this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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Researcher has developed, at a cost of less than one dollar, a wireless light switch that runs without batteries, can be installed anywhere on a wall and could reduce the cost of wiring a house by ... (www.ualberta.ca)
submitted 11 months ago by L4s to c/technology
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Researcher has developed, at a cost of less than one dollar, a wireless light switch that runs without batteries, can be installed anywhere on a wall and could reduce the cost of wiring a house by ...::A U of A engineering researcher has developed a wireless light switch that could reduce the cost of wiring a house by as much as 50 per cent.

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[–] surfrock66 25 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

This article is scant on details. It harvests RF to power/charge low energy devices. What RF bands? Is putting these through a house knocking out bluetooth around it, or existing RF remotes for devices? Or is this some background RF that won't penetrate deep into a house to begin with? There would be "1-2 RF transmitters" to power the whole house...that doesn't seem great, that's a ton of wasted energy emanating in a sphere from the transmitter to hit these devices all over. I'm not sure what problem this is solving, copper wiring cost of extended runs to switches? Isn't this problem going to go away if some system like zigbee got standardized and the switch hardware was baked into the end device itself to be controlled by any of multiple control points?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'd imagine it's scant on details because it's still a theory. The next phase of the competition is funds to build a proof of concept.

[–] surfrock66 3 points 11 months ago

For sure, though I question the theory. Directional wireless power I think is feasible, but this sounds like blanketing (1-2 transmitters in a house with no regard for obstacles/direction, per the article). That sounds hugely wasteful, especially given how much more energy power takes vs. signal. I do think a zigbee type solution is the ultimate answer, because even if it goes back to batteries for wall stations, data transmission like that is so much less energy than power that the battery problem becomes null-ish.