WePower's New EHG Wireless Panel Switch Brings Energy Harvesting to IoT Development

By Taryn Engmark

Associate Editor

Embedded Computing Design

May 19, 2023

News

WePower's New EHG Wireless Panel Switch Brings Energy Harvesting to IoT Development

SAGAPONACK, NEW YORK. WePower Technologies recently released the Gemns™ G100 EHG (G100) Wireless Panel Switch as part of its portfolio of patented, well-performing technologies for large-scale deployment of IoT devices in industrial, automotive, smart home, smart city, and aerospace applications that can't rely on battery-powered devices.

The G100 is an EHG in a Wireless Panel Switch form factor for industrial applications that utilizes stationary and oscillating magnets to harvest kinetic energy through electromagnetic induction. The G100 is realized in a standard 22mm panel mount switch that includes an EHC100 (Gemns energy harvester charger board) and the manufacturer’s chosen MCU or RF transceiver board as the target application.

When the G100’s push button is activated, over 3 millijoules of usable energy are available to power a target’s MCU and execute tasks like reading sensors, performing computations, and transmitting encrypted data over an RF link. The energy produced can transport wireless communication signals BLE, Thread, LoRa, Z-Wave, etc. with up to 20-dBm of output power. The G100 can also be retrofitted to common push buttons found in modern industrial machinery controls without new design engineering.

“The future of IoT is pervasive connectivity. It’s where everything is connected and exchanging data wirelessly over trillions of sensors. But this connectivity comes at a price; more wireless sensors mean more batteries, and more batteries mean more waste and downtime,” said Larry Richenstein, co-founder and CEO of WePower Technologies.

This future requires maintenance-free, autonomously powered, permanent wireless solutions. Harvesting energy from motion is a sustainable way to eliminate the need for battery power in many product designs, and can help reduce costs associated with integration, recurring maintenance, wiring, and waste. Additionally, on-demand energy requires less downtime and labor than manually replacing batteries in complicated infrastructures.

The G100 was designed for use cases such as industrial on/off switches, remote on/off device and equipmentt control, wireless door sensors, and remote triggering controls.

For more information, visit wepowertechnologies.com.