We are approaching the days of magic, the long ago predicted days when computing and electronics technology ceases to be visible and vanishes ‘into the walls’. One of the key solutions required for that disappearance is in the process of being solved.
If you are going to have an ‘intelligent environment’ around you, the computing elements involved must not only be small but they must have a source of energy. If we are truly talking about ubiquitous computing, there will be thousands of nodes in a home, millions in a neighborhood, billions in a town or city. You cannot feasibly wire them to external power and you can also not have thousands of folk running about changing a billion batteries every week or two.
That is where environmental energy scavenging comes in and it is not a future technology. It is here and several different types are purchase-able off the shelf from AdaptivEnergy, Texas Instruments and others. The systems work by picking up small amounts of energy from vibration, tiny amounts of ambient light, temperature differences and even the broadcasts from the local TV station.
Some applications are already in use for sensors in factory environments but the threshold is nigh where applications will move into businesses and homes. Tiny gadgets that you install and then forget about because they just keep doing their job for year after year with no maintenance, no battery changes, no replacements and no attention. They will effectively become invisible adjuncts to daily life.
According to Sir Arthur C. Clarke, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. We are just about to cross that threshold.
We are just about to cross that threshold.
We crossed it in the 19th Century, when we hit the first singularity(Link).
And the EMP cometh and taketh all away. I’d rather a vacuum tube and some matches 😉
CountingCats,
Thanks for the link to your site. Your description of the radical difference between the way we used to access high quality information (buying books, going to libraries) and how we do so now reminded me of my recent re-viewing of “Jaws”.
In the movie, the local Sheriff decides he needs to look into this “Great White Shark” thing. He spends a day on the weekend driving from Cape Cod to Boston to go to the big library, and retrieves copies of two or three musty tomes to bring back to the cape for perusal.
If Jaws were re-produced today, the day trip to Boston would be replaced with a couple minutes of Googling.
We are so accustomed to the current crop of one hundred year old miracles that we forget how miraculous they are.
The overall concept of energy harvesting is an interesting one.
Some time ago (I think about a year) we bought a Roberts SolarDAB portable digital radio, which has solar cells and a rechargeable battery (plus a mains power/charging unit). As Dale points out, such units have the advantage of not having to replace batteries (which was certainly a frequent and onerous job with out first portable digital radio). The unit is reliably recharged, with our level of use and even in winter, providing it is left on a sun-facing windowsill when not in use; it will be interesting to see whether we make a mistake, and it melts in a heatwave.
The concept is not totally new. Forty or so years ago, I can remember my father (an amateur radio enthusiast) using radio signal powered portable instrumentation in testing antennae in our garden. The received radio signal was rectified and used directly, without any battery, to power electronics used to measure various aspects of the signal.
We also have the wind-up radio, which I understand is a great hit in rural Africa, where both mains electricity and battery deliveries are often unavailable.
All of the above strike me as having useful advantage. As costs fall (for energy harvesting controllers, rechargeable batteries, the energy gatherers themselves and ever lower consumption electronic application circuits) such devices will become more prevalent. And yesterday, on a trip to our local recycling centre, I saw a bin containing over half a ton of old batteries, mostly AA size: what is the cost there!
However, I think there should be care in overselling the concept. For example, the self-powered radio light switch strikes me as offering little over the TV/DVD remote control, and I’ve not so far found battery replacement there so frequent as to irritate or be a cost issue; likewise clocks and wireless doorbells. Such devices may well arrive, as might energy-harvesting TV/DVD remote controls themselves, but I think this will be driven by availability of components developed for other reasons, rather than for significant need in that actual application.
Finally, I have another but related suggestion for those, like me, who really do wish to ‘save the planet’, as well as easy the load on our wallets and otherwise simplify our lives. In our house, we have a wealth of rechargeable and mains-powered small appliances, each with their own charger or low-voltage power supply. It would be useful if there was standardisation of chargers and power supplies, in terms of voltage (with low, medium and higher power options) and standardised connectors at the appliance end. Multiple outputs for multiple appliances would also be useful, in some cases. In this way, many less chargers etc would be required, at some saving in natural resources.
Best regards
100 year miracles.
It is worse than that: there are those who are determined to bury achievements as if being advanced was a crime or something to be ashamed of.
How many post war technological advances in the UK were sytematically destroyed, cut up, erased. TSR2, Black Arrow, Rotodyne and now BA refuse to allow the maintainin go fthe hydraulic and avionic systems of Concorde in the UK. The French keep theirs fettled, but then again the French establishment are not riddled with self-loathers.
“they just keep doing their job for year after year”
Well that would be a first for ANY electronic device, never mind one powered by magic 🙂
Andrew Duffin: an electronic device can do it’s job for almost as long as you like, provided you’d be willing to pay extra for it. Most people aren’t, because they know that in 3 years max they’ll want to replace it with a new and improved gadget anyway.