Turning Your Home Wiring Into a Giant Antenna 135
An anonymous reader writes with this IBT snippet: "Imagine if you could run a wireless sensor device for years without ever having to replace the battery. Turns out, the idea of a battery-less wireless device might not be too far off. Researchers at the University of Washington and the Georgia Institute of Technology developed a small node sized device that uses the residential wiring from a building or home and transmits information to and from almost anywhere else from within. The device is called Sensor Nodes Utilizing Powerline Infrastructure, or SNUPI. It uses basic copper wiring as a giant antenna to receive wireless signals at a set frequency. When the device is within 10 to 15 feet of electrical wiring, it uses the antenna to send data to a single base station." (For "node-sized," think "size of a breakfast cereal prize.")
Re:Breakfast what? (Score:2, Informative)
For those of you who have never eaten or purchased pre-sweetened "kids" cereals, popular breakfast cereals marketed to children in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West often have a little toy stuffed in them. A famous (infamous?) example that may be an urban legend is a plastic whistle that once came in Cap'n'Crunch cereal boxes that (allegedly) blew a tone of 2600 Hz [wikipedia.org], the exact frequency needed to place free phone long-distance phone calls on AT&T's POTS network.
Re:Bet the HAM guys are gonna love this (Score:5, Informative)
This new "node-sized" device consumes 1mW when transmitting and the home wiring is used as a receiving antenna. If HomePlug radiated this much, ham guys would be really happy.
Re:Units (Score:5, Informative)
It's 3.8 cm by 3.8 cm by 1.4 cm [washington.edu] (second page, first column, second paragraph).
Re:Funny name (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Easier ways (Score:1, Informative)
snooki. I'm not proud of the fact that I know that, however.
They didn't describe the powerline! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Breakfast what? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't have one, but I do remember them. The Wikipedia article on the cereal [wikipedia.org] has citable references. And a little googling [google.com] turns up photos of the whistle.