All,
There's absolutely nothing wrong with being skeptical, but the characterization is that we're a bunch of fly-by-night marketers. The team has between 5 and 13 years of thermoelectric experience. We're a bunch of geeks like you guys, PhDs in EE, Chemistry and Materials Science.
The Arrow certification was important to us to quiet the skeptics. They reviewed the entire circuit diagram. It was not just a bill of materials scan.
BLE radio obviously requires a lot of current, and that's where the internal battery takes over. Otherwise, your body heat is generating the power for the watch. That being said TEGs can light up LEDs when designed right.
I'm obviously not going to change minds here and so I won't even try. My offer still stands that if any of you want to visit our lab and see a watch build from the bottom up or any of our other energy harvesting demos, you are welcome to. That's probably the only way for you to be convinced that this tech is for real.
No point in sharing our data, which I've offered to you in private. Your calculations are spot on. We look forward to your video!
it looks like the ces model had some heat sink in the wrist band but the last model doesnt have that anymore, just saying
If there on the level the impression I am getting from reading Matrix Industries replies is that for some time they have been developing conceptual devices that are powered by means of waist energy harvesting, in this instance the waist energy is in the form of radiated heat.
Also up until this date how have they been funding there activities, are there already venture capitalists with a grip on any future pie to be had which limits approaching further conventional investors.
QuoteNo point in sharing our data, which I've offered to you in private. Your calculations are spot on. We look forward to your video!That's quite fishy really. There is no point in NOT sharing measurement data.
I agree that proprietary information (schematics, mechanical design, firmware...) need not be shared, but a simple CSV file containing lots of measurements with body temperature, ambient temperature, outside conditions (humidity, pressure, what the person was doing etc.), total electric power generated by the device, total electric power consumed by the device (and the mode it is in and what is it doing) is not that much to ask. There is no reason to NOT share such data as once the device is available for purchase anyone can do the measurements anyway.
Your last comment is so stunningly inaccurate and exposes your ignorance. Please proceed!
It's coming...
Actually, it's really powered from the fully charged lithium ion battery when the customer gets it. The TEG just keeps it "topped up" if it's able to generate enough excess.
The exact same watch could have just used a 2032 coin cell (or bigger) and have gotten several years of use, even with Bluetooth LE enabled 24/7.
If you ripped the TEG out of it it would still last for a year or more.
Also we chose to come out of stealth with a commercial product, but in the big picture, we see this tech going into smart sensors for factories and industry, smart logistics, perhaps medical devices like hearing aids. Longer term, this technology, we hope, will help increase fuel efficiency for power plants or automobiles, which we hope would be good for the environment.
but I am sure there is an imperative to produce something, and for the reasons listed, a watch where the average consumer will never know that it doesn't actually deliver on the claims made was probably seen as a good choice.
And that's also the reason they don't want to give any numbers. If you had something that worked, you'd be singing it from the highest rooftops.
Yet they now seems offended that people dare question the practicality of their claims?
Dave, I’m not refusing, just giving it a lot of thought. You’re obviously a brilliant guy and I don’t want to get into a pissing match with you.
It’s hard to answer this question because how do I encapsulate the last five years of our lives, actually 13 years in my case, in a neat, tidied up answer to a complete stranger? Would a one sentence answer finally settle it? You’ve obviously already read the Engadget article, since you posted it earlier, that had the title, “The PowerWatch is a body heat-powered smartwatch that does very little.” This is our first generation smartwatch and we’re still learning how to improve it. Some people like it, and of course some don’t.
The PowerWatch generates more power than it consumes when it’s worn. But what happens when it’s taken off and left off for a long time? What do you do when you have enough room to add a 200 mAh battery? Do you choose a tiny supercap instead that barely supports the BLE TX, RX, syncing?
Also we chose to come out of stealth with a commercial product, but in the big picture, we see this tech going into smart sensors for factories and industry, smart logistics, perhaps medical devices like hearing aids. Longer term, this technology, we hope, will help increase fuel efficiency for power plants or automobiles, which we hope would be good for the environment.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that we’re very passionate about thermoelectrics. The most inspiring photo ever captured in my opinion is “The Pale Blue Dot”, when Voyager 1 turned around and took a picture of Earth. Carl Sagan has a beautiful description of it. Voyager 1 is of course powered by a thermoelectric.
If there on the level the impression I am getting from reading Matrix Industries replies is that for some time they have been developing conceptual devices that are powered by means of waist energy harvesting, in this instance the waist energy is in the form of radiated heat.
The use of peltier type devices for generating electricity is not new, the challenge has always been what useful energy can be produced and how to efficiently make use of that energy.
In fact there not the only company doing this, I had a discussion only few weeks ago with an individual who has had patients granted for applications employing harvesting waist energy in the form of heat.
So how far for a reasonable cost can you push the energy harvesting capabilities of a peltier device, and just how efficient are the latest ultra-low energy integrated devices at using this energy.
A comment that really stood out to me from Matrix is that the PowerWatch is intended to bring their development efforts out of the shadows. So in one sense the PowerWatch is a novelty but it is to prove that they can produce a compact telemetry device that can be powered by waist heat energy from the environment it is in.
Also up until this date how have they been funding there activities, are there already venture capitalists with a grip on any future pie to be had which limits approaching further conventional investors.
Crowd funding is another form of VC which by its nature is with risk and it is important to keep that in mind. What the crowd funding investor hopes to get is whatever the promise of reword will be for their level of investment. In this case a watch powered from energy that is radiated from your body in the form of heat.
By sourcing finance from crowd funding means that Matrix are not having to give up a stake in their business or any rights they own as they would have to do going through conventional finance sources.
Conventional finance sources may have considered there project to higher investment risk for the amount they would have to put in but with crowd funding that risk is divided, so an individual investor is not as exposed as a large single investor. So they may be more willing to take the risk.
Say somebody looks at this and think to themselves that it appeals to them and that they have a belief in this so there prepared to take a gamble and pledge there $139, and anticipate the reward of a working PowerWatch.
If all goes to plan with IGG Matrix makes valuable income, successfully launches a product, boosts there profile, prove to existing investors that can deliver a working product, open doors to move ahead with producing products for industrial telemetry / medical applications and any other application they can apply the technology to.
For the IGG investor they get there shiny new PowerWatch.
On the other hand if it all goes horribly wrong then the reverse of the above will happen and the IGG and any other investors they have will be out of pocket.
Simple rule with gambling. Never bet with more than you can afford and are prepared to lose.