The Gemns G100 EHG wireless panel switch by WePower

The G100 is part of the portfolio of WePower patented technologies that enable reliable and lifetime maintenance-free performance in large-scale deployment of IoT devices for industrial, automotive, smart home, smart city, and aerospace applications that are simply not achievable with device designs dependent on battery power.

What is the G100?

The G100 is an EHG in a Wireless Panel Switch form factor for industrial applications. The G100 uses both stationary and oscillating magnets to harvest kinetic energy through electromagnetic induction. In the reference design pictured below, the G100 is realised in a standard 22mm panel mount switch that contains both the EHC100 (Gemns energy harvester charger board) and the manufacturer’s chosen MCU or RF transceiver board as the target application. With the simple activation of the G100’s push button, over 3mJ of usable energy are available to power a target’s MCU and perform such tasks as reading sensors, performing computations, and transmitting encrypted data over an RF link. The energy produced transports signals such as BLE, Zigbee Green Power Device, LoRa, Z-Wave, Thread, and other wireless communications easily, with up to 20-dBm of output power. The G100 is retrofittable into the common push button of today’s industrial machinery controls with no 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, cofounder and CEO of WePower Technologies. “WePower has engineered a technological solution that is now ready for integration in millions of IoT devices.”

Benefits to manufacturing

The future requires autonomously powered, maintenance-free, and permanent wireless solutions. Harvesting energy from motion for on-demand power is a sustainable way to eliminate the need for battery power in many product designs, thereby reducing the costs associated with integration, recurring maintenance, wiring, and waste. On-demand energy also means less downtime and less manpower needed to manually replace batteries across complex infrastructures. WePower is helping manufacturers rethink how sensors both in the IoT and IIoT are designed for environmentally green, maintenance-free, reliable operation.

Anticipated applications include remote on/off control of devices and equipment, wireless door sensors, industrial on/off switches, and remote triggering controls. The core G100 energy harvester mechanism also lends to easy design and integration into custom solutions and applications. 

Case use example

Wireless remote controls are used in industrial and automation applications to control such devices as pumps, valves, lighting, cranes, and motors. Consider an industrial application operated by a wireless remote control.

In this example, this remote switch houses a cell battery and transmitter to send the signal to remotely turn on an industrial water pump located approximately 1km away. With daily use in an industrial setting, the life expectancy of this battery is under 3 years.

Using the G100 to replace the current design, the device will no longer need a battery, and instead, harvests kinetic energy from the push button motion to provide an ultrareliable, maintenance-free solution.

In a replacement design, the G100 will harvest energy from the 70ozf actuation force to produce upwards of 3mJ of energy depending on the application load profile. Load-dependent energy output curves are provided below for reference.