source 1 http://www.washington.edu/news/2017/07/05/first-battery-free-cell-phone-makes-calls-by-harvesting-ambient-power[/URL]
Source 2 https://www.livescience.com/59921-battery-free-cellphone-collects-power-from-environment.html?utm_source=notification[/URL]

Source 1 Video







This is pretty cool, especially for an emergency type phone or for those older generation people who prefer simple phones for phone calls only.

As long as your phone has signal, it has power.

At the current tech state, they can only be used to make/receive calls, but I have no doubt as time goes on, they will find ways to incorporate more features into so few micro watts of power.

It would be great for survival gear / camping gear / gobag item / spare phone kept in the car or w/e.

This type of phone, being able to make a call anytime, anywhere as long as you have signal, could save so many lives.

Even if the tech is transformed from a "phone" to some kind of emergency use only rescue device, tied in with gps maybe?

Or perhaps some kind of hybrid smartphone, where the actual phone calls are powered on a separate system powered by the cell towers, and the actual smart phone features and apps are powered by a battery or w/e.

That way no matter where you are, you can always at least make a call on your smart phone, even if all your batteries are dead, and your stranded on the side of the road with no gas, and a dead car battery, with 4 flat tires, in the middle of the night, while its raining out; you can still call for help without ever getting out of your car.

The % drop in energy use alone is staggering. It should not be discarded just because it might not be presently marketable.

What do you guys think?

This post was edited by Ep0ch on Jul 25 2017 10:57am

In the simplest sense a cell phone is nothing more then a transmitter and receiver communicating with a cell tower. It is impressive they are able to achieve this function with ambient energy but there is too little energy to do anything else.

Quote 1 shows it's not viable with current equipment as it needs a home made tower. This will definitely be a limitation and will prevent any sort of real market penetration.

To your point for survival gear, most use satellites because of the lack of signal.

I will agree it is quite impressive but its current application isn't viable.

My first thought of an application would be some sort of analytics. To outfit a car with this simple receiver would be inexpensive and could provide real time information on traffic. Or something to that effect.

Good thoughts. I am interested to see how it will improve over time. It has much potential as a hybrid system. Or maybe to wirelessly power remote or head phones or anything thag uses microwatts of power, lights, etc.

This post was edited by Ep0ch on Jul 26 2017 05:59am

It's neat, but I don't think it would make that big of a difference as an emergency item. Modern alkaline batteries hold a charge for like 10 years, and if you can't be bothered to replace the batteries in your survival gear once in a decade then you probably won't bother picking up one of these phones and taking it with you.

The thing about survival gear is, you most never have when you need it.

True, I just think this phone will be one of those things that you won't have when you need it. It's a great survival item but people in general don't prepare for survival in advance, so it will mostly go unused and won't really make a big difference.



Well, harvesting radio isn't new and not really what this phone is about. The phone is about how little power could be used to make a call, that's the innovation. They just realized that it uses so little power they could actually harvest enough ambient radio and light to meet the power demands. I don't think they made any interesting advances in the power harvesting area though, they just used existing tech. So I don't know if it will really drive any progress towards other consumer electronics being similarly powered. Maybe it will show innovative ways of reducing their power demands, I guess? Unlikely for something as simple as a light, but maybe things like GPS navigators, garage openers, laptops, etc.

By the way, I remember reading about a prototype TV remote that uses no batteries. The power is generated from your finger pressing the button, basically. There's some research in using the same technology (piezoelectric crystals) in laptop keyboards to charge the battery while you type, and Japan was looking into sidewalks to generate power from people's footsteps.

Ive been specilating anything that uses batteries could potentially use yhis tech.

Also combinging this tech with quantum photon entanglement with minature satalite computeres made from graphene.

This post was edited by Ep0ch on Jul 28 2017 04:31pm

Well... yeah. We've had solar panels for decades. You can buy a battery-free solar powered calculator for like a dollar these days. There are even prototype cars that run on solar energy. RF harvesting isn't new either. I feel like you are excited about something that's existed for a while and missing the point of what these guys actually invented.

What i meant was being able to use photon synchronization, via quantum entanglement to instantly transmit data and receive data from satellites that can run indefinitely on RF frequencies the universe produces, regardless of UV/IR light being present. (solar panels not required).

These theoretical satellites could be small too, say the size of a beach ball, or basketball, maybe even smaller eventually.

Pretty sure you thought I meant something else.

Solar energy is not the same thing as RF/UFH/Magnetic energy, although the sun does produce all these things.

Solar energy pretty much only uses infra red and ultra violet wavelengths.

The tech these kids "invented" is almost half a century old and uses various radio waves as a power source, as well as light, without solar panels, they could travel the universe indefinetly, and send data home instantly, instead of the snails version we use now, which is RF transmission, which only moves at the speed of light.
Being able to get data from some places potentially light years away, instantly, is a monumental thing. We should double down our efforts on these techs.

There is another thread I made about Graphene (for the overall frame/structure/casing and Metallic Hydrogen (simple/stable/effective electron source for synchronization and possible back up fuel source, or emergency maneuvers fuel), both of those would probably be great for these theoretical satellites.

The difference between then and now, is Edison isn't around to cock block it...

In any case, these are just some random thoughts I had about the various uses this tech could have.

-edit

Also here is another random idea, female "toys" powered by a wifi signal, that synchronize vibrations with a video via special app, to make the experience more enjoyable.

Sex always sells. Isn't that what they say?

This post was edited by Ep0ch on Jul 28 2017 06:25pm