RCA Airnergy Pulls Power From Thin Air, Charging Your Phone With Ambient Wi-Fi Signals

I don't see how this could be considered stealing. Your router will send out the same amount of energy in the form of a wifi signal regardless if anything receives it. It's not like a physical connection where the current changes based on the loads connected to it. With wifi, either the signal gets "absorbed" and used by a device to do useful work, or it gets absorbed by the surrounding environment and gets transformed into heat (which is actually nothing more than energized molecules).

reply to post by joyride0187


It's been shown many times that the thing won't even be able to pull enough energy to beat the drain a battery is constantly experiencing.

It's bunk. But I guess it won't stop people screaming about Tesla and how the government is trying to keep free energy to themselves.

Assuming this device 'harvests' all manner of RF energy passing through it it has a chance of being effective in busy congested urban areas with lots of wifi, cellphone and other wireless transmission activity around it in close proximity. If widely adopted it could create havoc in terms of random 'black spots' for anyone trying to access the signal 'downwind' in a direct line of sight or maybe not - time will tell.

Not good! Do you think about this?



wiki.ucalgary.ca...:_Society's_Addiction_to_Technology

Now what I think? I gonna buy this one if this will come:

reply to post by Pilgrum


No, as it only has an antenna capable of 'harvesting' EM radiation at 2.4GHz, which is WiFi, and microwave ovens. Cellphones work on different frequencies entirely, as do TV and radio broadcasts, CB radios, and anything else that has ever worked near a microwave or WiFi hotspot.

Also, if it did work, it would only affect the area directly behind it, just as an object casts a shadow.

But, as it's all nonsense, this is academic.

Originally posted by davesidious
reply to post by joyride0187

 

It's been shown many times that the thing won't even be able to pull enough energy to beat the drain a battery is constantly experiencing.

It's bunk. But I guess it won't stop people screaming about Tesla and how the government is trying to keep free energy to themselves.

How about moving close to a HAARP type installation and flying some kites to charge those batteries?
Why mess with any of this nonsense when a simple solar array will get you plenty of cheap power. Or a wind mill.

reply to post by Donny 4 million


You'd have to be IN the HAARP installation, and flying your kite directly above their equipment, which wouldn't go down too well with those trying to conduct their experiments.

reply to post by davesidious


Must have missed that detail about 2.4GHz which makes a huge difference. Broad spectrum might have had a chance of working in congested areas.

I made a self-powered microwave leak detector (gunn diode based) years ago and the leaking energy more than an inch or two from my oven is undetectably small which proves the door and shielding is intact but I've never bothered to test Wifi transmissions with it. Wouldn't expect to read anything at all.

The detector is simply an etched PCB antenna (about 1" square) attached to a high speed rectifier and a sensitive voltmeter (100 microvolts full scale) so what I made is pretty much an RF energy harvester I'd need to leave the microwave door open while cooking to develop enough voltage to trickle charge a single cell.

reply to post by Donny 4 million


Because neither wind or solar is cheap.

reply to post by C0bzz


Cheap is very relative. So you mean a tiny solar panel to load batteries is too expensive? 20$?! Your Avatar is too much. Mr. Nu"clear".

So we've already got at least one 'electric universe' believer post here, how about another?

This form of 'stealing' wifi is not the same as using a laptop outside of an apartment complex, you won't notice any adverse affect to your signal, chill out. If you don't want your neighbor charging is cell phone with your waves of energy go back to ethernet.

Too many people think this is like a vacuum for wifi or RF signals...no, it's not. These signals are always there at roughly the same levels. It's just found a way to utilize that latent engery.

Great idea, I'm going to stick to my wall outlet though.

reply to post by cushycrux


Hold any phone up to your ear for more than 10 minutes and tell me the side of your head doesn't get warm from applying pressure. Radioactive cell phones, HA!

i'm sick of hearing people say "you can't get something for nothing - no free lunches..."

if i knew of a way to harvest energy from the atmosphere, FOUND the necessary equipment and tools to make said device, and once the last connection is made it starts working - how is that not free?

ohhhh, because SOMEONE paid to manufacture the parts and tools right? and just because i "found" it doesn't mean it was free?

give me one reason the government would have to NOT suppress free energy other than "if they had it they would share it..."

this concept of using ambient radio waves to power devices is not new, i seem to remember hearing about some dude named tesla turning his grass blue or something....

reply to post by Pilgrum


A device would have to have a crazy antenna to be able to harness electricity from EM radiation at all different frequencies.

Your microwave leak detection device sounds pretty cool!

reply to post by I.C. Weiner


There's no evidence Tesla did that. Or most of the things claimed. You are sick of people using physics? How dare they! This device won't work, because the mathematics behind the interactions utilised dictate that it won't. It can't even charge a battery against the battery's natural loss of stored energy. It's a hoax. And yet people, such as yourself, leap up at the defence of this pitiful device.

Oh dear.

Originally posted by joyride0187
How can you say I am greedy. So by your logic then I guess its morally ok to hook up to your neighbors power box just so you can get free electricity.

no you are not stealing.simply absorbing.same way as sunshine.
wi-fi signal is beamed out.

makes no difference to broad aster if anyone absorbs that signal...

reply to post by silent thunder


Good observation.

Here's what comes to my mind regarding this:

- Secure your WiFi networks.

- This device should allow entry of a key to gain access to your secured network.

- Then, in that home network of yours, which is perhaps G or even N you probably have loads of "bandwidth" left over for this since your DSL or Cable pipe is probably limited to no more than 10Mbps. That and the fact that each client is likely doing no more than 20-50Kbps on average over the day (and that would be a pretty high average) leaves with you plenty of "room", so to speak.

Originally posted by cushycrux
reply to post by C0bzz

 

Cheap is very relative. So you mean a tiny solar panel to load batteries is too expensive? 20$?! Your Avatar is too much. Mr. Nu"clear".

A $20 solar PV cell or windmill is to expensive to charge a phone battery, yes. I don't see why anyone would use anything other a powerpoint and the included charger, personally.

[edit on 19/1/2010 by C0bzz]

reply to post by davesidious


oh i forgot, this is ATS - eyewitness accounts and a book about his inventions are not proof...i bet a video of him building and demonstrating these inventions wouldn't be good enough for you either right?

oh and about having a "key" to gain entry and use the ambient WiFi - have you ever noticed that while you are putting the key in that you have access to the internet on that network? i had to re-enter the key for my router and while trying to remember it i noticed that my messenger programs were online....

the signals are in the air no matter if you have a key to gain access or not. if the signals are present and measurable as a FORM OF ENERGY, can the energy not be harnessed and transformed? i already know the replies to that one "no it can't - and i have no explanation as to why not other than it can't..."

reply to post by davesidious


I dug up the old gadget which I made nearly 30 years ago and went over a couple of microwave ovens with it to see if it still worked and it does. I read near fullscale deflection (250uA) at a couple of spots around the door edge with the antenna as close as possible. Also tested it around a couple of laptops with wireless networking enabled and read absolutely nothing, not even a flicker and that's in the office in the city with wireless LAN gear all around me - nothing.

Here's a schematic I just drew up of the 'harvester' with detail of the antenna I etched on the PCB if anyone's interested.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1fb7db490b2c.jpg[/atsimg]

All the parts I used except for the Gunn diode came from the 'junk box' and the meter is a battery condition indicator from a portable tape recorder with sensitivity of 250uA / 65mV FSD representing an impedance of 260 ohms. With 2 x 220 ohm resistors in series the overall impedance of the measuring circuit is 700 ohms making a FSD reading mean 175mV is being developed across the 220pF capacitor with 700 ohm load. And that's with it in quite a strong 2.4GHz field so the chances of this charging any sort of battery are non-existant but perhaps a series/parallel array of 100s of Gunns (expensive) with individual antennas *could* get a useful output. Such an array could be fabricated at the chip level.

ETA - had the detector on the desk here next to my cellphone and the needle nearly jumped out of it when the phone 'negotiated' with the tower (those pulses that invade everything) so the design covers quite a broad spectrum.


[edit on 19/1/2010 by Pilgrum]

Originally posted by ZombieOctopus

A wifi hotspot puts out 100mW of power and each receiver only gets a small fraction of that 100mW. To charge a lithium ion battery pack of a cell phone, would literally take tens of years if you could harvest 100% of the output power from the transmitter

true, but with a power amp you could amplify the signal significantly. even a gain of 1000 isn't big at all and that would turn 100mW into 100W. I've built a very simple power amp with only 4 darlington pair transistors (2 of them were acting as diodes) and that amp had a gain of over 12,000. given you would still need a separate dc power supply, but just a thought.

but wireless power transfer is typically very inefficient. You've all probably heard of the wardenclyff tower, which does work, but not efficiently enough to be practical in large applications. power dissipation is very very high in that system. At least thats my understanding.