Energous/Wiliot Seen Extending Battery Utility in Small Form Factors

Energous partnered with Wiliot, a sensing-as-a-service company with a self-powered computer, on a sensor that can be used in retail and warehousing, said the wireless charging platform Tuesday. The companies integrated Energous’ WattUp 1-watt active energy harvesting technology with Wiliot’s Pixel tags that can be attached “to nearly anything” to monitor light humidity, proximity and temperature, the companies said. Wiliot’s tags harvest energy from Bluetooth and LoRa signals; adding range and low power consumption from Energous technology along with intelligent edge processing allows Wiliot to scale deployment in a single venue and leverage Wi-Fi access points as gateways to the cloud, said Steve Statler, Wiliot senior vice president-marketing. Far-field wireless power, known as distance charging, “is another important step forward in removing the need for wires and cords from IoT-centric devices as it extends the utility of batteries in smaller form factors,” said IDC Group Vice President Mario Morales. As wireless power extends from near to far field, it will enable design of new “batteryless” sensor types, low power intelligent endpoints, smart tracking tags and cloud-based data services in retail and asset tracking, Morales said. The Wiliot and Energous combination “will change the behavior of what consumers come to expect from being always connected, with wearables, smart tags, and mobile devices,” he said.