I'd love to know how they got the power consumption down so low! 28microwatts when active, that's really something.
Some maths: 0.000025W.
A typical AA battery is 1.5V / 2Ah (https://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm).
1.5*2 = 3Wh.
3Wh / 0.000025W = 120000 hours runtime.
= 5000 days = 13 years, off a single AA battery.
From the article it says it uses backscattering and the range is not very high. I guess it would work for some devices in areas that are already blanketed with WiFi signals, though?
This is the trick, it's using backscatter to piggy-back off nearby wi-fi signals:
> The Wi-Fi radio runs on extremely low power by transmitting data via a technique called backscattering. It takes incoming Wi-Fi signals from a nearby device (like a smartphone) or Wi-Fi access point, modifies the signals and encodes its own data onto them, and then reflects the new signals onto a different Wi-Fi channel to another device or access point.
If this is reflecting onto a different channel (frequency) then it shouldnt interfere with the original signal (except perhaps by reducing its effective power output by a small amount).
It is a general FCC rule that radios and certain other types of devices are not supposed to intentionally cause interference, but in this case there shouldn't be any. Even if there was same channel interference, its not necessarily considered intentionally harmful - for example, its not illegal to use the same WiFi channel as your neighbor as long as you are within other specified technical limits such as transmit power or antenna gain. But doing so for the express purpose of interfering with them would be.
> The Wi-Fi radio runs on extremely low power by transmitting data via a technique called backscattering. It takes incoming Wi-Fi signals from a nearby device (like a smartphone) or Wi-Fi access point, modifies the signals and encodes its own data onto them, and then reflects the new signals onto a different Wi-Fi channel to another device or access point.
It sounds like the device doesn’t actually transmit its own signals, which I believe is what typically requires the most power.
However, I get the feeling from this press release that while the WiFi chip uses less power, this does nothing to reduce the power requirements of the processing chip that is actually using the WiFi chip to communicate. In the article they use a camera as an example in the diagram. Even though the WiFi component might require less juice, you’re still going to need a hefty power supply to power the camera.
I'm struggling to find a single use case where this would work. You need 2 wifi APs, regular wifi usage and a device where such aggressive power saving is more important than working reliably.
Actually, just 1 AP. It can backscatter signals to the AP from other wifi devices such as phones. Regular wifi usage is not a constraint in most applications.
Easier but factories are unfriedly to WiFi with all the giant metal structures, high,medium,low voltage power cables, emi noise from motors and VFDs, etc.
WiFi is more difficult to troubleshoot whereas Pretty much anybody can use a cat5 cable tester.
And there are already cable trays and raceways going to all of the different equipment because it uses electricity.
So in the industrial processes I’ve been involved in radio was only used outdoors and when communications cable would have had to have been strung up on poles.
Reliability and ease of troubleshooting are characteristics industry values more than labor saved running cat5, in my experience.
It sounds like this technique won't work for realtime communication, but that doesn't rule out much of the IoT use cases. As for the 2 APs requirement: when's the last time you've been in range of just one AP, with the 2.4GHz band otherwise quiet?
That is true, but, there are applications where the majority of the power budget goes to the radio, such as a wireless sensor. I worked with battery powered wifi sensors in the past, and very infrequent transmissions (15 minutes) still accounted for 90+% of the power budget. Average current for a 2-3 second transmission was something like 60-80 mA, with a huge in-rush current on boot. I see this and think it's probably too good to be true in practice for something like that.
Still, the problem with IoT devices is distributing the power to them. It is cheap to have some central device in your home that can have relatively powerful transmitter and sensitive receiver if you can drop a bunch of backscattering devices powered off battery.
Backscatter. It sounds like it needs two adjacent networks. One network transmits something, and the device backscatter-modulates its signal to be received by the other network.
Attorney General Barr will not resign; not before President Trump does. Barr is the same as Mueller, Pelosi,Schiff, Nadler: feign opposition to cover the true motive of obstruction to keep Trump in power. FBI Deputy Director Wray & Supreme Court Justice Alito are on board also. See latest update
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"Impeachment" Is A Diversion And Delay - Part II: Blocking of the "impeachment" witnesses was collusion planned before the new year. Listen to an FBI agent's disclosure from January 1, 202O here. The President was to resign late summer securing election for DNC. See latest updates.
Here is the zip file, which was also made available in the 3Jan2O2O update. The file within is VID_20200101_201948.mp3. Turn up the volume and put on headphones.
The dialogue about the impeachment starts near the beginning. Having Biden in the White House is as good as Trump or anyone else in their organization. Obviously Schiff and Nadler pledged their allegiance to the organization by raping boys on the record, with their task being to drag out an impeachment designed to obstruct and delay any real efforts to remove the President, thus keeping Trump in power. The witness blocking was to cause an apparent uproar delaying things with legal actions until late Summer. Soon after, the President would resign, leaving any other candidate with not enough time or support to compete with an opportunistic Biden, who is as good as Trump or any other Illuminati friendly politician in the Presidency.
\Wag The Dog: first was feigned impeachment hearings meant to obstruct, now an attack on Iranians in Iraq. Here is what they are trying to distract from & cover up to retain power. $100+ billion in bribes to the highest offices in this country. 815+ deaths from child rapes to prove loyalty!
See the latest PDF updates: FBI Director Wray, AG Barr, SoD Shanahan, & SoS Pompeo each raped boys and were paid billions in bribes for a Soros & Koch funded child rape org. So did Trump & his "impeachment" team Nadler,Schiff,Mueller.So did media moguls Redstone,Murdoch,Moonves. What are they trying to set up? Who can arrest them since they are all bribed and in on it ? OKpkpomtrpmv;lkmrw;tm;mb t;lk lkt lktvv wlkrlerv.
Their strategy to stay in every office and obstruct until forced to leave no matter what. Feigning impeachment: see page 13O.
\\if;Download the video/audio file, put on headphones and turn up the volume. You will hear these people committing these crimes. Audio was broadcast into my apartment by outdated surveillance equipment illegally embedded within my walls. This very same technology was being used to broadcast me to the internet for five years without my consent. I own this footage. Please use this to prosecute all found within. Note:: I am obliviously speaking throughout the video, and it can be quite loud at times relative to the desired content. The are dozens more links, including these, that can be found in this PDF that was last updated on FEB 24, 2O2O:
>
The device, which is housed in a chip smaller than a grain of rice, enables Internet of Things (IoT) devices to communicate with existing Wi-Fi networks using 5,000 times less power than today’s Wi-Fi radios. It consumes just 28 microwatts of power. And it does so while transmitting data at a rate of 2 megabits per second (a connection fast enough to stream music and most YouTube videos) over a range of up to 21 meters.
Seems like ideally suited to surreptitious surveillance
> The Wi-Fi radio runs on extremely low power by transmitting data via a technique called backscattering. It takes incoming Wi-Fi signals from a nearby device (like a smartphone) or Wi-Fi access point, modifies the signals and encodes its own data onto them, and then reflects the new signals onto a different Wi-Fi channel to another device or access point.
Seems like this chip is purpose built for surreptitious surveillance.
It looks like it completely depends on there being other types of radio waves and modifying them. If you were security conscious you could either check if radio signals were being modified somehow or just shield off certain rooms (faraday cage).
There is no way to escape this. By advancing IoT we also advance IoS, it is as simple as that.
The way to fight IoS is not by restricting advancement of technology. Even if we wanted, it is already way past it. We can assume governments are years if not decades ahead.
Would separate (v)LANs and super strict firewall rules not help somewhat?
With the addition of things like DoH it's going to be trickier to "secure", or rather, isolate IoT devices for sure, but _impossible_?
Because those three are the real reasons companies put radios in consumer widgets. Getting a data stream that can be resold to marketers, getting people to buy more garbage more often, and getting people to pay a regular subscription fee to avoid having to care about buying and disposing of garbage products.
It's backscatter tech, which was literally invented for surveillance (see Great Seal Bug [0]) -- modern(ish) versions of which are prominently featured in the NSA's ANT Catalog [1].
This is the same technology as UHF RFID (now Rain RFID).
Using dedicated RF carriers rather than ambient WiFi signals, we've demonstrated 100Mbps at 10uW using QAM Backscatter signalling [2]. Similar tech was used to read neural data off of dragonflies in flight [3] or self-contained implantable devices [4].
I'd say about 10mA (about 30-40mW at 3.3V) is the lower limit if you go a bit out of Wifi spec to save some power with current wifi modules in the common market for Microcontrollers and IOT applications.
I've measured that on an ESP32, specifically, using various power saving measures and substracting the chip's own consumption. Though Wifi is atleast 99% of power consumption on a sensor device with not much else going on.
Interesting. Thanks for replies. I was hoping to find something I could add a small battery to and it could run a small vpn client as long as it had wifi connection. Ideally for months or years without maintenance if possible.
To save power, it could even wake up at certain times, say 5 min a day, then go back to sleep until that time window arrives again.
I can do all of the software I just don't know what hardware I should be looking at.
It depends what your are doing. Some chips can get down to about 100uw to maintain associated and send small amounts of data. I'm not sure how they would compare at 2mbit or how the range would compare.
This is really nice. I could imagine smaller MCU integrating this and perhaps we could get rid of bluetooth. Don't use the latter very often, but the one advantage I know of is low power consumption.
Just a reflection about this: Could a modification of this backscattering technique be used so that hundred of this devices use the same channel to transmit a set?, I am thinking about collecting the information of hundred of devices each sending a single bit in the same channel. This must be something like dividing a channel in subchannels but I am thinking about using the same frequency in the final output. Yes, it should be better if I read something about transmission of information.
I am thinking about an API in which you assing a number (index of device) to each device and you receive a set of bits ( for example danger/no danger) without having to make any modification to wifi signals or having to select, create or buy new channels and without danger of interfering with other signals because use a lot of bandwidth.
So this needs a powerful wifi transmitter nearby? Does a normal router continuously blast out enough power for these backscatter transmitters to harness, so no other transmitters are present?
They make a big deal about the small size of the chip (less than a grain of rice). But what's the smallest size antenna this thing could be plugged into and remain effective?
58 comments
[ 14.3 ms ] story [ 224 ms ] threadSome maths: 0.000025W. A typical AA battery is 1.5V / 2Ah (https://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm). 1.5*2 = 3Wh. 3Wh / 0.000025W = 120000 hours runtime. = 5000 days = 13 years, off a single AA battery.
That can't be right? That's incredible if true.
> The Wi-Fi radio runs on extremely low power by transmitting data via a technique called backscattering. It takes incoming Wi-Fi signals from a nearby device (like a smartphone) or Wi-Fi access point, modifies the signals and encodes its own data onto them, and then reflects the new signals onto a different Wi-Fi channel to another device or access point.
- Doesn't this degrade the quality of the original signal ? (i.e. some sort of destructive interference)
- Isn't it illegal to interfere in signals this way ?
It is a general FCC rule that radios and certain other types of devices are not supposed to intentionally cause interference, but in this case there shouldn't be any. Even if there was same channel interference, its not necessarily considered intentionally harmful - for example, its not illegal to use the same WiFi channel as your neighbor as long as you are within other specified technical limits such as transmit power or antenna gain. But doing so for the express purpose of interfering with them would be.
> The Wi-Fi radio runs on extremely low power by transmitting data via a technique called backscattering. It takes incoming Wi-Fi signals from a nearby device (like a smartphone) or Wi-Fi access point, modifies the signals and encodes its own data onto them, and then reflects the new signals onto a different Wi-Fi channel to another device or access point.
It sounds like the device doesn’t actually transmit its own signals, which I believe is what typically requires the most power.
However, I get the feeling from this press release that while the WiFi chip uses less power, this does nothing to reduce the power requirements of the processing chip that is actually using the WiFi chip to communicate. In the article they use a camera as an example in the diagram. Even though the WiFi component might require less juice, you’re still going to need a hefty power supply to power the camera.
WiFi is more difficult to troubleshoot whereas Pretty much anybody can use a cat5 cable tester.
And there are already cable trays and raceways going to all of the different equipment because it uses electricity.
So in the industrial processes I’ve been involved in radio was only used outdoors and when communications cable would have had to have been strung up on poles.
Reliability and ease of troubleshooting are characteristics industry values more than labor saved running cat5, in my experience.
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Here is the zip file, which was also made available in the 3Jan2O2O update. The file within is VID_20200101_201948.mp3. Turn up the volume and put on headphones.
BB10Mp3Footage31Dec1Jan.zip 122.4mb
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXOOhQhHybwky8Z5pGdr9ZXhWpI...
The dialogue about the impeachment starts near the beginning. Having Biden in the White House is as good as Trump or anyone else in their organization. Obviously Schiff and Nadler pledged their allegiance to the organization by raping boys on the record, with their task being to drag out an impeachment designed to obstruct and delay any real efforts to remove the President, thus keeping Trump in power. The witness blocking was to cause an apparent uproar delaying things with legal actions until late Summer. Soon after, the President would resign, leaving any other candidate with not enough time or support to compete with an opportunistic Biden, who is as good as Trump or any other Illuminati friendly politician in the Presidency.
170 page PDF [last updated: February|25|2O2O]:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W...
Previously reported:
\Wag The Dog: first was feigned impeachment hearings meant to obstruct, now an attack on Iranians in Iraq. Here is what they are trying to distract from & cover up to retain power. $100+ billion in bribes to the highest offices in this country. 815+ deaths from child rapes to prove loyalty!
See the latest PDF updates: FBI Director Wray, AG Barr, SoD Shanahan, & SoS Pompeo each raped boys and were paid billions in bribes for a Soros & Koch funded child rape org. So did Trump & his "impeachment" team Nadler,Schiff,Mueller.So did media moguls Redstone,Murdoch,Moonves. What are they trying to set up? Who can arrest them since they are all bribed and in on it ? OKpkpomtrpmv;lkmrw;tm;mb t;lk lkt lktvv wlkrlerv.
Their strategy to stay in every office and obstruct until forced to leave no matter what. Feigning impeachment: see page 13O.
\\if;Download the video/audio file, put on headphones and turn up the volume. You will hear these people committing these crimes. Audio was broadcast into my apartment by outdated surveillance equipment illegally embedded within my walls. This very same technology was being used to broadcast me to the internet for five years without my consent. I own this footage. Please use this to prosecute all found within. Note:: I am obliviously speaking throughout the video, and it can be quite loud at times relative to the desired content. The are dozens more links, including these, that can be found in this PDF that was last updated on FEB 24, 2O2O:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W...
All members of the "Illuminati"; "....an underground organization of homosexuals and child rapists..." (from pg 26: Barack Obama with Jack Dorsey).
President Donald Trump:
Demands a $4 billion dollar bribe...
Seems like ideally suited to surreptitious surveillance
Seems like this chip is purpose built for surreptitious surveillance.
The way to fight IoS is not by restricting advancement of technology. Even if we wanted, it is already way past it. We can assume governments are years if not decades ahead.
As for surveillance. Well, it is a transceiver, hence it can be localized and tracked.
And, TaaS: Things as a Service.
Because those three are the real reasons companies put radios in consumer widgets. Getting a data stream that can be resold to marketers, getting people to buy more garbage more often, and getting people to pay a regular subscription fee to avoid having to care about buying and disposing of garbage products.
This is the same technology as UHF RFID (now Rain RFID). Using dedicated RF carriers rather than ambient WiFi signals, we've demonstrated 100Mbps at 10uW using QAM Backscatter signalling [2]. Similar tech was used to read neural data off of dragonflies in flight [3] or self-contained implantable devices [4].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog
[2] http://people.ee.duke.edu/~sjt/publications/pdf/2013_Thomas_...
[3] https://www.wired.com/2013/06/dragonfly-backpack-neuron/
[4] http://www.travisdeyle.com/publications/pdf/2017_rfic_implan...
https://www.washington.edu/news/2016/02/23/uw-engineers-achi...
To save power, it could even wake up at certain times, say 5 min a day, then go back to sleep until that time window arrives again.
I can do all of the software I just don't know what hardware I should be looking at.
I am thinking about an API in which you assing a number (index of device) to each device and you receive a set of bits ( for example danger/no danger) without having to make any modification to wifi signals or having to select, create or buy new channels and without danger of interfering with other signals because use a lot of bandwidth.