EEVblog 1408 - $5M WiGL Wireless Charging BUSTED!

[@EEVblog]

UPDATE: WiGL are "HUGE fans" of the EEVblog! And the comments section on StartEngine is alive with the buzz and more BS. Check it out, it's a hoot! LOL ALSO: For a near identical product, and one that contains some actual original tech to try and do 5W wireless charging, see my debunk of the Xiaomi wireless charger. This is EXACTLY what the WiGL will have to be if it wants to receive 5W directed RF power. The numbers and issues will be exactly the same, so just replace the word Xiaomi with WiGL : kzbin.info/www/bejne/jmetdYKOn9t-d6s

[@Elektron1000]

They forgot to mention that they would be able to power the Hyperloop

[@vk3crg]

The race is on! To the idiot mobile! As soon as I saw this I knew you’d love it Dave hence the Tweet 😂🤣 I couldn’t wait to see you tear their BS apart 🤣 Keep up the great work! Craig VK3CRG 🤣😂

[@Rob2]

@@chrispollard6568 Well, at least it clarifies that the company only focusses on promises and not on actual usable products.

[@chrispollard6568]

@@Rob2 We aren't going to bother with the hard stuff controlled by physics.

[@Rob2]

Re: UPDATE He now admits that he is only charging a capacitor from the wireless power and then dumps the charge into the phone to charge it. But he does not mention that it of course will take much more time to charge the capacitor than it takes to dump the charge into the phone. So while the phone may be charged, it will be done at such a low duty cycle that on average it is hardly charged at all. Of course there is no point in having a wireless charging dock that can be charged overnight and then can dump its charge into the phone! The only realistic use is a charge method that charges the phone while it is moving inside the coverage area. And when doing that, it makes no sense to first charge a capacitor and then dump the charge into the phone.

[@nukularpictures]

Wow this is even worse than I expected. No beamforming, no advanced phased array, no nothing. Just of the shelf parts and you get $5million for that. How? And why the fuck am I too honest for that crap?

[@hightttech]

Yup. If i had no conscience, I'd be a rich criminal.

[@p_mouse8676]

I have seen this happening a lot. A part of the story is morals, or the lack there of. But I have also seen many many times that actually very smart and talented engineers started to believe in their own fairytales. After a while they just live in some kind of bubble/world with it. The difference is that compared to lack of morals, it's not done on purpose. See it as some kind of religion. Which makes it even harder to have a proper conversation or discussion with them.

[@tgirard123]

@@p_mouse8676 you so hit this on the head! I will bet you dollars to donuts that there is one "evangelist" probably the owner who's some narcissistic dolt who just constantly preaches this crap to a group of people who finally accept it as fact. Of course the money is coming in so they're getting self-reinforced. It very much is a lot like a religion. I got burned for a pretty good chunk of cash with a friend of mine who got involved with a new type of encryption. There were people working for him from Symantec no less. In the end it was all BS.

[@p_mouse8676]

@@tgirard123 I was actually talking about the engineers themselves. I have seen people spending a lot of time in researching a certain niche. That after a point they almost become that niche. Totally not thinking about the bigger picture anymore. Most of the time they don't mean anything bad or harm with it, but they basically brainwashed themselves. That's why I think it's so extremely important to always keep track on the bigger picture. But often even the best companies get side tracked pretty badly.

[@thatrudager]

@@p_mouse8676 I just want to hear one story where the scammer gets their come-uppance. Just one.

[@Thesignalpath]

I particularly liked the demo where they were feeding the 4 harvesters from a coaxial power splitter. Free space path loss? Never heard of it! That power splitter basically has no loss. The fact that they can show that demo with a straight face is innovative in its own right.

[@cambridgemart2075]

I looked at the setup several times to spot where they were 'transmitting' the RF before it struck me they were using the signal generator to directly supply power to the phone.

[@ikocheratcr]

Maybe that is worth a *new* patent for them. LOL!!!!!!!!

[@zachbrown7272]

Look who showed up! love your channel, but you best be headed back to your RF wizard cave to enlighten me on which piece of test gear I can't afford is the best.

[@edc1569]

@@cambridgemart2075 pretty sure there was an amplifier in there too?

[@punker4Real]

coaxial splitters are 75 ohms

[@hrnekbezucha]

The future of making money isn't about selling products, it's about selling ideas. Like here, "wouldn't it be great if this worked! Just imagine! Please give us all your money."

[@lordjaashin]

you just described the gofundme type non polluting technology. there are so many scams that make outrageous results to produce clean energy that seem to milk the earth friendly emotions of gullible people.

[@itemushmush]

for me, thats the "elon promise". total vapourware, and everything leads to bolster his finances

[@microbuilder]

One of the most frustrating things of the modern age is more people have more access to more information than ever before, and yet people dont utilize it at all, and fall for the same old scams over and over

[@microbuilder]

@@HimmelsDaemon Yep, and all it takes is a good catch phrase...'solar freakin roadways' *picardfacepalm*

[@edc1569]

Or fall for the conspiracy nonsense as it’s spoonfed to them.

[@VincentGroenewold]

I wonder if that's it to be honest. Sure many can be scammed, but also, could this not be a tax evading scheme? Putting money in from those behind the actual scam who then have invested their money and they all can, somehow, make that "legally" fine tax wise?

[@mg1342mg]

Let me know if you need a car warranty....

[@dwaynezilla]

Instead of using the internet to debunk scams, they use internet to find more scams to fall for!

[@hightechstuff2]

I have a 1KW wireless power transmitter in my home. I just simply ripped the door off my microwave oven and cheated the interlocks. Simple. Still trying to figure out why my eyes always hurt and feel like they are boiling.

[@bobbobson1605]

The burn lets you know it's working.

[@wocereW]

"My bollocks are medium-rare, but the phone in my pocket is finally charged. Thanks, WiGL! Also, is the cat supposed to smoke like that?"

[@EmmanuelIstace]

Nice project! For the eyes, must be the 5g.

[@drone_video9849]

How fast does it charge your phone? is it worth doing?

[@hightechstuff2]

@@drone_video9849 Oh totally! It charges in like 5 minutes but I can't get phone reception anywhere near my house, neither can my neighbors... Oh and WiFi no longer works. The FCC keeps knocking on my door but I just tell them to go away.

[@thedevilinthecircuit1414]

The fact that the transmitter cannot be plugged into a standard dual AC outlet without blocking the other outlet is proof the developers know very little about industrial design. Looks like it was conceptualized by 4th graders. Apologies to 4th graders everywhere.

[@AndyLundell]

It's amusing that even when designing a fantasy device, completely free from any engineering requirements, they still came up with a device that is frustrating and inconvenient.

[@aperson2703]

Probably an intellectual disability based on the tech.

[@degtyarev708]

And thats the idealized concept, showing just enough outlet to tease you

[@ecaparts]

That’s designed that way of course. This is the only device you need to have plugged in the grid, everything else will be powered wirelessly.

[@frankwales]

The pins on the transmitter don't even line up with the openings in the outlet in the animation. Attention to detail? What's that?

[@jessicav2031]

"1 watt!!! We can operate unlicensed!" Yeahhh. Everyone forgets the second part of that: EIRP cannot exceed 4 watts. You can't just whack a boatload of gain on your transmitter and blast a narrow angle. I don't think they even understand ISM limits. Just a guess, but it looks like their test setup probably is already in violation.

[@Rob2]

True! And, here in Europe, EIRP on 2.4 GHz is limited to 100mW. 5.5 GHz is 1W EIRP max. The antenna they show there likely has some 13dB of gain so when they feed it with 1W they have 20W EIRP and are well above limits everywhere.

[@cambridgemart2075]

@@Rob2 And in France it's 10mW!

[@zachbrown7272]

thats quitter talk Jessica. All you need is the tinfoil clothing that other kickstarter was trying to sell and your vital organs will be fine. Can't say the same about your ability to reproduce but they could write that off as a noble cause, overpopulation and such.

[@dustinsmith8341]

I imagine they are aware of the 4 watt limit as well due to their other "enhanced" setup was set to 3 W.

[@funtechu]

@@dustinsmith8341 I was under the impression that they are using 3W transmit power. With the high gain beam steering that they are doing, that means it's pretty likely that the EIRP (Effective Isotropic Radiated Power) is much higher as Jessica mentioned. For example with 3W transmit power, negligible cable loss, and an antenna gain of 6dBi, the EIRP could be close to 12 Watts.

[@fyfoh]

Apparently nobody at this company has taken a physics or electrical engineering class. Or at least passed one. The only thing getting charged with this tech is the investors' debit cards.

[@kopazwashere]

guy cant even do .52/100, I dont think he even got a HS diploma. Either that or he ate way too many crayons, he has a military background (completely unrelated to EE, ofc)

[@ReneSchickbauer]

Not having any knowledge in a field (at least no knowledge that can be proven by a court of law) can be a good thing for them. If you lie to customers/investors in a field you are trained in, the judge will know you lied and send you to prison. If, on the other hand, no lawyers can prove that you did know that your design was impossible, it's much more of a grey area. The old "I thought this technology can work, but i'm just an arts student" goes a long way...

[@TheMrRuttazzo]

@@ReneSchickbauer Considering the circumstances, such a lame excuse in front of the judge can get you an ever worse sentence. Blatantly lying to the customer AND the court.

[@tinygriffy]

Even if such a thing would work, there is one major problem no one addresses: Anyone can steal your Power at a distance... wireless. So the next thing to do would be to file a patent for the encryption of RF energy ;) Thanks Dave very entertaining !

[@tinygriffy]

@@mattmurphy7030 😄👍

[@joshnabours9102]

That and if you send enough power through the air it can cook you.

[@ctg3d]

That's not even the major problem. How much power are you throwing out to light an LED? ;)

[@codyheisinger2190]

Would it really be pulling more energy from the transmitter or just using excess field? I'm not robbing broadcast transmitter energy by turning on a radio. Although it would be nice that people pay for what they use.

[@tinygriffy]

@@codyheisinger2190 I guess your antenna attenuates the field in some way.. so behind it the signal would be less.. and without amplification (which draws power from your outlet) you wouldn't hear much at all.. But I guess you'd have to ask some RF-Proficionado to get a true true answer.. to me this in particular was a joke and in general is pure magic. ;)

[@thelitecommando]

Antenna: Tupavco TP511 Signal booster: EST-1W Can't identify the power meter

[@Corei14]

thank you astolfo. it does look like those devices are being used to execute their *trap*

[@nin1ten1do]

did that atualy matter ? did you see way it is actualy conected to circuit??

[@xjet]

Oh come on, we know that the laws of physics are no match for blind faith and ignorance! _"Devil be gone"_ Take my money! :-D

[@aziztcf]

More like inverse square pshaw!

[@RandomUser2401]

this is what happens when "business" and "advisors" think they can do technology. omfg. this is a scam. Having to advertise the fact that US veterans are in the team? Immediate no-no-no-no-no.

[@tinkerwithstuff]

Maybe they were politicians before. Those who like to change laws as they please. "Who does this _physics_ character think he is anyway, to defy _me_ , eh?"

[@N4CR]

Edit: this is not a defense of Wigl, which doesn't look to be able to do really anything they claim or hypothesise. Moray and Tesla both had some very, very interesting peer reviewed devices and demonstrations, but people like EEVblog and yourself NEVER actually try and replicate them to learn how or if it's actually possible. I wouldn't put 'laws' up there on a pedestal, all we have is observable phenomena and not all can be explained with the current primitive EM understanding. People bend, subvert or circumvent (break?) 'the laws' from time to time in many fields and areas of study, so using it like a religion is the worst thing you can do to stifle creativity. Please keep that in mind.

[@GiantFan-ld7hu]

Are you aware that just last week a team at FIU wrote an academic paper on this technology and reached the opposite conclusion? Dave will delete any comment that mentions this because he's insecure and unwilling to engage in the scientific merits of the technology he bashes!

[@garyhardman8369]

My Wife reckons the company should be re-named 'WROGL' - We Rip Off Gullible Loonies.

[@lordjaashin]

this type of shiny technology claims is lapped up by Twitter fruitcakes

[@countzero1136]

Nice. That comment wins the internet today! :)

[@capq57]

They certainly left themselves a lot of WiGL room in all those asterisks.

[@darkdelta]

I saw what you did here😁😁😁😁👍👍👍👍

[@interstellarsurfer]

It's all right there in the name, Your Honor.. 😂

[@Rob2]

Always interesting to see the suggestion of "we just need to make it smaller, you know, we now have all these wires connected to may antennas but we are going to put that in a single device". NO!! You CANNOT make it smaller!! the amount of energy you capture is approximately proportional to the capture area of your antenna, which for such antennas is about the same as the physical size. When you make it smaller, it will capture less power. The only thing you can do with smaller antennas is use special methods to still make them "tuned" to your receive frequency so they match with your receiver, you CANNOT make a physically much smaller antenna that still has the same capture area and captures the same amount of power. The moment you scale it down to fit on the back of a phone, it will be less capable than the current demo setup.

[@godthisisannoying]

"Developed by 100% disabled veteran" I'm guessing the VA needs to get a call regarding this person's disability claim

[@NETBotic]

And 50% of the other people on full disability.

[@lordjaashin]

"developed by disabled veteran" definitely a selling point to target soldier worshipping fruitcakes

[@sniperwolf50]

"100% disabled" sounds like a roundabout way of saying "dead"

[@jj74qformerlyjailbreak3]

I think all the “backers” Took their stimulus Check and put It Here. Immediately after their meeting at Chuck E. Cheese’s 🤫

[@jj74qformerlyjailbreak3]

Break out the quantum computer to do those calculations. 🤔

[@cidercreekranch]

They got a patent! Big whoop. The USPTO will grant a patent for a ham sandwich

[@j.f.christ8421]

@asdrubale bisanzio Didn't that get knocked back because Kubrick did it first in 2001 (the movie, not the year)?

[@j.f.christ8421]

@asdrubale bisanzio I though Samsung's defence was "Kubrick did it first" and that was the end of it.

[@detritus23]

Common shares, not even Preferred, which means “ you ain’t getting your money back.”

[@tgirard123]

Common shares for common fools. Just another example of why you should never invest in areas you know nothing about. Frankly, if I was investing in electronic tech, I probably would send their information over here for analysis.

[@mavamQ]

Preferred shares does not mean you get your money back, apparently the judge can change the rules. Ask me how I know.

[@detritus23]

@@mavamQ No, but it does mean that you are at least in line for some possible recovery payout in the waterfall. As opposed to common shares, whose payout is discretionary at best. Of course, there has to be something to recover ... As the Shadow knows...

[@NeverTalkToCops1]

@@detritus23 Commoners are the last on the list when the company liquidates under bankruptcy.

[@Pianet]

Rather than being "better" shares, preferred shares are somewhere between holding a debt and common shares. There are significant benefits to common shares like, voting rights and more possibility of appreciation. In the event of the company "fizzling" creditors are usually the first paid back, then preferred shares, then common shares. This makes sense as someone renting office space to a company is taking less of a risk than someone outright buying a percentage of said company.

[@andybarnard4575]

Nice choice of 15 year old Sig Gen though. In UK it's 100mW EIRP, so 2.5mW power out becomes 0.25mW. Under ideal conditions (no self discharge) my 20Wh phone battery will take 10 years to charge. That's the definition of a long term investment?

[@mattymerr701]

They can't even afford a VO. Never trust anyone using a bad AI voice

[@kendokaaa]

It always amazes me how incompetent scammers can be. Of course the reality of it is that the scam still works so they have no incentive to try

[@countzero1136]

@@kendokaaa When half the world is gullible, scammers don't need to be professional. It's like those phonecalls you get, claiming that your internet is going to be disconnected in 24 hours unless you call us with your account details. Most people will just hang up, but part the population are still dumb enough to make it a worthwhile exercise :(

[@DavidLindes]

@@craigjensen6853 I had Dave sped up 2x, and it started to sound almost normal. Almost. Dave, of course, was fast, but I’m used to listening that way.

[@djosearth3618]

.....he (I) heard the VO say - playing it direct if a bit straight up sarcasti,..But clearly in an untrustworthily bad VO voice... ;] Freud: accent>:

[@mattymerr701]

@@djosearth3618 it was almost certainly one of those machine learning VO programs you sometimes see in youtube ads which market themselves as "being undetectable". You can tell they are machine learning though

[@bertblankenstein3738]

The licensing thing takes this to unprecedented levels of BS.

[@ethanpoole3443]

Seriously, I would love to know how they plan to enforce such against other entities simply harvesting all the RFI their WIGL product generates for their own energy harvesting purposes without licensing. Nobody owns an electromagnetic signal once transmitted, though if actual data is transmitted within the modulation scheme that is copyrighted (such as with radio and TV) then there can be ownership of the data itself and laws against decoding the stream, but there is zero need to decode anything if one is only interested in harvesting the raw energy of that signal.

[@mceajc]

Even their computer-generated trasmitter model is a horror of design - it blocks the adjacent socket!

[@ikocheratcr]

Not bad design, how could you think that. For the poor soul that falls for this thing, it blocks them from using a wired charger when they discover the wireless crap does not work, enforcing the user to keep pushing for the wireless hope. ;)

[@daveb5041]

*When I was SIX YEARS OLD I asked my dad why they couldnt just send power to things in space he explained the inverse square law , although he didn't call it that, and I knew at SIX why this stuff doesn't work* .

[@randycarter2001]

I'm amazed at how much confidence they have in their creation. And it's all based on flawed physics. The energy losses in the system are staggering. To get enough power to run a phone you as a biological being would have to live in an EM field that is the intensity of a microwave oven. Almost the same frequency too.

[@itemushmush]

if i invested in this idea, i feel that it would be best for me to be put into a microwave. hopefully put me out of my misery

[@GiantFan-ld7hu]

FIU electrical and computer engineering teams looked into WIGL this week and appear to disagree with you: Gaire, P., Vital, D., Khan, M.R. et al. Adhoc mobile power connectivity using a wireless power transmission grid. Sci Rep 11, 17867 (2021). doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97528-5

[@GothAlice]

@@GiantFan-ld7hu Great article. FTA: "As shown on the graph, power as high as 4.5 dBm (3 mW) is obtained." 3mW at 5V ≅ 0.6mA or 35,000 hours to charge one of my packs assuming a 20% loss. My phone consumes more power than that sitting idle, with the display off-it would not charge from this supply. 46:00 - Gaming PCs? So they can deliver 600W using this? Not unless you want to literally cook the user. Thirty. Five. Thousand. Hours. (4 years. 1.5× the half-life of Sodium-22. A third of the orbital period of Jupiter.)

[@AstralS7orm]

Most importantly, they cannot send high powers without a special license. Not on these frequencies or other safer ones either. Military does not care about FCC so they can, but nobody else could use it. Even at 20 GHz (if they got the license) it'd hurt as hell to get hit with a few hundred watts of microwave.

[@donkrapf]

@@GiantFan-ld7hu Did you read it? I did. You know that this is not an independent examination, right? WiGL's Chief Scientist and Technology Officer is one of the authors of the study. It's a write-up of the "experiment" in the video where they pushed a cart past several transmitters. They claim to show power transmission of over 5 feet and claim that shows that 3 transmitters could cover an 8' x 10' room. They demonstrated that if they angled the three transmitters at one spot then that spot received increased power. (Duh!) The transmitters were 48 x 60 cm arrays of 64 patch antennas. The receiver consisted of 10 patch antennas. They seem to think these could be miniaturized and still function. The paper talks about a small number of low power devices with multiple large transmitters. This is not the many devices, some high power, and tiny transmitters that WiGL claims.

[@gravityskeptic8697]

This is just the beginning. They will develop other wireless utilities, such as pipeless gas, water and sewerage. Wireless phones and cable tv were unfortunatly deemed unfeasible.

[@gravityskeptic8697]

@@mattmurphy7030 True. We have had great results over short distances, unfortunately we lost most of our test data when our lab burned down.

[@onradioactivewaves]

The Bluetooth hose is already available at Home Depot. (Seriously, do an image search)

[@primateinterfacetechnologi6220]

As it happens- pipeless sewage was "developed" some hundreds of millions or more years ago: shitting on the ground. pipeless water?... that as well. gas? that's just a byproduct of the first bit. In a way, a skeptic of gravity does have some footing- It's just what one feels when diverging from that which seems a straight line, in a zone of curved time-space. This is of course due to the clump of "matter" interfering with The flatness of things... or some such. Peace be upon you.

[@andre0baskin]

Check out the educational background of the management team. Some fun to be found there.

[@volvo09]

Woah, these guys better be careful, with an idea this good BIG BATTERY might meet them in a dark alley :)

[@markpitt5248]

The Duracell bunny will run in and beat the snot out of them.

[@tonyman1106]

@@markpitt5248 i would pay to watch that

[@InfernosReaper]

@@markpitt5248 I often forget that Duracell had a pink bunny mascot before Energizer.

[@markpitt5248]

@@InfernosReaper I am going to come clean, I forgot about that! I just got my battery brands mixed up!

[@jimparr01Utube]

Heaps of chuckles. Thank you Sir

[@chrisnorman1653]

Back when I was involved with actual electrical engineering and hardware design, my boss (very clever chap with multiple patents to his name) uttered words to the effect of "It's not a real patent unless it contains a plurality of the word plurality."

[@pastahajianpour5607]

35:47 OMG! I can't believe they feed the 1W (minus a bit with that coupler or whatever for the power meter) from the Wi-Fi amplifier right into those modules! How is that freakin wireless? How can they sleep at night?

[@truckerallikatuk]

On a bed of money?

[@ikocheratcr]

They sleep at night like babies, knowing they will be enjoying the fruit of their "hard" labor. It takes time to come up with such an scam, find a site the will host it, etc.

[@andtfoot]

With all of the disclaimers, sounds like they are trying to... WiGL their way out of any responsibility. _I'll see myself out_

[@YodaWhat]

Oh, not so fast! You're going to the PUNITENTIARY for that one! ;)

[@mariusvanc]

😎 yeaaahhhhhh!!

[@willoland]

"Developed by 100% disabled veteran" Is this the pilot? Maybe he was standing in front of jet's radome for too long.

[@nicwilson89]

When they show the test with a bank of caps...wonder if they're being sneaky and just using the power received from the antennas to trigger a circuit to enable output from a dc-dc converter being powered by the cap bank ahahaha. Would love to see what's on the back of that pcb

[@blazetechstuff]

I thought they put the caps there to be more authentic "oh yes, they got those cylinder power things, seems legit, take my moni!"

[@Rob2]

I think they do. There was some switch circuit mentioned earlier in the explanation. I think it keeps the receivers and caps unloaded until they hit a certain voltage, then it switches on and dumps the capacitor's charge into the phone. But of course only for a short interval, then the switch opens again and the charging starts again.

[@threeMetreJim]

There was a mention of 'solar engine'. That is one of those kind of circuits that slowly stores energy and once enough has accumulated, releases it in one go. Commonly used (or was) for solar insect bots (BEAM photopoppers).

[@WilliamIsted]

I’m not convinced the iPhone didn’t just receive enough power to show the charging screen and then immediately lose the voltage. Hard to see the battery icon on their super low res compressed video demo

[@excitedbox5705]

"Think of it this way, In the near we want future customers to ask" Sounds like someone had a stroke mid-sentence. I love how he put quotes around "partnering" with other companies.

[@mrjohhhnnnyyy5797]

With a 0.25% efficiency, (1W in 2.5mW out) they will need 2000W of RF to provide 5W out. Thanks, I will pass on having a 2kW microwave transmitter in my house running full time :/

[@ikocheratcr]

I guess you will pass, because your electric bill will be to high, right? Cause what is a little 2kW of 2.4GHz RF inside your house, right? ;)

[@nickwallette6201]

So just a measly 10MW to get an EV to move under wireless power, then? (From 4 1/2 feet away.) You could probably tap off the thermal disparity to get a few more percentage points of efficiency. Waste not, want not!

[@kirbyyasha]

Nothing brightens my day more than a 56 minute video and the word BUSTED in the title of an EEVblog video.

[@ThylineTheGay]

i love how they claim that blocking out innovation and competition is a good thing

[@domingomolinero9553]

Yeah, it doesn't work because of physics and stuff... But the worst thing is, that their transmitter (animation, I doubt it exists in any form) covers the second wallsocket. Just because design.

[@DB-um2rb]

HAHAHAHA even the animation is engineered badly lol

[@PraxZimmerman]

*slaps a solar panel on my phone and throws it outside* Okay, where's my $20 million for inventing free energy?

[@steffenjespersen247]

Your channel is way underrated, great public service and entertaining as well :)

[@jocic_91]

Ability to raise millions for bullshit is actually a skill that I would love to have. :P

[@itemushmush]

i agree, a wonderful skill. you just need to have zero morals about fleecing people like elon does

[@interstellarsurfer]

@@itemushmush At least he gets it right part of the time. 🤷‍♂️

[@N4CR]

Look into Star Citizen, it's probably the best example so far. 10 years and they are at or juuust shy of 500mil once you include all the stuff that isn't so upfront.

[@frankthetank1485]

Recently I installed my 2.4 GHz transmitter dish on my balcony to reach the Es‘Hail 2 satellite with its amateur radio transponder. I use 10 Watts PEP and the dish has 18dBi gain. Enough to take care of not looking into the dish when transmitting. Eyes are easily cooked with that. I do not want microwave transmitters in the watts-range where I can see them.

[@km5405]

does it even remotely make sense to do this from a engineering perspective? it feels like a tiny solar panel sucking up room lighting and ambient light would blow this out the water , or just have a primary cell with enviromentally very mild chemistry that lasts for years (after which you can just pop a new one in or have to begrudingly put it on a charger) ... like if you already got a device that can get by with a trickle of milliwatts, why would you ever bother with rf harvesting for practically all applications?

Probably. Calculators do it.

[@deth3021]

@ a lot of calculators just have fake solar cells these days.

[@6581punk]

They'd be better off having a solar panel and a spot light that tracks it. At least solar panels are well developed :)

[@tayyabnaveed2266]

9:19 I lost it at the satellite part. Imagine a satellite showering down enough power to turn on a street light.

[@GothAlice]

ONE 400 watt sodium lamp, 2,000 km LEO satellite, free-space path loss at 2.4GHz from that altitude to sea level ≅ 46dB (76.6̅%? Pretty sure my dyslexic brain is failing at math; this is logarithmic, not linear…) So they'd need to blast *quite* a bit of power down to accomplish this. Enough that I doubt such a satellite would remain a solid for long. Vacuum being an excellent insulator.

[@AstralS7orm]

It'd be enough power to light up the atmosphere, since you forgot about water absorption. As in microwave plasma. I like auroras as much as anyone else but I heard charged particle showers are not good for electronics.

[@ArmiaKhairy]

Never thought that some junk electronics under my bed has the ability to make me a millionaire that easily!

[@davidgustafik7968]

Sorry Dave, couldn't hear you over the sound of the Heavy Duty Money Incinerator™ being turned on. What were you saying?

[@tsbrownie]

I have a wireless charging system that requires only an antenna with connector that contains a simple circuit. You can use any of our billions of existing connectors throughout the world to charge your car / phone / device. Just plug one end of the antenna into your device's charging port, and the other end of the antenna to the nearest connector found on almost every wall and let it do its job.

[@kratz9]

Ya know, even if the magic beam forming worked, and you were somehow able to deliver the full 1 Watt to the device being charged, that would effectively make the device a 1 watt MASER. Like imagine a crowd full of people, and cell towers are basically blasting the crowd with microwave weapons. Even if this could work, you wouldn't want it to work!

[@mazdaman1286]

It's a winner !! I have put you on pause because its Sunday morning and I am going to make some toast and coffee in my rf powered Wigl devices.......I may be a while....

[@NielsHeusinkveld]

A lot of wireless transfer of money..

[@robbedoeslegrand236]

Their powertransmitter makes sure that there is no room for competition in the wallsocket. ;)

[@thgftiigghjfryyhgjiyreg8945]

imagine being an employee in this company. the horror of the strategy meetings and endless sales pitching

[@MrPolwathRojchalermritra]

So the same as Theranos.

[@UhOhUmm]

What employee, this is a garage level scam.

[@ploegmma]

The question is “who is smarter?” guys (engineers) that bust their ass making sensible things or the marketeers who are sipping a cocktail with the money they made from the abundant dumb couch potato??

[@billr3053]

43:20 ".. that'd be real quality smoke and mirrors then!" That's what I was hoping for. I want my smoke & mirrors to be premium deluxe!

[@EfficientEnergyTransformations]

Great debunking!. You should look at the nonsense of wireless-charging of moving cars infrastructure being proposed, apparently currently tested, at Indiana, USA

[@ikocheratcr]

There is some logic to the wireless vehicle charging, road is half transformer,vehicle is the other side, but efficiency is pretty low < 20% IIRC, extremely expensive. The best case I have seen in the intertubes, is a charging system for buses at each stop, so while the buss is waiting for people to get in and out, the charging takes place. Tell me about charge anxiety.

[@lofaszjoska6336]

This bullsheet would be illegal in Europe or in Japan, it is far over the legal EIRP limit.

[@DarkGT]

To get successful at those startups you need good science fiction writing skills and shiny graphics of the magical properties of the invention.

[@electronicsandcode]

20:15 - A current senese with 1 OM? OM? I wish I could be this clueless and still find so many idiots giving me money... What an easy life it would be.

[@nameredacted1242]

Why not??? At small current levels they are using, it's actually an appropriate sense resistor value, to get any meaningful voltage across it!!!!!!!

[@electronicsandcode]

@@nameredacted1242 First of: Punctuation marks do not like to be in packs. They need distance. To your question: It's not about the value of the resistor, it's about them not being able to write "Ohm" correctly...

[@nameredacted1242]

​@@electronicsandcode Kevin, if they also can't do math correctly, don't know the difference between mA and mW, why do you care if they can't spell Ohm???

[@ikocheratcr]

@@nameredacted1242 You are assuming they even know what the units are. 5V @ 5mA = 25mA, so "mA" is something that multiplied by the "V"s gives you "mA". Perfect, in their book.

[@guser436]

@@electronicsandcode what is a senese?

[@AndyFletcherX31]

The iPhone charging system with the scope had the RF power source directly coupled to the energy harvesters without any free space path loss. Not really surprising they could get more than a couple of mW. The walk test didn't show what power was being transferred either.

[@Hyxtryx]

Notice how the phone went black while they were in front of the last transmitter? They probably just timed it so the phone screen would sleep/lock at the "right" time.

[@nameredacted1242]

Dave, they DO say what output power is! They mis-typed 25mA. Should be 25mW. So, 25mW at four feet PER MODULE (ideal conditions). Then they are using briefcase-sized transmitter and receiver to then transmit sub-watt power at four feet. It works!!!

[@EEVblog]

Yep, absolutely it "works"!

[@nameredacted1242]

@@EEVblog This video (among others of course, but this video is all demonstration, none of typical BS), taking us back to magnetic coupling, is a thousand times more usable: kzbin.info/www/bejne/omm8aH9omrlrjac

[@Hyxtryx]

They typed 52ma. They multiplied 0.52 volts by 100, instead of dividing by 100. (I'm surprised they didn't call it 52 amps). And they typed OHM's several times, incorrectly adding an apostrophe in there, and capitalizing the letters as if it was an acronym. And that "9x9 grid" when they only had 6 in there really bugged me.

[@nameredacted1242]

@@Hyxtryx Can we STOP doing free engineering for these MORONS?

[@antibrevity]

There are lots of "favorite" bits to this, but one that stood out to me was when the guy shows an array of antennas, harvesting boards, and "trigger" circuits attached to a large bank of caps and says that they just need to clean up the wiring.

[@Lucky32Luke]

"All hail the white paper!" (reference to Thunderf00t) It made me laugh so hard my tears came out. Thanks Dave for the debunking again. Isn't it possible that one of the most successful industry nowadays is leaching on the uneducated and scam the shit out of them? Magical devices are grown from the soil of cluelessness.

[@primateinterfacetechnologi6220]

Most likely you will not be, but in my opinion you should be, awarded something for that last sentence... Due to the elegant, (eloquent?) statement contained therein. In a different, better universe... all thinking people would agree. If any of it were real, terms like "supernatural" would be unnecessary- as regular "natural" would suffice. Peace be upon you.

[@Lucky32Luke]

@@primateinterfacetechnologi6220 Thanks a lot. It made my day. ;)

[@primateinterfacetechnologi6220]

@@Lucky32Luke I'm glad. peace.

[@AndrewWilsonOz]

To transmit power at the levels required, on those frequencies, it would flood that spectrum with noise, not be safe at close distances, and no way the FCC would ok it. At lower levels, it just would not work. It has to be at very close range ie: touching, and at a very low 5 to 7 watt range. We got those already. Seems they are ignoring the inverse square law in their product brief.

[@OzRetrocomp]

It can't be long until someone invents wireless solar freaking roadway EV charging. 🤣🤣

[@excitedbox5705]

solar is wireless

[@rogertheshrubber2551]

I absolutely **love** your debunking vids.

[@randykitchleburger2780]

If you spend over 50k you get a spot with community outreach 😂... It must be sickening to get duped out of that much money though

[@bertbrecht7540]

I believe the $4.8 million is in a kind of escrow at least until the full $5 million is raised perhaps allowing the investors to get out if they move quickly. Anyone have experience with this process? Can the investor list be obtained so they can be alerted to this fraud?

[@nukularpictures]

@@bertbrecht7540 Nope it is not. Since they reached their minimum of 10k. I am not sure if they are doing a rolling investment but if that would be the case the majority of the money is already invested into the company. And only startup engine has their details. I doubt you will be able to get taht .

[@janneaalto3956]

I got it! Pipeless Hydration! You just need to carry a small bottle with a patented locator chip and whenever you're in range of PH stations, they will spray water at your bottle! No waterpipes needed anymore!

[@ikocheratcr]

With a monthly subscription please. ;)

[@janneaalto3956]

@@ikocheratcr Oh yes! With spring water for premium subscribers.

[@mhadlock78]

If this actually worked, your wifi would turn your house into a giant microwave.

[@DrRusty5]

That'll save going to the kitchen to make Popcorn 😁

[@radiosonde.online8164]

Why the hell do I have a conscience I could make so much money. Earning well is the wrong word.

[@benni5541]

we dont yet know how this ends. Is it really worth the 10 years+ in jail for fraud etc for 5 million you even need to split between all your staff shown ?

[@InfernosReaper]

@@benni5541 Depends on their cut. It clearly won't be equal shares if they're gullible enough. You might spend 1 million tops on expenses, but more likely a fraction of that, especially after you start cutting staff and gutting the company, leaving few paid staff remaining and continuing to be the highest paid staff member. Agencies like the DoD are always throwing away R&D money on non-starter ideas, so no real worries on that front. The only hope is if those shares are actually legitimate that might lead to some minority shareholder protection laws kicking in, but probably not.

[@countzero1136]

@@benni5541 It's not really fraud though - it's just extracting money from people who are too stupid to do the research.

[@hgbugalou]

brb, I need to charge my wireless charger.

[@YouTomist]

The sliced globe thing is a “core diagram”. Looks neat. I’ll use it next time I have not so relevant data to put on a presentation.

[@briancox2721]

"sophisticated investor" and "common stock" are both legal terms to help slide this bottle of snake oil past the SEC. The first is to get past disclosure and solicitation rules so they can't be gotten for pump and dump as easily. The second means there is probably a "preferred stock" which grants additional rights to the holders over common stock holders. What those rights are depend on the company and stock (there can be different preferred stocks for the same company with different rights). But typically, the additional rights include higher dividends, first dibs on dividend distribution, and higher or additional voting rights for the board of directors. Common vs preferred stock can be used to extract more money from the common stock buyers while not risking loss of control of the board of directors or reducing dividend payouts for the preferred stock holders.

[@briancox2721]

@asdrubale bisanzio the beauty of owning shares in a company is that in most cases, the most the shareholders can lose is the cost of their initial buy in. So they won't be liable for the debts of the corporation when it goes bankrupt.

[@74LS_NE555]

I think you need a side channel for this 😂 this was pure gold , thanks for a good laugh

[@nashaut7635]

Rough estimations on the back of a napkin: it would take about 1.21 Gigawatt in a satellite to get approximately 42µW on the ground. But I may be off by like 2-3 orders of magnitude...

[@countzero1136]

Yeah, they've been talking about microwave energy beaming from space since at least the 1970s (which is when I first read about it). If it was that great an idea, I guess they'd probably have done it by now...

[@j.f.christ8421]

@@countzero1136 I think a 1.21 gigawatt joke just went over your head.

[@DHealey]

A reply to the latest comment on their start engine page reveals the truth "Lastly, WiGL’s #1 goal is name dominance. Meaning…In the year 2030…what will we universally call wireless power? WiGL’s business case and value proposition is that all forms of wireless power will be called WiGL. And we are patenting the tech so consumers can pay subscriptions for the convenience of wireless power services; similar to how consumer pay today for internet or WiFi…hence the name WiGL."

[@jjgriffin100]

I'm guessing a "compositor" is what is more usually referred to as a capacitor.

[@shazam6274]

A device which mixes mulch and manure.

[@j.f.christ8421]

In printing it's the person who does the layout (composition). I guess you could call the PCB designer that, but they don't seem to have one.

[@SomeMorganSomewhere]

Yeah, that looked like product of google translate but the people involved seem to be English speakers as their first language so *shrug*

[@YodaWhat]

Never trust a "smart" person or group who CAN'T SPELL or USE CORRECT WORDKING.

[@billr3053]

I'm surprised that even after 5 million $, staff that's paid, that no one could go to an electronics store and purchase a dozen ALIKE capacitors to make the prototype less dodgy looking. And yes, like Dave mentioned, instead of lighting up a smartphone's screen or indeed proving there is any charging going on, why don't they show a professional electronic load, or, heck, a nice Fluke meter measuring current flow through a simple resistor representing a real-world load representative of whatever device they claim they can charge.

[@tuttocrafting]

Yea! Another one of thoose, is so sad that even Tesla went mad on this topic!

[@TheEmbeddedHobbyist]

The so while charging your phone, you have properly swamped the wifi front end. So the batty will charge faster as there will be no point in trying to use WiFi anywhere near a charging station.

[@dejjal8683]

"Disabled Veteran" is the modern equivalent of "Family Owned and Operated", supposed to make you feel good or something.

[@robertj9511]

Also known as "Baby killer" in the normal world.

[@ferrumignis]

@@robertj9511 No, it's not known as that in the "normal" world. Left wing freaks use the term.

[@robertj9511]

@@ferrumignis Maybe, but that doesn't exclude the rest of the world. Last Veteran that deserved that name fought in the WW2.

[@microcolonel]

Disabled veteran magic overcomes thermodynamics, everyone knows that, Dave.

[@jon9103]

The high tech helmet probably has one of those newfangled blinking LEDs. Uncle Sam really knows a good deal when he sees it. 🤑🤑🤑

[@itemushmush]

hey it blinks in morse code, im sure the data transfer rate is gigabits per second :)

[@ohioaudits9160]

Yep, patent trolling. The key words in the patent are "exemplary embodiments". That means the actual devices don't have to resemble any of the drawings in the patent. How do you know if you violate their patent when you can't tell what the hell they've patented? And the "CEO" is the license agent for WiGL? That's convenient.

[@OfflineSetup]

the wiggles should sue for brining their brand into disrepute

[@MatthewWellings]

It looks suspiciously like they are putting => 1W into a directional (high gain) antenna. The 1W limit for 2.5Ghz WiFi in the US is EIRP meaning that in any given direction the power density must not exceed the density an antenna that transmits that 1W in all directions would give. In other words you are not allow to improve power density by using a high gain/directional or phased array antenna. When we also consider that in many other parts of the world the limit is 100mW EIRP then the power density will be a tiny fraction of what they used in their test.

[@cambridgemart2075]

Indeed, the test using 3W and a 21dBi antenna was radiating 380W EIRP!

[@excitedbox5705]

Their helmet is probably close distance inductive charging, like your phone uses. They put a coil in the seat and 1 in the helmet.

[@ikocheratcr]

I wonder why there will be a need to have the helmet get wireless power... The pilot is in a very special suit, connected to the seat, also strapped to the seat (think: in case of ejection); the seat already has the explosive bolts to disconnect from the airplane and cut any "link". One more wire that goes into helmet is nothing compared to all the other stuff in the hook up protocol, and there are cables designed to not break after lots of movement and stress (look at your tester leads, even cheap ones). The helmet does not use big power, if not it is heat in the pilot's head, not good (I wonder if these helmets are air cooled to help with sweating).

[@excitedbox5705]

@@ikocheratcr The helmet has a heads up display projected on the visor and the head movement aims the weapons. In the Apache helicopter the pilot can look through the cockpit floor and it moves a camera to show what is below him and also aims the gatling gun for the weapons officer. Making all this wireless means more freedom in head movement if the pilot needs to lean to see out the windshield or to brace himself for a turn. Anyone who has had a wired headset in a gaming chair knows the wires can be a pain in the ass.

[@ikocheratcr]

@@excitedbox5705 Agree with you on a gaming headset thingy, but I doubt the very expensive and critical to the role helmet a pilot will use will run into problems due to wiring. In this scenario "money is not a problem", a few $10k helmet wiring harness is nothing compared to the aircraft cost, and the pilot security to do the job. It is expensive, but needs to be put in context.

[@robbieaussievic]

...... Unrelated, looked at Davinci resolve a year or so ago and didn't get along well. Since you had a play I had a second look, (lockdown Victor-ria) and now impressed. Actually intuitive. (just the free version).

[@Commander_ZiN]

When you cleared your throat on the term investors all I heard was suckers.

[@BigBearJo]

Where can I bet against this company?? I want to make money? Another great video mate

[@alexanderthomas2660]

Even if they can get this technology as good as it can ever get with beam-forming and yadda yadda, it will still be the power transmission equivalent of using incandescent bulbs to obtain light. Pump kilowatts of energy into the environment and get maybe a few dozen watts back in any non-ideal situation. All the rest has to go somewhere, and most of it will become heat, which is not something we really are in short supply of these days. I'm really thankful for that commenter featured at 47:50, because he shows how at the business level which we engineers usually ignore, this looks specifically designed to be a rip-off.

[@GothAlice]

Square-cube law, man. The lightbulb analogy is shockingly apt.

[@evensgrey]

At least in Canada, "Common Stock" is equity that doesn't confer corporate control, "Preferred Stock" is equity that does confer corporate control.

[@cuteswan]

_“Captian! We need to reverse the plurality!”_

[@RR2BOX46]

The 100% Disabled Vet bullet was so they qualify (with preference) for every US Federal Govt contract. If this was truly a disabled vets idea, I'm 100% behind that, but if its just a disabled vet 'in name and qualification owned' only I strongly protest.

[@laser-sj]

Thats a BIG valuation for what is basically a diode and capacitor 😂

[@coctailrob]

1W input, 2.5milli watt output at 4 feet. That's a 0.25% efficiency They say you can charge your car! Lets assume an 8 foot distance. Inverse square law means that would be a quarter efficiency at double the distance, so that's 0.0625% efficiency So a 4KW charging power for an electric car would require at that efficiency an input of over 6 MegaWatts to the transmitter, and that's at a microwave frequency. Toasty!

[@carldurrell9943]

Be like having a massive Nuclear ☢️ Power Station to wireless transmit 📡⌚️power to little Casio wrist watch ⌚️ and only then when you are standing right next to it, invest in this technology, it works honest👍👍

[@gustavlicht9620]

Wireless power transfer is about beamforming really tight beams. To get really tight beams you need huge antennas and short wavelengths. There is no magic here. Significantly more pain than running a wire or putting a solar panel.

[@garyhart6421]

How can they patent an off the shelf component ? Who would invest in such an inefficient product ?

[@ikocheratcr]

Apparently 4752 or more people.

[@michael.a.covington]

As a child in 1964, I had a Knight-Kit electronics "lab," basically a breadboard, with over 100 circuits. Several of them were "air-powered" gadgets, meaning the output of a crystal radio, tuned to a nearby AM station, was retified and used to deliver a small amount of power to something else. Just a novelty...