Energy Harvesting Signage
In addition to the Energy Harvesting TV Remote Control and Beating Heart here's another design that I think will be basis of many incredibly useful devices.
The design consists of three main components;
1. Microcontroller
2. NFC Energy Harvester
3. Non volatile e-paper.
and no disposable batteries!!
There are secondary components added according to the desired application.
The one of the devices I will construct is battteryless updateable sign.
This is aimed for retail shops and is useful for price tags.
All one has to do is wave their NFC enabled device over the signage and the display will change accordingly.
Just like a magician waving his wand and making something magic happen.
Other designs include data loggers with a summary displa where the e-paper will be updated as needed.
Say for Temperature or Light level monitoring or even RF Field detection.
The display could be updated peroidically or when a suitable event occurs.
Similar ideas include its incorporation in shoes as an odometer with or without GPS positioner.
(Energy could be harvested from the walking, sunlight, body heat, etc al.)
The e-paper is sunlight readable and requires absolutely no power to retain its display.
This makes it an ideal fit for use with energy harvesting.
The only time power is needed is to update the display contents.
There is a price to pay for this technology. The e-paper's refresh rate is relatively slow and is not currently suitable for animated or interactive displays.
It's been a long time coming but I just took delivery of the e-paper yesterday and will connect and interface to the STK3700 asap.
It should be easy as the e-paper operates at 3.3v and has a SPI interface.
I'll post pictures of my efforts as soon as possible.
http://www.energymicro.com/news/efm32-gecko-mcu-for-ultra-power-e-paper-displays
