Powercast Named as CES Innovation Awards Honoree in Sustainability/Energy Category for Matter-Compliant, Wirelessly-Powered Smart Home Sensor Technology

/in , , , , /by

Powercast Corporation, the one-stop-shop for wireless power, announces it has been named a CES Innovation Awards 2025 Honoree in the Sustainability & Energy/Power category for it’s Wireless Smart Home Automation Sensor Technology. The announcement comes ahead of CES 2025, happening Jan. 7 – 10 in Las Vegas, where Powercast will demonstrate its technology in the Venetian Expo, booth #51716.

The CES Innovation Awards program is an annual competition honoring outstanding design and engineering in 33 consumer technology categories. An elite panel of industry expert judges, including members of the media, designers, engineers, and more, reviewed submissions – a record number of over 3400 submissions this year – based on innovation, engineering and functionality, aesthetic and design.

Powercast’s Wireless Smart Home Automation Sensor Technology lets manufacturers easily create and perpetually power sustainable, untethered, battery-free wireless smart home automation sensors, such as window, door, temperature, light, humidity, water and motion sensors, that will:

• Easily integrate into smart-home ecosystems (Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings) using Matter (connectivity standard) and Thread (wireless protocol)
• Install anywhere
• Eliminate the need for expensive home wiring
• Eliminate batteries and their inconvenient, expensive maintenance
• Keep toxic disposable batteries out of landfills

“Over the last 20 years, Powercast’s wireless power has saved hundreds of millions of batteries from landfills, so we are honored CES recognized our efforts to reduce waste and support a greener future,” said Charles Greene, Ph.D., COO and CTO of Powercast. “Our solution for sustainable wireless sensors eliminates charging, replacing or disposing of batteries because battery-free sensors are wirelessly charged, perpetually powered, and provide 24/7 intelligence with zero downtime.”

How Powercast’s Wireless Smart Home Automation Sensor Technology works:

Powercast’s RF (Radio Frequency) over-the-air (OTA) wireless power technology perpetually powers battery-free sensors. Manufacturers embed the Powerharvester® PCC110 wireless RF receiver chip and a small antenna into their sensors so they can be powered wirelessly from nearby RF transmitters. One RF transmitter can power all sensors installed up to 25 feet away, so placing one in each room will create a wireless power network (WPN) able to power all RF-enabled sensors throughout the home.

Powercast’s technology works with the Matter smart home connectivity standard and Thread wireless communication/IEEE 802.15.4 mesh network, which ensures interoperability between devices and allows easy integration into industry ecosystems like Google Home, Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, and Samsung SmartThings. Because Thread is designed to optimize performance in low-power devices, it uses less energy and maintains network stability by allowing devices to communicate over a dedicated, low-latency connection, making it ideal for Powercast’s low-power sensor network. Devices, such as intermittently-connected end devices, can remain idle and be powered entirely using Powercast technology, remaining powered once activated and while checking in with a Thread compatible router.

To demonstrate its technology at CES, in the Venetian Expo, booth #51716, Powercast will show a Matter-compliant, battery-free window sensor it developed that can be perpetually powered up to 25 feet away from an RF transmitter.

Powercast Unveils Maintenance-Free, Matter-Compliant, Wireless Smart Home Sensor Technology Powered Perpetually Over Air

/in , , , , /by

Powercast Corporation, the one-stop-shop for wireless power, will unveil next week at Sensors Converge (booth 915) a new technology solution, named a finalist in the Best of Sensors Awards program, for creating, deploying and perpetually powering sustainable, untethered, Matter-compliant wireless smart home automation sensors. These sensors: 1) integrate into smart home ecosystems (Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings) using Matter, 2) easily install anywhere, 3) eliminate the need for expensive home wiring, 4) won’t require inconvenient, expensive battery maintenance, and 5) keep toxic disposable batteries out of landfills.

Powercast’s Wireless Smart Home Automation Sensor solution is perpetually powered by the company’s RF (Radio Frequency) over-the-air (OTA) wireless charging technology. To enable either battery-free or rechargeable-battery-based sensors to power themselves over the air from nearby RF transmitters, manufacturers will embed Powercast’s tiny Powerharvester® PCC110 wireless RF receiver chip and a small antenna into their sensors for around $1 at volume, then use a rechargeable battery or no battery at all.

One RF transmitter in a room can power sensors installed up to 25 feet away, so placing one transmitter in each room will create a wireless power network able to perpetually power all the RF-enabled sensors throughout the home. There are also options for RF transmitters, including a licensable reference design that lets manufacturers integrate the electronics needed to convert their household products into Ubiquity™ RF transmitters (https://www.powercastco.com/transmitters/) for only $5 bill-of-material (BOM) cost.

“Smart home automation sensors exist, but are limited by wires and disposable batteries,” said Charles Greene, Ph.D., COO and CTO of Powercast. “Powercast’s solution for creating sustainable, untethered wireless sensors eliminates ever having to charge, replace or dispose of batteries because the sensors will be wirelessly charged, perpetually powered, and providing 24/7 intelligence with zero downtime.”

Range for OTA RF charging depends on how much power a device consumes; power-hungry devices must be closer to a transmitter while ultra-low-power devices like IoT sensors can work up to 120 feet away. Home automation sensors are low-power devices and hence good candidates for OTA charging. Sensor examples include contact (window, door), door lock, temperature, light, humidity, water, motion and many more.

Powercast’s technology works with the Matter smart home connectivity standard and Thread wireless communication protocol, which ensures interoperability between devices and allows easy integration into industry-standard ecosystems like Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Samsung SmartThings. Because Thread uses the IEEE 802.15.4 mesh network which enables robust, efficient, low-power communication between devices, Thread-compliant devices inherently use less power, making them great candidates for OTA charging.

To showcase its Best of Sensors finalist technology, Powercast developed a window sensor it will demonstrate at Sensors Converge. Internal testing on this Powercast-designed, Matter-compliant low-power window sensor showed it can charge up to 25 feet away from the transmitter using the Nordic nRF52840 Thread-complaint microcontroller. At this distance, the battery will never have to be replaced.
® Cortex® M4 processor with floating point unit (FPU) and 1MB Flash memory and 256kB RAM, plus a 2.4GHz multiprotocol radio that supports Bluetooth 5, ANT™, Thread, Matter, Zigbee, IEEE 802.15.4, and proprietary 2.4GHz RF protocol software.”

The Powerharvester PCC110 receiver chip (in a SC-70 package) operates across a wide RF power (-17 to +20dBm) and frequency (10MHz to 6GHz) range to convert RF to DC with up to 75 percent efficiency.

“Nordic Semiconductor is pleased to collaborate with Powercast on its Matter and Thread-compatible Wireless Smart Home Automation Sensor Technology and Best of Sensors finalist demonstration platform,” said Vince Hagen P.E., Global Business Development Manager, Nordic Semiconductor. “The Nordic nRF52840 System-on-Chip, in conjunction with the Nordic nRF Connect Software Development Kit uniquely supports concurrent wireless connectivity of multiple protocols. The SoC combines a 64MHz, 32-bit Arm