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without incurring unsustainable
maintenance overheads.
The exciting opportunity
for IoT device designers
Batteries are an effective way of
powering many consumer electronics
devices, but in IoT and industrial
scenarios, they’re not necessarily
suitable. With the need to deploy
at scale and with mains power
typically unavailable, the overhead of
periodically recharging or replacing
batteries would quickly become
unsustainable.
But by using modern RF, solar or
thermal energy-harvesting with low-
power components in low-power
designs, manufacturers can now
create batteryless devices. And by
incorporating e-paper displays into
their kit, designers can add whole
new ways for humans to interact
with industrial and IoT gear, free
of the challenges that come with
battery-reliant devices.
Scott is CEO of Pervasive
Displays and has over a decade of
experience in software in addition
to 12 years working in displays
businesses. During his career,
Scott has been a founding partner
at four start-up companies,
including Pervasive Displays.
Scott sits on the board of several
other technology businesses as
a consulting partner. He was
a board member of One Laptop
Per Child (OLPC), which looks to
provide children in developing
countries with a rugged, low-
cost,
low-power,
connected
laptop. Scott has an MBA from
the Haas School of Business
at the University of California,
Berkeley as well as a BA from
the University of Michigan at Ann
Arbor, US.
e-paper display is readable without
a backlight. Moreover, where LCDs
require a constant current to display
even a static image (due to their
continual need to refresh), e-paper
is bistable, meaning once an image
is in place, it consumes no energy.
Power is only required to change
what’s shown on an EPD. Better
still, the current required to update
modern e-paper displays, such as
those from Pervasive Displays, can
be as little as 2 mA.
Because e-paper doesn’t require a lot
of energy, and what’s on the display
remains visible even in the absence
of a power source, it’s perfect for
use in industrial and IoT scenarios. It
also means it’s ideal for RF, thermal
or solar energy-harvesting.
The Toppan batteryless
EPD with RFID tag
While energy-harvesting can’t
be used in every situation, it’s
sufficient to drive some surprisingly
sophisticated devices. Take Toppan
Printing Co. Ltd.’s new batteryless
EPD with a built-in RFID tag. This
gives the dual benefit of being
readable by machines and humans.
The device works using RF energy
harvested from the NFC reader or
writer. It’s available with displays
between 1.44 and 2.7 inches, and is
under 7 mm thick. It has sufficient
memory to store three images, which
can be shown on its EPD, as well as
884 bytes of RFID data.
Toppan’s batteryless EPD is aimed
at the logistics and warehousing
markets, where it can take the place
of paper labels in manufacturing and
to manage assets or inventories.
Thanks to the built-in RFID facility, the
tag is also machine-readable, thereby
enabling easier and automated
tracking. Crucially, because it doesn’t
require a battery, the device can be
used for large-scale deployments
Embedded Solutions
Special Edition
Figure 2: Toppan’s batteryless EPD with built-in RFID tag (Source:
Toppan Printing)
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