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PoWiFi: Now Your Router Will Transmit

Both Internet and Energy With New
WiFi Tech

Short Bytes: A new technology called PoWiFi is here to change the

way we use our devices and charge them. According to a team of
engineers at the University of Washington, who is behind the
PoWiFi, for the first time its possible to use WiFi devices to power
the sensors and other devices.

This new Wi-Fi technology is being hailed as one of the best

technological innovations happened this year. The Power Over
WiFi(PoWiFi) system uses a WiFi router and its WiFi signals to power
the devices.
Earlier this year, this technology came into the limelight when
researchers published a new paper that outlined a way to harvest
energy from WiFi signals and power a temperature sensor, a charger
for an activity tracking bracelet, and a low-res gray-scale camera.

According to the team of engineers at the University of Washington, who is

behind the PoWiFi, for the first time its possible to use WiFi devices to power
the sensors and other devices.
We also made a system that can co-exist as a Wi-Fi router and a power
source it doesnt degrade the quality of your Wi-Fi signals while its
powering devices, they said.
Also read: Now Boost Your WiFi Signal With A Beer Can
The final paper based on the PoWiFi technology will be presented in
December at the Association for Computing Machinerys CoNEXT 2015
conference in Heidelberg, Germany.
The Internet of Things is becoming a much bigger phenomenon with each
passing day, and this PoWiFi tech could make IoT more relevant in the
upcoming future years. Using PoWiFi, one could harvest the energy in WiFi
signals and meet the needs of low-power sensors in devices like cameras,
wearables etc.
During the research, it was found that the peak energy in the ordinary WiFi
signals is enough to charge/run these little gizmos, but it still remains
unutilized due to the power leakage.
The research team has optimized a router to send more power packets
on WiFi channels that are not being used and added some sensors into lowpower devices to feed on these signals. This way, the team was able to make
PoWiFi a reality.
In the future, PoWi-Fi could leverage technology power scaling to further
improve the efficiency of the system to enable operation at larger distances

and power numerous more sensors and applications, said co-author Shyam
Gollakota, assistant professor of computer science and engineering.
Right now PoWiFi generates small amounts of power. However, the team
believes that PoWiFi could be developed further and made more efficient.
Add your views about PoWiFi in the comments below.
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