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Company Claims to Convert RF into Power

May 13, 2015

By Ernest Worthman —

Worthman

Worthman

May 14, 2015 — RF into Power? Sounds too good to be true to me. Not that it isn’t possible, but energy harvesting, especially stray RF energy is still a dream for all but the most low-power of all situations.

But, one can’t blame them for trying. Research and development firm Nikola Labs is set to launch a crowd-funding campaign to finance and bring to market a new smartphone case that, supposedly, turns energy from Wi-Fi, LTE and Bluetooth into direct current power that provides wireless charging to a smartphone.

The promised technology uses an energy harvesting circuit that converts ambient RF energy into power for mobile devices, wirelessly. At least that is what they are presenting on their company website.

Like I said, too good to be true. Not that the technology isn’t there, but the amount of energy available is so miniscule, it might take more energy to convert and store it than what can be scavenged from the fields.

Nikola Labs touts the phone case as featuring “sleep protection, battery life extension, RF harvesting antenna, signal strength indicator and an RF-to-DC converter.”

Here is their spiel: “We allow you to download power from the air,” according to Will Zell, company co-founder. “We’re using 19th century technology to power 21st century mobile devices. It’s a terrible problem. You as a consumer deserve a better solution.” What problem is he talking about? While it is true that there is an abundance of RF energy everywhere, capturing it, and using it is another story. There just isn’t a lot of energy in a EM field of a few mili- or microvolts. And, at the antenna, what will the effect of transferring that energy (via inductive coupling I would guess) be on the communications signal?

Anyway, Zell harkened back to company namesake Nikola Tesla, a pioneer in the field of energy transmission, and Henrich Hertz, who proved the existence of electromagnetic waves.

“When you use your phone, you’re constantly transmitting energy,” Zell said. “But, over 90 percent of that energy is lost into the environment. That is perfectly good energy that could be put to use and that’s what we do at Nikola Labs.”

Well, sounds like FM to me! Not the theory, but the practical application. I’ll believe it when I see it – and not just a few joules over a few days. Remember those stick-on cell boosters of the ‘80s?…uh huh!

 

 

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