Energous Wins FCC Nod for 1-Watt Wireless Power Transmitter at Any Distance

Energous' 1-watt Active Energy Harvesting transmitter can charge multiple devices at once, enabling over-the-air charging at any distance for IoT devices such as retail sensors, electronic shelf labels and industrial devices, said the company. It received similar approval from European regulators in May (see 2105110013).

In the Tuesday news release, Bob Friday, chief technology officer at Juniper Networks’ Mist company, said managing and maintaining battery-based Bluetooth Low Energy beacons is a major impediment to the acceleration of BLE IoT technology adoption. “Energy harvesting, batteryless BLE beacons bring a whole new option to the IoT wireless toolbox,” he said, saying Energous’ Active Energy Harvesting transmitting technology will increase beacons’ range within typical Wi-Fi BLE deployments in enterprises “and open the door to a whole new range of IoT use cases.”

On possible consumer applications, Johnston envisioned low-power sensors used around the home and devices such as electric toothbrushes and razors that could be powered wirelessly up to 1 meter. It's possible today to send 1-2 milliwatts constantly to a fitness band, he said. Beyond that, it’s hard to predict timetables for more power-hungry devices due to regulatory restrictions.

Over time, it will be possible to charge devices such as trackers up to 100 mW with a wireless power network. The company announced 5 watts charging capability and is “still trying to push that beyond one meter,” Johnston said. Energous has patents and devices that can send “tremendous amounts of power,” he said, “but regulatory is always a challenge.” He cited “great progress” in moving from half a millimeter charging when Energous came out of the gate to one meter, and with Tuesday’s announcement, “no limit.”

The company hasn’t secured regulatory approvals in Asian markets. “All we can do is apply and try to follow the rules,” Johnston said, “and we continue to do that.” He cited precedence of other low-power technologies that have been certified in those markets, such as RFID, as a positive indicator.

Responding to whether at-a-distance wireless smartphone charging is on the Energous road map, Johnston said the company has developed technology that can send very high amounts of power -- 40-50 watts and beyond -- using gallium nitride-based semiconductors, but Qi coil-based charging is fully penetrated in the market. “Our direction right now is to go into the areas where we see the most value … and where we have the least competition,” he said. “It would be crazy for us to go head to head with a big gorilla.” If there’s an opportunity for smartphone distance charging, “we are ready to do that.”

Commenting on the future of wireless charging, Johnston tapped into his early years at Broadcom and Marvell -- “before Wi-Fi happened” -- working on what was then called wireless LAN and said, “I’ve seen this before.” He referenced conspiracy theories about health threats associated with wireless charging and compared that with similar statements once made about 5 GHz Wi-Fi causing cancer and interfering with an airplane’s communications system. “Here we are 25 years later,” he said: “I’ve seen this movie before, and wireless power networks are just Wi-Fi all over again.”

In the next two-three years, Johnston sees the deployment of far-field devices at scale, starting in medical, industrial and commercial markets before going mainstream to consumers. “The consumer business is a volume business,” he said, adding that Energous designs its solutions for “consumer cost targets.” Shares closed 9.5% higher Tuesday at $2.19.