Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Batteryless smart devices closer to reality
Researchers at the University of Waterloo have taken a huge step towards making smart devices that do not use batteries or require charging.
These battery-free objects, which feature an IP address for internet connectivity, are known as Internet of Things (IoT) devices. If an IoT device can operate without a battery it lowers maintenance costs and allows the device to be placed in areas that are off the grid.
Many of these IoT devices have sensors in them to detect their environment, from a room's ambient temperature and light levels to sound and motion, but one of the biggest challenges is making these devices sustainable and battery-free.
Professor Omid Abari, Postdoctoral Fellow Ju Wang and Professor Srinivasan Keshav from Waterloo's Cheriton School of Computer Science have found a way to hack radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, the ubiquitous squiggly ribbons of metal with a tiny chip found in various objects, and give the devices the ability to sense the environment.
"It's really easy to do," said Wang. "First, you remove the plastic cover from the RFID tag, then cut out a small section of the tag's antenna with scissors, then attach a sensor across the cut bits of the antenna to complete the circuit."
In their stock form, RFID tags provide only identification and location. It's the hack the research team has done -- cutting the tag's antenna and placing a sensing device across it -- that gives the tag the ability to sense its environment.
[...] The research paper by Wang, Abari and Keshav titled, Challenge: RFID Hacking for Fun and Profit-ACM MobiCom, appeared in the Proceedings of the 24th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, October 29-November 2, 2018, New Delhi, India, 461- 70.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11 2018, @09:35AM (2 children)
How about intranet of things? If you want to use these devices for your house, do not allow them to connect to the internet. Just use them in an intranet. Obviusly do not buy IOT devices, which require services from manufacturers in that case. You can then make a combined set of information you want to see/control outside of the house in your own terms.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 11 2018, @11:56AM (1 child)
That would require actual smart devices, as opposed to the current wave of pretend-smart devices that are actually stupid slaves to some Centrally Intelligent Agent somewhere else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 14 2018, @08:10PM
Exactly