Mobile No charging required

Cellphones charged with ambient RF signals never needs recharging.

In what might seem to be an outrageous statement, Nokia Research Center has stated that the company is working on a prototype device that never needs power from a wall socket, as it gets all the power it needs from ambient radio waves to recharge its built-in battery. A researcher at the research center claims that electromagnetic radiations emitted from Wi-Fi transmitters, cellphone antennas, TV masts and other sources can be converted into electricity provided the system itself doesn’t consume more energy than it generates.


The Nokia prototype device is capable of harnessing about 50mW of power from these ambient radio waves, which is enough to keep the phone running in standby mode for an indefinite period of time. This same charge also tops up the battery, which is great for users who don’t often use their cellphones for long duration calls.

The system works on the same principles as an RFID tag, which is by converting electromagnetic waves into electricity using a low-power circuit. Skeptics believe that harvesting 50mW of electricity from electromagnetic waves alone does seem to be a tough ask. If Nokia is actually developing such a device, it will need a device that can sum up the energy of different frequencies.