[Noisebridge-discuss] wireless and battery-free power switches?

Andy Isaacson adi at hexapodia.org
Fri Apr 30 22:18:40 UTC 2010


On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 02:48:33PM -0700, Lee Sonko wrote:
> Carlo Contavalli wrote:
> > not as cool as most of the stuff in this mailing list, but has anyone
> > tried any of them?
> > 
> > Do you know of a shop in SF where I could buy (and play with) some?
> > 
> > 
> > I was looking at stuff like:
> > 
> > http://www.adhocelectronics.com/Products/Wireless-Lighting-Control
> > 
> > or
> > 
> > http://www.prestostore.com/cgi-bin/pro17.pl?ref=lightningonlineorder1867&ct=
> > 65848&rdf=go

For $30, let's just get one for NB and see how it works.  I'd be happy
to put $15 towards a purchase -- I've been curious about these for
years.

> A friend of mine in Berkeley has two of the first ones you mentioned.
> 
> You push them fairly hard (maybe 8 lbs) and then they make a snap, switching
> the outlet on or off. It's almost definitely a piezo-electric thing like a
> bbq lighter. If you push them very gently, or slam them really hard (like
> one 8 year old occupant is fond of doing) they work only 80% of the time.
> But for normal humans, they work fine.

They've transitioned from piezo to unspecified "electromagnetic energy
sources" according to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EnOcean

-andy



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