from Hacker News

Freevolt: RF energy harvesting to power the Internet of Things

by rshaban on 10/1/15, 1:40 AM with 6 comments

• by dang on 10/1/15, 1:42 AM

  Other articles on this:

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10308511

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10306293

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10304387

• by aaronsnoswell on 10/1/15, 3:13 AM

  We asked Lord Drayson if there were any limits on the number of Freevolt harvesters in a given area, or if there was a critical number of harvesters that would then impact cellular or Wi-Fi signal reception. He said "no" in both cases.

  Both these answers are simply wrong - they are absorbing power from the RF spectrum. Of course there will be some impact.

• by bewo001 on 10/1/15, 10:22 AM

  This technique was already used in the 1930s by people living close to the powerful AM transmitters in Berlin and Hamburg to run electric lights. It was outlawed, though.