Samsung has created a TV remote control that harvests energy from spare Wi-Fi signals, meaning that you never need to charge it or replace the batteries.
at the University of Manchester, UK, says that the vast majority of the signals from Wi-Fi routers that aren’t intercepted by laptops and other devices are normally wasted. “They will be absorbed somewhere because of conservation of energy,” he says. “It’s most likely that when they hit metallic surfaces they’ll be turned into eddy currents and then absorbed and be turned into heat.”
“It’s definitely a brilliant idea, and a very good example of energy harvesting,” he says of the remote control – and suggests that in theory you could power anything in the same way, although it would make little sense from an engineering standpoint. “You have a router that is emitting RF [radio frequency] signals that’s approximately rated at 1 watt, which is limited by regulations. And that’s mostly just concerns about safety,” he says.
Zhang says there are practical applications for the technology in certain niches, although solar power can offer similar output for devices with low power needs at less cost. Medical implants are one area where it makes senseMore on these topics:
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