Useful Energy Harvesting Could Finally Be Here

­Battery anxiety has always been a problem, in some respects things are improving with faster charging and better batteries, but in others, such as in electric vehicles, the problem still remains. Even the process of charging can be a pain and could even be getting worse with a lack of infrastructure, and the popularity of electric cars meaning that the few chargers available may be taken when you arrive at the charge station. However, in some applications, the problem is coming close to being eliminated completely.

Take smart watches for example. Many of the best and most popular smart watches need to be charged every day. Unlike mobile phones, where you can happily leave them on charge all night, many people, such as myself, have bought a smart watch primarily with the purpose of sleep monitoring, making night time charging impractical. That means that every day, time has to be set aside for phone charging. I found another solution, and gave up on my Fitbit watch to buy a Huawei smart watch that has a battery lifetime of around a week. There were some compromises I had to make to get that battery life, but for me it was completely worthwhile, not to mention much less stressful without the battery anxiety.

In the coming years, charging may be not be a problem at all for owners of smart watches and other small devices. I’ve mentioned on this page before that energy harvesting is possibly my favourite area of the industry. The process involves capturing tiny amounts of energy from the environment and using it to fuel our devices. Until now, energy harvesting was mainly used for very small IoT sensor clusters and other niche uses. Now, the technique has moved to the mainstream with the launch of a completely self-powered smart watch. Although the new PowerWatch is not as fully featured as other available smart watches, it heralds a new era for smart devices and their owners. It is driven by energy harvested from a combination or thermoelectric power taken from the wearer and solar power. Other manufacturers are also currently using harvested energy to supplement the battery. For example, Garmin uses solar glass in its latest design.

It is not just smart devices owners that can take advantage of energy harvesting. It could also revolutionize many other areas of technology, including the field of medical implants. Devices, such as heart pacemakers, would be able to be positioned closer to where they are needed, instead of being located in the most convenient and least harmful place to replace batteries as they are now. Now that problems have been ironed out, there will be many more manufacturers looking at energy harvesting as a way to relieve the battery anxiety of their customers and I, for one, am all for it.