The so-called Freevolt tech captures the minuscule amounts of unused electrical power from the signals around us and focuses them to trickle power into the growing number low-energy connected devices in our homes like smoke alarms, wearables, TV remotes or door bells.
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The Freevolt harvester is just as wide and long as a mobile phone, but it is only as thick as a credit card.
Of course, there could be problems with such devices.
It might sound like the stuff of science fiction, but this technology could soon be powering the array of tiny household devices referred to as the ” internet of things “. The Internet of Things, according to global Data Corp., could lead to a worldwide spending of about $1.7 trillion by the year 2020.
Lord Drayson said energy from Wi-Fi, cellular and broadband networks has always been interesting to researchers, but they could never put it to good use as it can only provide a small amount of energy.
The Freevolt technology has a multi-band antenna and rectifier – a type of battery that converts alternating current to direct current – and is “capable of absorbing energy from multiple radio frequency bands”, its developers Drayson Technologies and Imperial College London said in a statement.
As a solution to the issue, Drayson Technologies needed to develop a way to make the small drops of energy usable, without losing the energy in the process.
Drayson Technologies will allow companies to obtain a license to use the Freevolt technology.
The company is looking for partners, hackers and even garden shed inventors to adopt Freevolt and come up with applications for the remarkable device, but to set the ball rolling it has come up with its own Freevolt-powered product.
PA Consulting Group co-developed the CleanSpace Tag.
He showed off a gadget which works by scavenging the radio frequency energy from a range of transmissions including wireless internet and even digital television.
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Drayson demonstrated the energy created by the signals from mobile phones being used by attendees at the presentation before utilising it to power a loudspeaker in the lecture hall.
