The uBeam FAQ

[PaulReynolds]

http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/ubeam-withdraw-claims-of-wirelessly.html

Do people 'charge' their TVs? It seems a weird turn of phrase for somebody who complains about uBeam's grammar.

You never used to charge your phone, either - it had a line for both voice and power. Go back 30 years, it would be a weird turn of phrase to talk about charging your phone then. To use an analogy, a TV powered this way is essentially a very large phone with battery to make wireless powering feasible, I'm just using that terminology. I'll stand by my use of that term.

Consider doing this in practice. If you are going to wirelessly power a TV you have to account for the fact that something can get into the beam and block power for a period of time. That means you must have some form of energy storage at the TV to provide enough power during those outages. Basically, power from battery plus wireless power must, on average, cover all the use cases likely to be encountered. Unless you can be 100% certain you will never lose the wireless power connection, you *must* have a battery in the TV. You could say that nothing and no-one is allowed in the spaces around the TV, but then you reduce the utility of it being in free space and you may as well have a wire. Even if you want to float a TV in the middle of a room above everyone's head, you still have to support it somehow, may as well power via one of those wires.

So basically to "run" a TV without wired power, any practical situation will need a battery and it will be a combined "power+charge", same as you'd have to do with your phone to simultaneously use the phone and have the battery level increase.

I replied in a similar manner on my blog, I'm assuming that was your comment there.

And on being the grammar police - this is a company looking to hire the best, and give an impression of quality, depth, professionalism. Take a few seconds to proofread what will be your first contact to a prospective employee. You can't be perfect all the time, I still find them in my writing after a proofread, but at least try.

[timb]

Plus, keep in mind you still have to plug a cable/sat receiver (which itself needs power) into the TV which requires a HDMI cable. If you don't have that type of service you'd need to hook the TV to your antenna to receive over the air broadcasts, so that means running a coax cable from the TV.

Any way you look at it you still need wires.

You'd also need to have a pretty large battery pack inside the TV to keep it going during charging interruptions, adding even more cost to the already outrageous price the uBeam would add.

Any way you approach it, it's stupid.

[coppice]

Plus, keep in mind you still have to plug a cable/sat receiver (which itself needs power) into the TV which requires a HDMI cable. If you don't have that type of service you'd need to hook the TV to your antenna to receive over the air broadcasts, so that means running a coax cable from the TV.

Any way you look at it you still need wires.

You'd also need to have a pretty large battery pack inside the TV to keep it going during charging interruptions, adding even more cost to the already outrageous price the uBeam would add.

Any way you approach it, it's stupid.

We have this thing called radio these days. It can get information to a display device wirelessly. However silly the ultrasonically powered TV idea might be, needing cables to get signals to it isn't one of its problems.

[timb]

Plus, keep in mind you still have to plug a cable/sat receiver (which itself needs power) into the TV which requires a HDMI cable. If you don't have that type of service you'd need to hook the TV to your antenna to receive over the air broadcasts, so that means running a coax cable from the TV.

Any way you look at it you still need wires.

You'd also need to have a pretty large battery pack inside the TV to keep it going during charging interruptions, adding even more cost to the already outrageous price the uBeam would add.

Any way you approach it, it's stupid.

We have this thing called radio these days. It can get information to a display device wirelessly. However silly the ultrasonically powered TV idea might be, needing cables to get signals to it isn't one of its problems.

A large number of people require an outdoor or attic aerial antenna to pull in over the air digital TV signals. Rabbit Ears just won't cut it. For those people there's no getting around having to run coax from the TV to the wall.

As for wirelessly connecting a device to the TV... None of the Wireless HDMI standards are very good.

WirelessHD runs at 60GHz, which means it's basically line of site and has a *very* short range, just like uBeam! So it's kind of worthless if someone walks in front of your transmitter and you lose picture... At least it's uncompressed video and can theoretically support 4k Ultra HD. Overall, it's very application specific and not a general wireless video transmission solution at this time.

Then there's WHDI which seems to have stagnated. On the plus side they use the 5GHz spectrum, so it has more range than WirelessHD. On the other hand, they're using 5GHz, which means ever nearby router has the potential to cause interference and they're very limited on bandwidth. The latter point is crucial, because it means they're not transmitting raw uncompressed video. Instead, they're using lossy compression to transmit your video, which means reduced quality. Also, no 4k Ultra HD support.

So yes, we have ways of transmitting video via radio waves, but they all currently suck. Think about how much bandwidth it requires to transmit raw 4k resolution video (plus 5.1 uncompressed audio) over a serial link at 60FPS. It's not easy to do without wires (and it's why Wireless HD is using such a high frequency).

[CopperCone]

I think this has the potential to drive animals insane, cause depression in pets, effect wildlife, etc.

No matter what the achievable specifications are, this could very well turn your house into a torture chamber for a family pet.



It's rather sadistic.

[Fungus]

Do people 'charge' their TVs? It seems a weird turn of phrase for somebody who complains about uBeam's grammar.

You never used to charge your phone, either - it had a line for both voice and power.

Yes, but the time we started using the term 'charge' was when phones ran off batteries and needed charging.

People still have fixed landline phones today and nobody says they're being 'charged' by the cables. People will look at you weirdly if you do.

[PaulReynolds]

Do people 'charge' their TVs? It seems a weird turn of phrase for somebody who complains about uBeam's grammar.

You never used to charge your phone, either - it had a line for both voice and power.

Yes, but the time we started using the term 'charge' was when phones ran off batteries and needed charging.

People still have fixed landline phones today and nobody says they're being 'charged' by the cables. People will look at you weirdly if you do.

To continue with your analogy, my use of the term 'charge' refers to the TV equivalent of the modern smartphone, not the TV equivalent of the old landline phone. And yes, that TV equivalent of the modern smartphone does not currently exist, nor is it likely to ever exist. So it's something of a pointless discussion to talk about developing terminology for something that just won't happen. I think I'll move on now to talking about more important things like safety.

[PaulReynolds]

I think this has the potential to drive animals insane, cause depression in pets, effect wildlife, etc.

No matter what the achievable specifications are, this could very well turn your house into a torture chamber for a family pet.



It's rather sadistic.

And now that I've mentioned safety...

Murata style devices tend to work between 40 and 68 kHz so that's all the land based animals on that chart from the raccoon on down it would seem.

Here's an interesting quote from a peer reviewed paper on ultrasound safety for animals and humans. "Effects of Ultrasonic Noise on the Human Body—A Bibliographic Review", International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics , Volume 19, 2013 - Issue 2

Found here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10803548.2013.11076978

"Studies in small animals showed that thermal effects of ultrasonic noise appeared at relatively high sound pressure level. According to Allen, Rudnik and Frings, a mouse dies from overheating after 10 s to 3 min of exposure to a signal of 20 kHz and level of 160 dB [10]. According to Danner, a lethal level for signals of 18–20 kHz for an unshaven mouse were 144 dB and for a shaven mouse 155 dB [21]. Acton obtained similar results and extended studies to larger animals such as guinea pigs and rabbits [22]."

[Howardlong]

Two or three weeks ago, I extended my experiment with a pair of Murata devices at 40kHz, this time with the matching transmitter/receiver MA40S4S/MA40S4R units, rather than relying on the presumed reciprocal functionality of the MA40S4S for the receiver.

In addition, I used an L293 H bridge driver to produce a 64Vpp square wave signal (~10dB more than the 20Vpp I'd used from my AWG). Adjusting the H bridge power supply voltage, things seemed to be reasonably linear when measuring the Vpp at the receiver, but the driver became pretty warm and the MA40S4S also became noticeably warm. From memory, I measured about 1.5W of power was being supplied from the power supply, so possibly about half that was being radiated as sound judging by the toastiness of the devices.

Anecdotally, my cat (about 12yo) was sitting about six feet away during the tests. He could tell when it was switched on and off as his ears twitched in correlation, but he wasn't otherwise perturbed, which is more than can be said when I play my sax, when he scampers away to the furthest place he can find.

From the technology demonstrations we've seen, it would be reasonable to conclude that the aggregated power is 20 to 30dB above what I was using, and certainly operating close to medium saturation especially with beam forming.

[StillTrying]

Anecdotally, my cat (about 12yo) was sitting about six feet away during the tests. He could tell when it was switched on and off as his ears twitched in correlation, but he wasn't otherwise perturbed,

After I'd done 40-60kHz 'tests' with the cat (many pages ago), for weeks afterwards I only had to move my hand towards the SG to get the cat to quickly disappear.

[PA0PBZ]

After I'd done 40-60kHz 'tests' with the cat (many pages ago), for weeks afterwards I only had to move my hand towards the SG to get the cat to quickly disappear.

In ancient times I worked in a Philips store and one of the things I had to do was delivering and installing TV's and explaining the functionality. Sometime in the lifecycle of these products they had an ultrasonic remote, and I remember quite well that while demonstrating the remote the cat that lived there decided to bite me in the back of my head because apparently he was very annoyed by the remote.

[djos]

After I'd done 40-60kHz 'tests' with the cat (many pages ago), for weeks afterwards I only had to move my hand towards the SG to get the cat to quickly disappear.

In ancient times I worked in a Philips store and one of the things I had to do was delivering and installing TV's and explaining the functionality. Sometime in the lifecycle of these products they had an ultrasonic remote, and I remember quite well that while demonstrating the remote the cat that lived there decided to bite me in the back of my head because apparently he was very annoyed by the remote.

Are you sure it was the remote? Cats are funny about who they like. 

My wife has a black fluff ball that likes me more than it like her. 

[StillTrying]

Someone who has a dual output FG should drive two US transducers a few hundred Hz apart to see/hear if there are positions where the beat frequency is audible.

[Gavin Melville]

This phone might, just might, be chargeable with uBeam.  Not needing any power is a real step forward. 

http://newatlas.com/battery-lees-phone/50356/

In addition to the power harvesting problems, the team is also working on how to encrypt messages and stream videos, and adding a low-power E-ink screen for a display.

Video on an E-Ink display - just wondering if the marketing guys have got ever so slightly ahead of engineering.

[Howardlong]

Someone who has a dual output FG should drive two US transducers a few hundred Hz apart to see/hear if there are positions where the beat frequency is audible.

I was wondering that myself, I have quite a few here,  it might make for an imteresting experiment, although I'm not expecting much, even driven hard I don't think I can hit non linearity in air with a couple of transducers.

[StillTrying]

Someone who has a dual output FG should drive two US transducers a few hundred Hz apart to see/hear if there are positions where the beat frequency is audible.

I was wondering that myself, I have quite a few here,  it might make for an imteresting experiment, although I'm not expecting much, even driven hard I don't think I can hit non linearity in air with a couple of transducers.

I don't think you'd need any high power to produce and hear the beat frequency, these things seem very loud in the beam at 4m.

[Howardlong]

Someone who has a dual output FG should drive two US transducers a few hundred Hz apart to see/hear if there are positions where the beat frequency is audible.

I was wondering that myself, I have quite a few here,  it might make for an imteresting experiment, although I'm not expecting much, even driven hard I don't think I can hit non linearity in air with a couple of transducers.

I don't think you'd need any high power to produce and hear the beat frequency, these things seem very loud in the beam at 4m.

I spent an hour or so this evening on this, couldn't hear anything. If I understood acoustics and materials science beyond noob status, I might be able to suggest a means to introduce some non-linearity to mix the signals appropriately. According to the transducer specs, there's not a significant degradation a couple of hundred kHz outside the nominal 40kHz.

I ran one transducer at 39.8kHz and the other at 40.2kHz, with 65Vpp, 80mA total current draw from the PSU. I used a PIC24 to generate the two frequencies from a pair of output compares both running in half bridge mode, fed into an L293 giving two full H bridges, one for each transducer (MA40S4S). The L293 and the transducers get quite toasty!

[edavid]

I ran one transducer at 39.8kHz and the other at 40.2kHz, with 65Vpp, 80mA total current draw from the PSU. I used a PIC24 to generate the two frequencies from a pair of output compares both running in half bridge mode, fed into an L293 giving two full H bridges, one for each transducer (MA40S4S). The L293 and the transducers get quite toasty!

This article claims you need > 100dB SPL to get nonlinearity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_from_ultrasound

[PaulReynolds]

Quite a heated discussion on Twitter the other day between the uBeam CEO and a VC.

https://twitter.com/meredithperry/status/889504937163476992

[EEVblog]

Quite a heated discussion on Twitter the other day between the uBeam CEO and a VC.

https://twitter.com/meredithperry/status/889504937163476992

 

She knows everyone has jumped ship and the product isn't even close to working how she imagined. She knows the game is over and it's just shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic at this point.

[EEVblog]

So, Matt Ocko wants me to take down my tweet of the screen shot of his tweet above:

[EEVblog]

And as many people predicted how this would end, out comes to the misogyny card 
She probably whispered in his ear about all the misogyny and hate she's hate to go through because she's female, and that's the reason why she is struggling and will be the ultimate reason why she won't succeed.
Had nothing to do with her idea being stupidly impractical from the get-go, and her trash talking TED talk and other self-grandiosing interviews

[PaulReynolds]

Quite a heated discussion on Twitter the other day between the uBeam CEO and a VC.

https://twitter.com/meredithperry/status/889504937163476992

 

She knows everyone has jumped ship and the product isn't even close to working how she imagined. She knows the game is over and it's just shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic at this point.

Since it's been deleted by all parties, here's today's public service announcement reminding us all that the internet is forever.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170728003852/https://twitter.com/meredithperry/status/889504937163476992

[EEVblog]

Seems like Matt Ocko deleted all his tweets.
Maybe he was scared he might have upset the VC club?

[djos]

Seems like Matt Ocko deleted all his tweets.
Maybe he was scared he might have upset the VC club?

Seems plausible, extremely funny tho.