Energous' wireless power transmission can power IoT devices from a distance. The company has partnered with InnoTractor, which developed an asset tracking system that takes advantage of wireless power. I talked with Frank Hermans, CEO at InnoTractor, and Eric MacDonald, Director of Product Marketing & Product Management at Energous, to get some insight into the advantages and challenges when using wireless power technology (see video above). You can check out the Q&A on June 28th.
Energous provides an RF wireless power-delivery system that can power nearby devices like wireless sensors and tracking devices. The company offers chips as well as devices like its WattUp PowerBridge transmitter built using its chips. These can be used with sensors such as Wiliot’s IoT Pixel devices (Fig. 1). The IoT Pixel has a system-on-chip (SoC) with a 32-bit, Arm Cortex-M0+ running at 1 MHz. Featuring support for Bluetooth 5, it can sense temperature and location.
InnoTractor is also taking advantage of Energous’ technology by incorporating it into its asset tracking. Energous transmitters (Fig. 2) are located in areas where tagged assets will be located or moved through, and InnoTractor’s technology will identify and track those assets. Unlike simple RFID tags, the InnoTractor devices can support sensor information such as temperature.
