a management issue, implying a superior-subordinate relationship.

...an implicit assumption that she wouldn't be the problem in any relationship.

[TheHolyHorse]

Be afraid, be very afraid...
PerryCAD!

Why doesn't she ask her design department? 

  What department.

[PaulReynolds]

It gets worse...

Most of the tweets make me laugh these days but this one really annoys me. She got to be CEO of a company that had up to around $40 million and free-reign to do as she pleased over near 8 years. There were hundreds of interviewees, and 10s of employees that were hired/fired/driven away so she could learn and play fantasy CEO, even more when you count consultants. The company paid for executive coaching, 1 on 1, to help her get better. Multiple people with 20+ years of experience tried to coach her, including employees, board members, and other advisors. It's like a college degree then PhD in being a CEO that got you personalized tuition from some of the best in the world 24/7/365 and she got paid for it. If after all that someone not only can't answer one of the most basic questions of hiring/managing, but can't realize the privileged position they were in, then they are beyond hope and squandered an incredible chance of several lifetimes.

[Fungus]

...
If after all that someone not only can't answer one of the most basic questions of hiring/managing, but can't realize the privileged position they were in, then they are beyond hope and squandered an incredible chance of several lifetimes.

Change is impossible until she admits there's a problem.

[PaulReynolds]

For those interested in wireless power in general, Ossia got FCC approval under Part 18 for their RF based system. It's pretty limited, only works within 1 meter, fixed transmitter and receiver. I estimate about 1.5 to 3% efficient overall, with between 0.5 and 1 Watt to the battery. It's at the SAR safety limit, so no increasing from here, it's as powerful as it gets.

https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2019/06/ossia-and-fcc-approval.html

[StillTrying]

There's a little thread on Ossia https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/cota-real-wireless-power/

I think MP's best hiring strategy would be to find someone who's never heard of MP, uBeam, or the internet.

[PaulReynolds]

You'd think he'd be a little shy about this:

https://twitter.com/meredithperry/status/1145134287567695877

Goes to show, once you're part of the in-crowd, there's no falling out of it.

[The_Next_Theranos]

squandered an incredible chance of several lifetimes.

Goes to show, once you're part of the in-crowd, there's no falling out of it.

As the old saying goes, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." Which means that a chance for someone like Perry to lead uBeam might not be so rare after all, however loath we might be to admit it.

"It's not what you know, it's who you know" -- I suppose this cuts to the core of why we engineers find this situation so annoying. We probably would pursue knowledge at the expense of connections, or money. The pursuit of knowledge -- verifiable, hard scientific knowledge -- is a real life motivator.

On the other hand, unicorn startup CEO types would likely pursue connections (and money) at the expense of knowledge. With connections and money you can hire and fire knowledge workers at will. So why bother with knowledge yourself? It's all about your personal brand and selling yourself. Run a confidence scam, lose a couple of million dollars, and use that as "experience" to run the next scam.

Will this ever change?

[sdpkom]

The 2018 ourCrowd investment in uBeam has disapeared from theOurcrowd website  https://www.ourcrowd.com/companies/ubeam
The site has been updated to say they only invested $4,830,407 “in one previous round” that happened in 2015, the 2018 round is not there anymore.

During the Ourcrowd summit, (3 months ago) ourcrowd said they invested (before the summit) $6.5 in uBeam (this was after Meredith "decided" to quit)

Looks like ourCrowd did raise $3m for an investment in uBeam in 2018
(see =https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1658187/000146581818000005/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml) .

My take on this is:

OurCrowd did raise $3m in 2018, but the money was 100% in some kind of escrow pending some milestone (uBeam did file investement docs to the SEC so they did receive the money).

a few months ago ourCrowd were planning to release ~50% of the escrow, probably hoping the new CEO would cure the company.

2 weeks ago, they decided not to release the escrow and take the money back, essentially killing the company (and the new CEO's CV)

Escrows being escrows, my guess is that ALL the investors in the second round pulled their investment.
A quick review of websites of the 2018 round shows....
Andreessen Horowitz (uBeam not found on website search)
Upfront Ventures (ubeam still on their website)
Founders Fund (nothing on search)
Ludlow Ventures (still there with a picture of Meredit).
Mark Cuban also participated, and appears he still keeps this line on his CV.

[Howardlong]

For those interested in wireless power in general, Ossia got FCC approval under Part 18 for their RF based system. It's pretty limited, only works within 1 meter, fixed transmitter and receiver. I estimate about 1.5 to 3% efficient overall, with between 0.5 and 1 Watt to the battery. It's at the SAR safety limit, so no increasing from here, it's as powerful as it gets.

https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2019/06/ossia-and-fcc-approval.html

I've only just seen this. I'm particularly wondering how it practically co-exists with other 2.4GHz ISM services such as WiFi, Bluetooth and wireless peripherals like keyboards and mice. If they're managing to see 0.5 to 1W at the receiver, good luck with the LNA compression & sensitivity on any other in-band service on the Ossia powered device. It'll be like trying to listen to someone whispering at an AC/DC concert.

In addition, like other RF solutions, this might get by in the US by pushing the envelope on FCC regulations, but I highly doubt this will be able to achieve global acceptance without an uphill struggle with a plethora of other local regulators and regulations.

[PaulReynolds]

I've only just seen this. I'm particularly wondering how it practically co-exists with other 2.4GHz ISM services such as WiFi, Bluetooth and wireless peripherals like keyboards and mice. If they're managing to see 0.5 to 1W at the receiver, good luck with the LNA compression & sensitivity on any other in-band service on the Ossia powered device. It'll be like trying to listen to someone whispering at an AC/DC concert.

In addition, like other RF solutions, this might get by in the US by pushing the envelope on FCC regulations, but I highly doubt this will be able to achieve global acceptance without an uphill struggle with a plethora of other local regulators and regulations.

Their own press distances themselves from this approved system as a practical product, it's interesting marketing, and as always the tech press is dumb enough to fall for it and is talking about charging phones and 1000s of devices. I doubt this will ever be a product, the purpose is to get a Part 18 Approval (after having tried to avoid that for years).

[StillTrying]

I've only just seen this. I'm particularly wondering how it practically co-exists with other 2.4GHz ISM services such as WiFi, Bluetooth and wireless peripherals like keyboards and mice.

Their wireless charging has the slight flaw in that is stops wireless devices working, and don't bother with 5.8GHz they're going there as well, someone should try using US sound waves instead.

[Poe]

Just saw the latest EEVblog video.  At 13minutes in, Dave is saying the LED pattern doesn't follow the movement.  Couldn't this be attributed to the phased array's tracking error?  That is, it's changing where the array is pointing as the turret sweeps the room to keep power at the target.

Disclaimer: I've read no information on this thing or any of these posts, just was the first thought I had.