New tiny Bluetooth chip doesn’t require a battery because it harvests energy from ambient radio frequencies

“The Internet of Things promises to connect billions of otherwise ordinary devices to the internet, but when each one needs to have its own battery, there’s a limit to how small or cheap they can become,” Jon Porter reports for The Verge.
“A new paper-thin Bluetooth chip that’s able to operate entirely without a battery could be about to solve this problem,” Porter reports. “The postage stamp-sized chip from Wiliot is able to harvest energy from the ambient radio frequencies around us, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular signals, and use them to power a Bluetooth-equipped ARM processor that can be connected to a variety of sensors.”
The company, Wiliot, “says that the size of the Bluetooth chip, combined with the lack of any battery, means it can be produced cheaply and mounted on almost anything,” Porter reports. “Although a recent $30 million financing round means that Wiliot now counts on both Amazon and Samsung as investors, it will still be another year before its sensor tags are widely available.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The possibilities are pretty much endless with these, especially when combined with a variety of sensors!