Energous, e-peas team to advance at-a-distance wireless charging
In the partnership, the companies will develop an evaluation board combining e-peas’ power management IC technology with Energous’ radio frequency (RF) solution to support at-a-distance wireless charging applications for smart buildings, industrial IoT sensors, retail electronic displays and more.
“As a leader in at-a-distance wireless charging,” says Stephen R. Rizzone, president and CEO of Energous Corporation, “we are excited to work closely with e-peas, the leading supplier of IoT energy harvesting power management and extremely low-power microcontrollers at the edge, to offer integrated solutions like this board to allow for faster evaluation of distance-based wireless charging. Our WattUp technology is designed for the growing retail, smart building and industrial IoT markets to address concerns around battery life and maintenance logistics.”
Cesar Johnston, COO and executive vice president of Energous Corporation adds, “The results of this joint effort between Energous and e-peas will be to introduce the capabilities and advantages of a small form factor, highly integrated solution that will enable charging distances greater than one meter, eventually extending out to several meters. The core WattUp technology supporting this evaluation board is an outgrowth of the common architecture we have developed, which emphasizes scalability for all chip, hardware, software and antenna elements of the technical solution.”
The evaluation board functionality is expected to include the following features:
- DA2210 WPT rectifier
- E-peas AEM30940 harvesting PMIC
- Supercap or rechargeable lithium battery support
- Smartbond DA14531-based BLE SoC
- Ambient light and temperature/humidity sensors
- Support for E-Ink display charging (optional)
- Support for external harvesting antenna
Energous is the developer of WattUp, offered as a next-generation wireless charging technology. It is an RF-based scalable technology that enables both contact-based and over-the-air wireless charging for small electronic devices in an ecosystem that it says ensures interoperability.
e-peas is a semiconductor company that develops energy harvesting power management ICs (PMICs) and extremely low-power microcontrollers. The company’s solutions are designed to give infinite battery life to wireless devices by increasing the amount of harvested energy and by drastically reducing the energy consumption. This evaluation board, says the company, will allow companies to integrate its technology for testing and evaluation in the smart buildings, wireless sensors market and electronic displays.
“As the wireless sensors market grows,” says Geoffroy Gosset, CEO and co-founder of e-peas, “so too does the need for avoiding battery maintenance costs. That is why at-a-distance solutions capable of charging more than a meter away are critical. We believe that the combination of both Energous’ WattUp and e-peas AEM [family of] technologies on a single evaluation board will ease the deployment of zero-maintenance solutions on multiple markets.”
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Startup shows wireless charging at a distance
e-peas looking for funds to develop ultra low power IoT devices
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