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

The thought of wireless energy is mind boggling. I thinkg we should seriously consider the possibility of wirelessly charging electric cars. That would deal with the long distance travel in cars that currently can only travel 40-60 miles.

if that can charge my ipod even once from the internal backup that would be an amazing bargain.

i can see them crediting tesla as a profit for these things.

This isn't real it breaks the laws of physics. It is simply not possible.

Wow... this seriously blew my mind. I may be wrong, but this sounds like somewhat of a first step to wireless power. If I can charge my phone, my ipod, and whatever else I may be carrying around wirelessly, then how long will it take before I can charge larger, more power hungry items?

Look up pharanguga, the math is there. You can not gather that kind of energy because you can not collect all the energy available the wifi signal travels out in a sphere while the device can only gather the energy that hits the antenna. Think Critically.

Re: Criticalthinker

This is real. Tesla designed the technology a hundred years ago. The product wouldn't be for sale if it didn't work. Think logicaly.

Will it take longer to charge if there are a few Airnergy devices next to the WIFI spot? Will it decrease the signal overall strength?

Sounds cool, but doesn't this highlight a concern about electro magnetic fields being a health hazards? If sitting in a Starbucks can charge my battery—what's it doing to my body?

Cool as it sounds, this product cannot operate the way it has been described. While there are a few 'wireless power' examples that use 100W induction currents, the power output of a WiFi access point is a tenth of a watt or so. Assuming 100% efficiency and absorption at 5 feet away from a 100mW home router (reasonable figures) it would take 34.5 years to charge a phone battery.

I would like for this device to be real, but.... c'mon.

Nope, my laptop (which has a fairly good antenna, 17in screen) reports that the signal from my average router is about -60dbm which equals 1 nanowatt. My phone has a 3 watthour battery, assuming a perfect charge (not possible) it would take 3,000,000,000 hours or 342,238.66 years

Not critiquing anybody's math, but since RCA is making this claim, I suspect that it will work -- to some extent. Note the mention that it will work better if you are near to the wifi source.

I do doubt that it it will be a real mind blower, but it may occasionally extend the life of your phone batt. Phones use amazingly small amounts of power for what they do.

Obtaining minute amounts of power from RF is nothing new -- years ago there was an article on building an FM radio powered by an AM signal. The AM section used a simple diode detector. A crystal radio can drive headsets, and that's how much energy it produced. The wifi setup is probably somewhere in that ballpark. ( Forget the electric car!)

For you Tesla freaks, Tesla was a genius, but the famous Tesla coil is not really any sort of practical wireless energy device. Huge models have been built which produced huge electrostatic discharges. They could also be used for parlor tricks like lighting flurescent bulbs, but they're really not at all efficient.

for all the gullible out there this is copied from Pharyngula

Here's some math. Long story short, by my calculations, 100% efficiency and absorption at 5 feet away from a 100mW home router, (reasonable figures), it would take 34.5 years to charge that blackberry battery.

It's not a Dyson Sphere, so you only get the power that hits the antenna. Surface of a sphere = 4pir^2, r = 60" (5 feet). Surface area of a 5' sphere = 45,216 square inches.

The device appears about 2" x 3" = 6 square inches. The device then picks up, best case, 0.000133 of the power out from the router, which is 100mW, so.. 0.0133mW

If you leave it there for 24 hours, 0.0318 mWh are stored. According to Will's battery, it has ~4,000 mWh capacity.

So, it would take 12,579 days, or 34.5 years, to charge your blackberry battery once, presuming 100% absorption, no losses.

I call BS. Even adding up all the laptops, cell phones, routers, portable phones, everything, all the noise in the RF spectrum that could hit that device, I don't see it charging the internal battery even in a week.

So if anyone out there wishes to waste money please send it my way and i will send you a used battery that will be just as useful

Who cares!

It sounds cool. For backup power you need a just a Wi-Fi signal. If you want it to work better you could also charge it first with a charger.

Free energy. Good arguments can sell anything.

I just wonder what makes this so much better than a similar battery box covered with photovoltaics? Works in the dark?

To all the people here commenting on how the technology is impossible and mathematics and blah blah blah. Apparently you are very very wrong. RCA is a large name brand company and showed this device at the CES. They charged a blackberry from 30% to full in 90 minutes using nothing but ambient wifi energy as power sources. Sooo... By my calculations. That makes you wrong. Check your math again I suppose.

If you live somewhere like NYC where there is wifi basically everywhere. From apartments to coffee shops. That little device will be constantly charging itself. In a pinch, like a dead cell phone battery, the device will do what it's supposed to do.

I doubt it was designed to be the only method of charging your phone or Ipod. But it was designed to provide emergency charges.

If your so smart bgtony08 then do the maths and show how it is possible
You clearly are a salesman's dream customer who believes anything the salesman tells him, So Come on prove us wrong with the numbers!

Suppose these things actually do work. Suppose a bunch of people buy them. Wouldn't they cause a lot of interference and blockage for people who are trying to use the WiFi signal for communication? WiFi is designed to transmit data, not provide power. I agree with Someboy, you would probably get more power from a photovoltaic cell of the same size.

This isn't a matter of poor math. But simply a magician's trick. By charging a device in X minutes, they only proved what the battery can do, not what the collection device itself will do. This is the same bait and switch the "solar chargers" do. They charge the battery off the mains before the show and then run the demo from the battery. We go gee-wiz at the dog and pony, whilst the reality is, putting batteries in the sun gets them hot and wears them out. But if want to go Mr Wizard on us, might I point out RF energy works on inverse squares. I.E. by halving the distance, you increase the energy by a factor of 10. That means you won't get much from your neighbor, but the closer you get it to your router, the better.

@Kennard,
wow, did you just *seriously* say that solar power doesn't work?

What next, are you going to suggest that all this 'internet' stuff is just smoke & mirrors because it's impossible to make a signal travel that far?!

Oh, and I know I'm probably an illusion, but inverse square means if you half the distance you increase something by a factor of *4* ... i.e 2 raised to the power of 2...Gee whizz Mr Wizzard, seems that's not 10.

Um... the inverse square law means that the power drops off rapidly as you get farther from the source. It's well documented, for example: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law

Solar chargers actually =do= provide usable power, and a battery case covered in photo voltaic cells would perform far better than this Airnergy device--at least based on the principles of operation claimed by the company peddling it.

@Criticalthinker
Say, how did people think light can transfer into electricity?

If you think this isn't real, how could you tell us your math is true then?

I agree, that a single source of wifi is not efficient enough to charge a cell phone or any other electronic device, but if you are in a city, you may have access to more than one wifi point, and so you could start adding coefficients that will mulitply the energy gathered. Like in a apt complex, you may have ten wifi points to gather from.

Is it any wonder that 50% of Americans believe the earth was created 4,000 years ago. For heavens' sake. A WIFI transmitter puts out a fraction of a watt... radiated signals diminish exponentially away from the aerial. I don't care WHAT RCA are claiming, the power that thing is going to pick up is TINY - people really are gullable.

So JGalt 10 wifi sources instead of 1 surely that means it would take 3.4 years to charge the blackberry instead of 34 years well that makes all the difference sign me up I'm sold.

wow all this talk of science... finally i thought no scientist would post smart stuff here lol me no smurt. :)
CriticalThinker wow i cant beleive you dont know this works.

blackspike2710 do you really believe that if something is for sale it must work, if so send my your e-mail and I'l sell you some crap!

....and remember that the Airnergy is =not= a product--yet. If they release a real device later this year for $39 and it works as described it will revolutionize EVERYTHING.

Why?

The logical progression of this alleged technology will mean no more batteries in any small electronic device.

Ever.

Anywhere. (At least anywhere in range of a WiFi signal.)

Remote controls for your TV will sip 'free' WiFi energy. Previously solar-powered path lights in gardens will never go out. Clocks will never need to have replacement batteries. Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors will never need batteries. Home security alarms will never need battery power. Car batteries will trickle-charge and no one (in the city at least) will ever have a dead car battery.

And ask yourself: is any of =that= even remotely probable? Because if the Airnergy device can charge a Blackberry battery in 90 minutes it can power all of those things I described above, continuously, forever--just on WiFi.

And how likely is that?

Of all the things to debate, we're debating existing technology? Can we bet money on this? I'm all in!

No we are debating whether it will work in a realistic usable fashion or whether it is just another false promise pay attention!

I would =love= for this device to work.... because part of me really wants to believe in over-unity, free energy, invisible force shields, tractor beams, anti-gravity, and faster than light propulsion. I was one of those kids that wrote off to the classified ad in the back of (yes) Popular Science magazine for the plans to build a few of those things. (I still have them somewhere.)

most people in japan already carry around AA battery chargers that can be bought in any corner store to charge their mobiles, some are even bigger than the phones themselves

oh, and not to mention the solar chargers that claim to charge your phone on only SEVEN hours that coust roughly the same as this...

I have developed a similar device. But instead of Wi-Fiu signals it uses neutrinos. Since they are present everywhere, no battery is needed. It has a mains socket giving 10 kW. It can be used to charge EV batteries while driving. I take pre-orders. You pay me now $1000, and you'll be the first ones to receive the device.

Why do people keep asking if this will steal your precious wifi signal? Do solar panels darken the Sun?

Anyone who thinks that having lots of Wi-Fi sources around will make this work needs to sit down and THINK about this for a minute: The major killer for this theory is that a signal broadcast from a point loses energy very quickly as it expands in a sphere.

Let's make some assumptions, being absurdly generous:

1 - Surface area of a sphere is 4 * Pi * radius^2
2 - This device is 3"x6", 18 inches square
3 - You have the deivce 2 feet from a juiced up 1 Watt output wifi antenna.
4 - You get 3 times the reflected energy from your antenna as residual signal bounces off items in the room.
5 - You live in the most dense and high tech apartment complex in the world. Thus you have 100 neighbors, each with an ultra-insanely-powerful 5 Watt output wifi antennas, and each of those antennas is only 25 feet away from your device.
6 - Absorption and storage and transmission is 100% with no inefficiencies and no losses.
7 - There is so much signal bouncing around off walls and TVs and refrigerators that each of these ultra-powerful antennas reflect 10 times their normal power to your device.
8 - Captured energy of the device is the area of the device (18 Sq Inches) divided by the area of the signal sphere (4*Pi*Radius^2), multiplied by the output of the wifi antenna, and multiplied by the reflected amount (a generous 3 times for your own antenna and 10 times for the other 100 antennas that are only 25 feet away).

Based on all those crazy assumptions, you can capture 0.087 watts of power with the device.

Math:

Your antenna:

(18 in)/(7238 in^2)=0.25%, *1W (power) * 3 (reflected) = 0.00746 captured watts

For each of 100 neighbor antennas:

(18 in)/(1130973 in^2)=0.00159%, *5W (power) * 10 (reflected) = 0.0007958 captured watts

Multiply neighbor by 100, add your own, and you get...

0.08703786 total captured watts!

Now, in a battery, Watt hours (Wh) is Amp hours (Ah) * Volts. A common blackberry battery has 1400mAh (1.4 Ah) and 3.7V. Multiply the two, and you get 5.18 Wh for a full charge of the battery.

Now... if you can charge a battery 0.08703786 watts every hour under the absurdly generous scenario above, you could theoretically charge a battery in as little as 60 continuous hours. BUT!!! You have to realize that I exaggerated the power outputs and reflected amounts and number and power of antennas so much that the final captured watts was thousands or even tens of thousands of times too generous.

If you want a PRACTICAL solution to charging your phone in case of emergency or for whatever other reason you're not able to plug in, and you want to do it for even less than $40, and fairly quickly, then go find one of the many sites that will tell you how to turn a hand-crank flashlight into a battery charger for your cell phone.

Now THAT is practical, and feasible, and real to life.

Ok, so you guys aren't looking at long term or at multiple sources. How often do you only see a single wifi unit? never. It's not very useful if there's nothing to use it. So where there's one, there's two (a laptop or other unit using the wifi) This second device is also sending signals out. so now you have two sources. The genius above me with his 100 neighbors who all have souped up wifi? Well' he's not far off, just because you can't connect to their laptop, cell phone, wii, doesn't mean it's not there and cranking out wifi signals too. so now you've at least tripled your sources. Then you're looking at long exposure, your unit is on your bookshelf or nightstand all night just passively leaching those signals, now you are at work, where everyone has a laptop, dozens of overlapping wifi spots throughout the building, then you're at a cafe at lunch with three or four more laptops and a wifi router. All the while this thing is "harvesting" power.

now let's go back to the claims of this little piece of equipment. It doesn't say "power your home", "your car" or even "your laptop" it says "You can then tap into that stored charge later when your iPod dies on the subway or your phone starts flagging during an important call." How long are you on the subway? How long does it take for you to finish an important phone call? Now how much power would that take? They're not saying it can replace your battery, not yet. What the article said was, "But we’re big-picture thinkers here at PopSci, and here’s what you need to know: RCA is also *developing* Wi-Fi harvesting batteries" (emphasis added) it's not meant to supplant your battery or your primary power or even charging source, it's meant to augment it. They said they are "developing" a battery which means they probably haven't figured out a way to get enough power through it to replace your batteries capacity through harvest/storage combination and make it efficient as a primary source of power.

Think real-world usage in a major city!
And actually READ the article!

K?

@someboy I detect sarcasm, since neutrinos do not interact with matter(much)

This device seems interesting. With all the wasted EMF flying around, radio, wi-fi, microwaves, etc... Why not harvest them? Why not cover our whole house with these and go off grid(ha)? One thing we should consider, how much power/resources did it take to make this contraption? If you will not harvest even a fraction of the power used to create it, then it is a waste. Most cell phone "emergency" charging scenarios involve poor planning. IE not charging your phone at the right time. If you are legitimately concerned with emergency power get a plain old spare battery and keep it charged.

While this might seem legit. It is a gimmick, a fad. The microwatts of RF energy from a wi-fi hotspot might keep the battery from dying due to parasitic drains; a fully discharged battery would require a much higher input power to restore the battery. I don't want to be in an RF field high enough to efficiently charge a battery (I am allergic to cancer).

There are plenty of other ways to harvest wasted energy, this just seems like a less efficient way. People have been doing this for years. Like people living underneath power lines, placing coils in their house... The utilities can see the extra load on the system, so it isn't technically free. While we're at it, let's make photovoltaic paint for our houses, so we can collect wasted light. Maybe hook a bunch of microphones near an airport to collect power from the jet noise. Or maybe put little generators on every door in your house or work. How about thermocouples on the exhaust of every car on the road, just spewing out waste heat. The list can go on.

I am just going to stick to my warranty approved phone charger.

The "genius above me with his 100 neighbors" did read the article. There is a vast difference between reading an article and disagreeing with one. Apparently that nuance is lost on you.

You have to remember that not only did I exaggerate by tens of thousands of times the amount of energy out there, but I even neglected losses due to objects, topography, walls, radiation, and coincidence. Furthermore, I used impossible efficiency rates and absorption rates that would make REAL WORLD results that much worse.

I am not neglecting all the other little devices, but rather simplifying the problem by not trying to calculate everything for all of them, and making assumptions that you're in a virtual forest of people and wifi.

Regardless, range of wifi signals will still be the killer of this type of idea. You simply can't pack enough wifi emitters together close enough with enough juice coming off them to actually trickle charge a modern device to any degree of use, even for a few minutes.

What's more, the practicality of alternative sources of power given the scenario you've mentioned make for many other better ways to get power. For example, if you're really in a major city, carrying around your charger is much smaller and cheaper and you can plug in almost anywhere in any building (even a random lobby) for free and in 60 seconds get more charge than a wifi harvester could gain in weeks. Or a hand crank will also do the job faster and cheaper and regardless of where you are and how many buildings or people are nearby.

You see, the assumptions required to make this idea work are also the downfalls to its practicality. If you have tons of buildings and people everywhere, you don't need the tiny bits of power that would take you hours to harvest to make one emergency call since you can plug in about anywhere. But if you're far away from where you can plug in, you won't be near any signals to harvest. They are basically opposing situations in terms of practicality and having a source to harvest.

This device will never be practical because for 1/3 the cost, you can get another device that is the same size or smaller, and will charge your phone on demand by cranking something by hand. Crank for a couple minutes, talk for 3-5. This thing is doomed.

Makes me wonder what would be needed. For instance, would I have to stand under an airport radar antenna?

@ marcoreid, wow, ok, I didn't say YOU didn't read, I said you were not far off on your neighbor count and numbers (even though you intended to express exaggeration) I was talking to "you guys" meaning the community who read the article and commented on it as a whole, not as individuals. In fact I used you as a third party reference and never insinuated I was talking to you specifically. Paranoid much?

Further, I'm not saying there are not more efficient... Wait, let me use simpler terms:

There ARE far better ways to charge a cell phone or other electronic device.

There are situations this would not work, lots and lots of them.

But I am NOT saying that it can't/won't work.

I AM saying that most of the situations laid out in these comments are biased against the unit. Like charging a cellphone with a solar charger using light fixtures in the dark: obviously a situation that won't work efficiently to be marketable. When are you ever exposed to only one wifi signal source?

Notice, however the "green" alternative to other units which, IF this does work, would make it more marketable. You're not using AA batteries so that's more green, you're not using the power grid system and "supporting" the power companies. You're using a power source that is being wasted and is virtually untapped, not natural, granted, but prevalent, unobtrusive, and waste-free. Even the case is green! I'm *guessing* this maybe part of the niche of the unit, marketing it as "Gore Green." And it's more convenient than cranking a charger while trying to carry on a conversation (have you ever tried to do that by the way? talk about annoying, it sounds like you're doing jumping-jacks or something while talking).

Back to the situational use: The article says it has a lithium battery in the unit. So, you are not trying to charge it away from sources you're trying to USE it away from sources. It passively charges (recharges or "tops off" its charge) while exposed to wifi signals (5 of which I'm sitting within 20 feet of right now: laptop, wii, router, ipod, and the wife's pc via wireless card) then the charge is transferred to another device when it's needed, which could be in the middle of the Gobi Desert (which, of course would be more convenient to use a photovoltaic style unit in).

I'm not saying it's the greatest invention since batteries, I AM saying it is an alternative and may be a good alternative for CERTAIN people, obviously you wouldn't buy it.

@ ALL:
For its INTENDED USE and its INTENDED DEMOGRAPHIC it may actually turn out to be very popular.

But none of us can ignore that you can't create power from nothing, it must exist in some form for us to be able to harvest/harness it. Static or kinetic, the energy has to come from somewhere.

Will it work for the most part? Probably.

Will it be popular? It's possible.

Will it change our lives? Not likely.

And as far as it selling? Take a look at "the Sharper Image" catalog sometime. Tell me they couldn't make money off of something that "might" be a green alternative to cranking, spare AA batteries in your pocket, or plugging in.

So it charges from wireless signals right?? 2.4 Ghz signals?
Hmmmm does that mean I can throw it in the microwave oven and get a full charge while I am making a bag of popcorn?????!??!
jk

Greg

LOL nuke it! I like it =P

Lol at the people commenting about the energy they are exposed to from antenna's. I was watching or reading an article that said that people that used cell phones, and had a high probability of Alzheimer's had a potentially reduced onset that may be linked to cell phone radiation.

Given that I have a very high potential for Alzheimer's I am ok with that radiation if it turns out I get to keep my mind longer.

@Powermaster

Actually the interaction of neutrinos with matter, is the core of my invention. The device collects neutrinos. Two neutrinos are glued together to make an electron. And once you have electrons then you have electricity. Electricity is just electrons moving. AC is much easier to produce. There the electrons just move back and forth. You can reuse the electrons more than a hundred times until they are worn out.

There are many, many ways to 'create' electricity from "nothing". Electricity can be sent through the air using microwaves. I saw a show (Discovery channel?) that demonstrated this as part of a proof of concept for a space-based solar array. The station in geosynchronous orbit with its array always pointed at the sun would, in theory, beam the electricity it collects via photovoltaic cells to earth via microwaves. The microwaves would then be converted to electricity and sent into the grid. The team beamed microwaves the same distance as the altitude of the proposed space station through the atmosphere from a mountain in Hawaii to a helicopter. The instruments on the copter measured the strength of the microwaves. Apparently, it worked. You can also 'make' electricity from sticking two electrodes into opposite ends of a pile of dung. A scientist in India powers his cell phone in this manner. This method apparently works with all forms of dung. You could kill two birds with one stone on your next potty break!

Maybe that's why 'batteries' are referred to as 'piles'? (groan)

Criticalthinker and others like you... Do you really think RCA is going to market a product that does not work? Maybe the math you cite isn't there, but maybe that math does not apply. If you are smarter than the engineers at RCA, perhaps you should work for them and tell them what technologies they should not research and develop. Dummy.

Wow I cant believe that popsci is stupid enough to believe this. Do you post stuff on energy multipliers too? Ask yourself how many watts dose a wifi router emit even if you took a coax out of the router and plugged it into this you would still get crap for performance. Maybe if you stuck this in the microwave oven you could get enough power to do something.

Many of the posts on this are very depressing. They seem to indicate a total failure of the educational system to inculcate ANY understanding of basic science. Specifically: Yes, this is for real. Yes the space around us contains a great deal of recoverable electromagnetic energy. No, it is not "free" energy. All the (man-made) ambient energy came from burning fissile uranium, coal, petroleum, methane, sunshine, or wind via commercial/government/industrial RF transmitters. Many of the transmitters radiate multi-megawatts of RF energy.

I do see a mystery in this device, though. Why tune it for WiFi (2.4 GHz) when there is so much more energy available across the spectrum in so many more locations? Or is the “WiFi” appellation no more than a sales gimmick?

I was paying attention, judgedead. But 34 years... or even 3.4 years... come on, now.

Good comment, CLETUS. At least some people on here have some perspective. ;-)

well cletus and alias007 you don't have any maths to back up your claims and as for RCA being beyond reproach my understanding is the name was bought up by another company to exploit perhaps on gullible customers who would think that being RCA it would be ok.
at the end of the day read the maths it doesn't add up there isn't enough power available to make this viable although if you only needed it once every few years then its just what you need.

For those (surprisingly numerous) posters that seem to have misunderstood or willfully ignored the "math" posts, and chosen instead to rely on PopSci's fluff-ball reporting and RCA's advertising:

It's not about math or scenarios, it's the first law of thermodynamics. Energy is always conserved, so you can never do "better" than that original source. If you want to evaluate the latest, greatest, world-changing energy technology, just compare the energy "source" (in this case, a wifi router) with the proposed energy use (in this case, a phone/battery charger).

If you know that:
a) a wireless router puts out around 100mW

b) this energy is distributed more or less evenly throughout an expanding, weakening sphere of signal

c) this RCA device can only capture energy from signal that passes through the device (i.e.: capture is limited by surface area

d) cell phone batteries store around 4000mWh

then it should be intuitively obvious that it is physically impossible for this to work as advertised. No math required.

Well, to be fair, I decided to re-evaluate my position on this whole thing. I found it hard to believe that RCA would, to borrow a phrase from another forum, 'sell snake skin oil'. After rethinking it all, I think I'm with you guys. The numbers in your (nskele, judgedead, etc...) math are real and your logic is sound.

Now that I've converted to the dark side. What was RCA thinking???

Dear Alias007 congratulations on taking your first step on the road to enlightenment, the road will be tough but will lead to a sense of understanding and most importantly more money left in your wallet and more space in your guy draw LoL
Bon Voyage
now about evolution !

hehe, I appreciate that judgedead. Though, it wasn't an enlightment issue. I had a serious cognitive dissonance there. I didn't want to believe that a company would do this. But I pushed the blue pill aside. Hello, nasty tasting red pill.

Someone just buy the damn thing when it comes out later this year then let us know if it actually works!

It charges over night retards not instantly.

thor0997, you're joking, right?

Like, you read my post and saw 100mW output and 4000mWh storage, and realized immediately that perfect, 100% capture, conversion and storage would mean that it would take 40 hours to charge, right?

Just want to make sure we're on the same page here, it's hard to pick up sarcasm in posts...

It's even harder to tell sarcasm from ignorance!

Alias007 The enlightenment was refering to large companys doing anything to part us from out money! lol

sorry, judgedead. This ain't my week. lol

K I'm not gonna think bout this mathematically, but logically to all of you who think this "thing" is harmful, have you ever thought about the radio wave above your head around the Earth? PLUS it's only for a small sphere area. Am I right?

Good, now we have something to absorb the cancer giving cell phone rays

Awesome technology! In what way will overcharging be avoided?

Ashame some of the critics here are so busy being critical & childish that they’re missing how awesome this is. Try completely reading an article before being critical of it.

This article stated that it doesn’t charge instantly & that the closer one is to the power source, The quicker ones device recharges.

This device will work as advertised if you set it directly on top of an active wireless router. Outside a few inches from the source it won't be effective enough to notice. So if I want this "cool" new way to charge my phone I am limited to charging it just as much as I ever was with the normal AC adapter. Awesome.

Full disclosure: I can read and do algebra.

Everybody on here who's math is derived from "one router" is an absolute idiot! One router? really?! Have you EVER, EVER been in a location where the only wi-fi signal was coming from a single router with nothing actually connecting to it? Seriously people, get a freakin' clue! It leeches the signal of ALL WI-FI! *ALL* WI-FI SIGNALS WITHIN RANGE! Anything using wi-fi not just routers, every-damn-thing! Now, come on! This is meant for the big cities where you pass from one wi-fi hotspot to the next, WHILE THEY ARE BEING USED!

AND YOU ARE ALL TALKING LIKE YOU HAVE TO WALK TO TOWN AND SIT DOWN ON TOP OF THE ONLY WI-FI ROUTER IN TOWN (WHILE NO ONE OWNS ANYTHING THAT ACTUALLY USES IT) AND WAIT FOR 40 HOURS TO 40 YEARS WHILE THE DAMN THING CHARGES TO POWER SOMETHING YOU DON'T OWN! What the hell!? Seriously, SHUT THE HELL UP!

Realize:
1. It's designed to be used where there are A LOT of signals.

2. It is supposed to be used as a supplementary power augmentation not a main power source.

3. It's marketed as a green alternative.

4. It is NOT going to be the end-all-be-all of anything.

can you only Just do the math before you go ranting and then come back with some figures didn't your teachers tell you that when you lose the plot you lose the argument!

The fact that I cannot find any mention of the product on RCA's website leads me to believe that this may be a fraud. Can anyone give a primary source on this gadget? All that I can find seem to be blogs and articles like this, which simply quote more blogs and articles like this.

If the product does not even exist... someone is sitting out there having a nice giggle at our expense!

uhoh has popsci been had lmao

You might want to open your mouth judge before all the air going to your head makes it pop.

Anyone reading the comments this far is probably just doing so out of a complete sense of utter amazement at our failed educational system.

Actually, I happened across this thread and - compared to public comments on most mainstream newspaper, TV network, and magazine sites - this is a breath of fresh air. Not one but several people can do or accept the appropriate napkin calculations. Somebody actually changed their position based on logic and math trumping faith in RCA!

Yes, it's sad that any place with even a sizable minority of rational, literate and numerant, and educated readers feels like an oasis. (There are countless other oases of course; but the big high volume websites tend to have mostly pretty inane comments, or so it seems to me today).

For the others - hey I have an even better idea! Forget the piffling little 100 mW wifi transmitters - your cellphone's own transmitter is much more powerful - up to several watts! Just put that device next to your cellphone and let it charge itself from the cellphone for a while, then recharge the cellphone from that! Nothing to plug in ever, works even in the wilderness. If you see such a device from Westinghouse or Memorex, will you buy it?

This is a pretty obvious followup product; if you can charge a 3-5 WH battery overnight from a 100mw transmitter,
then with good efficiency you could power the transmitter itself with a fraction of your harvested power; but then why bother with the wifi, just power and harvest from the cell phone's own transmitter!

Sigh. Somebody will think I'm serious and want to buy one, but hopefully somebody else will get a chuckle, even if with a slightly hollow and despairing note.

Zeph pure genius !

@Zeph
I think what people are arguing about is "how does this thing work?"

No I think what people are arguing about is how much energy will be available for it to harvest, I think most people here understand exactly how it works and the maths show that the amount of energy available is so miniscule that it would take an unusably long time to charge, clearly there is no doubt it would work the question is whether it is practical!

Yup, so of all of you people who can do math, how many work for this fly-by-night company called RCA?

I'm sure that since RCA never created, nor actually markets anything worthwhile, that this has to be a hoax, yes they are lying to us...

Many companies spend million$ on R&D to develop hoax products so that they can spoof people at CES.

You are all so smart, you should contact RCA to tell them the money spent on R&D for this technology has been wasted, since you all know why this can't work... Maybe they will hire some of you fart smellers, I mean smart fellas.

Can't anyone see the forest for the trees? This contains a lithium battery. Plug it in overnight and it will provide a booster charge for your phone. The "wifi charge" might give an incremental trickle, but is about as useful as "made from 100% post-consumer plastic": a marketing gimmick.

Congratulations, Popular Science. Your completely uncritical "reporting" on this obvious nonsense has convinced me NOT to buy a subscription to your magazine.

One word...AWESOME SAUCE!!! :D

Okay, I've done physics problems that are related to sound signals traveling and the intensity and all that and it's exactly the same thing. One of the laws of physics says that energy is always transfered to a different state never lost or created.. so lets go through the math.. lets go easy and assume the transfer rate is 95% efficient. that means that the devise gets .095 am/hr of charging if 100% of the signal is captured from a .1amp/hour rate of signal (and it's by FAR not..) 3 / 0.095 = ~31.58 so it would take about 32+ hours if you rerouted the power straight from the wi-fi router into this charging devise...

on batteries.com there is a pack of 24 AA batteries for ~$6 so that means that $6/ 24 = 0.25 its about a quarter for 1 AA battery, right? i believe it varies but AA have something like 2 amphours so that means... if you bought the same amount of AA batteries that it costs for this devise.. that means u could get 160 batteries for the same price.. so to make this devise worth my money i would have to charge up to 320 amp/hours and again here is the [impossible] math... 320 / 0.095 = ~3368.42 hours = 140 days. that means that if i want to break even with this thing i'd have to hook-up this thing striaght to a wired connection for 140 days total. if u want to know- this will **NOT** make me a profit before i die under normal conditions.. sorry but even my not yet born grandchildren will be dead and the components in this thing will wear out before the money i spend on this thing breaks even. its simple... they baited you with a well-charged internal battery and probably talked to you about it's potential. end of story

This is so true its kinda funny...

by Webpa

Many of the transmitters radiate multi-megawatts of RF energy.

I do see a mystery in this device, though. Why tune it for WiFi (2.4 GHz) when there is so much more energy available across the spectrum in so many more locations? Or is the “WiFi” appellation no more than a sales gimmick?

It may be that they are targeting those of us with less experience in technology. I mean think about it.. wifi is a band that is maintained by FCC to be underpowered so that the average household can use it without the frustration of intereference with their neighbor(s). On the other hand the industrial and commercial RF bands are not restricted under licenses, but again they say "hot spots" and wi-fi which isn't reffering to RF bands.

i think it's great that this is possible and it produces energy from these signals. I would have never thought of that, but i'm an engineer and a good engineer has to think in terms of practical not in potential. if you throw enough effort, money, and power into something anything is possible but it's the solution that costs the least amount in all three will be the most popular.

The math adds up that this isnt possible.

What helped me realize the difference between this and PV systems is that the total energy output of the sun is MASSIVE, therefore the potential for 'harvesting' is substantially higher than a 100mw AP. Or even 100 100mw APs.

Done And Dusted

This will not work. Even if you put this device 1 foot away from a router, it would take over 3,000 years to charge my iPhone according to some basic math.

Heck, even if you could divert 100% of the power of a 100mW router's output through a direct wired short, it would still take 50 hours to charge a cell phone (given a 5watt/hour battery), and that assumes 100% efficiency in the charging process.

What a joke, RCA... what kind of idiots do you take us for