EEVblog #1224 - uBeam is Sinking!

hi yes everyone's favorite impractical technology you beam is back in the news because it looks like they've finally come in a gutter but not without some last-minute hilarity so let's take a look at it they've been in the news for several reasons one is that definitely check out Paul Reynolds blog Paul Reynolds if you don't know is he writes the lies damned lies and startup PR blog awesome you should subscribe to this how do you subscribe well as new fangled RS this thing's former chief technical officer CTO of you beam and live you be have apparently laid off around half their employees so yeah all look we've got some transducer technology down here so anyway it's a very lengthy article highly recommend you take a look and by the way Paul's also on Twitter social you should follow him over there and I'm also on Twitter as what we should follow me on Twitter cuz I tweet like a boss anyway I always Tweety look I just found it is the networks which in the dumpster was at the latest tear down video spoiler alert yeah follow me on Twitter anyway um you beam have a new funky look in web site look at this always on wireless energy through ultrasound ultra safe you'll see this safe thing mentioned over and over again ultra simple ultrasound technology now long-range wireless power reliably and safely are always on will get into the long-range part of it shortly you be is proprietary transducers transmitters receivers and software to live a Wire free power at a distance of meters to units ranging from Internet of Things devices medical and aerospace systems to portable electronics products a turnkey hardware and software solution turnkey they've now magically just got a turnkey solution you can just don't because if you don't know like I did we cover this note I think poor Paul definitely covered it on his blog that you beam they sucked of course their CEO art Meredith they booted her ass out the door and they replaced her with the chief financial officer the CFO what I know what high tech startup etype company has a chief financial officer promoted to CEO you beam of course anyway then they finally got someone decent in as CEO to steer the Titanic until it sinks and that's what it looked like happining now with yes second half the company they just ran out of money well they couldn't raise any more money going through a huge cash burn raid all the details are sort of in here speculation of what say you know the reasons behind it but it's almost certainly that they're simply just running out of cash they can't raise any more the investors don't want to give them any more I think there is still money you know like promised to them but they're being held back and like I don't think they're dumb enough to give them any more money anyway so they're going to be frugal and yeah looks like everyone including the chief financial officer is now gone you can go check up her profile on Twitter I won't bore you with the details but anyway let's check out take a look at the website oh look at this look at this look at their new transmitter they've got here look at this it's super small if you actually go to you beams Twitter page I've had to log out here in a different browser because they blocked me I wonder why anyway you can see the history of their like their transmitters over here here we go January 2018 it was this enormous thing here probably taken hundreds of what's in put a kilowatt or something because it's not very efficient anyway and then they've shrunk that down in March 2018 good item and now it looks like they've got it down to what looks like this thing here so that's their new transmitter which I think they give away with their if you join their partner thing and you want to team up with them because they don't sell products anymore you've been obviously completely given up on the dream of selling any sort of like especially to charge your phone as we'll get into so yeah they're looking for b2b or business to business customers now that's where they've pivoted to they should have pivoted to that you know now how long have you been going seven almost eight years or something they should have pivoted to that like six years ago you know a year into it could have told you that this thing just you know charging your mobile phone we just was a ridiculous idea anyway so the shrunk that down whether or not they're getting the same output power from that or where you're physically smaller raised it's still 145 DB Apple power we don't know but with the transition to the Internet of Things stuff they it may just be a physically smaller transmitter because they've realized it's not very efficient and we can't transfer you know what's tens of watts hundreds of watts thousands of watts that they were promising previously on their website where you know they'd power large flat-screen TVs that take hundreds of what's I'd be powering everything unbelievable anyway so they've got this new small transmitter this smart agriculture um yeah we'll get into the distance thing but yeah if you've got a big sort of you know green house e-type thing as we'll see in the power figures shortly four per distance which the CEO has just published thank you very much that you're not going to get more than a couple of meters and they even then you look at it tens of millions to power little sensors it's just silly so you know anyway so industrial look at this industrial Internet of Things look at all these things that you can be powered what L in the factory fantastic smart even though already like you know you've got like power running all along the walls here and everything else but no use you beam sure where's that guy yet there we go they've got the transmitters up on the roof there you go so it brilliant smart living of course I look it can power like a census up on the wall it can is that there no that's not there that's a one of those nest stupid nasty things ago thermostat control can power your iPad yeah sure consumer electronics look I still so it can power your laptop there's still tablets and everything else all at once one transmitter sure is just going to be able to handle all of these devices on the bench aerospace look at this you can put one of the you beam things inside a jet engine that's where you need it because oh yeah you want to transmit it from one side of the fare into the other and get power of a little sensor on the other side of the ferry you want the super awesome reliable you beam technology inside a jet engine yeah sure oh and the wheels look wheel sensors you can have like a little you mémé transmitter on the bottom of the plane and it could like beam the power down to the wheels as they come on automotive because you want to use it inside a car and medical look at this you can power everything in your medical suite using just pump out 145 DB of ultrasound everywhere all over your operating theater that's what you want no workers all right how you been works your brands proprietary transmit we've seen the ASIC before being forming algorithms the computer vision optional tracking as you'll see this transmitter that have actually got up here I don't believe this does any tracking whatsoever we'll see this in the video in a minute it's purely they've demoed this before Theater here the demo summit or whatever oh yeah there it is there's like an early version of it there you go didn't have the extra things on the top looks very similar you can see that it is not to see that it is not tracking it has no phased-array tracking at all but they're bigger one over here which didn't work at first and then it eventually if it eventually did that one has the vision tracking with the silly little white square on the back of the little doodad there you might have been able to see that and it it just visually tracks that and it's just silly of course they in a previous video I've done debunking this thing of course it's if no practice err it is the little white tracking window on there and of course that's absolutely no use whatsoever because well got your mobile phone you have to sit at their face down and you can't use it when it's let's just not go there it's ridiculous I've already debunked it and it's so safe the safety of sound yeah cuz they've probably realized that you can't pump out 145 DB so I reckon the new transmitters not doing that organs doing at a lower level for this site Internet of Things stuff that they've pivoted to anyway they've got a new video do you want to see it of course you do welcome to a world powered by you beam ultrasonic wireless energy we're safe and reliable contact free wireless power can keep your la look at this right the guy that like they're still employing that you can charge your mobile phone I it doesn't even have their ridiculous like bigger brick yeah it doesn't even have this ridiculous big brick thing on the back of it and doesn't even have that and you and of course yeah hand would be even if you had it on the back there you handed be covering the damn thing I know I've done this in the debunking video it's ridiculous and you're turning your head all the time and like it it's just Oh anyway they're still implying that you can do your mobile phone any to do the monitor the monitor it only takes like you know 20 watts 30 watts for a monitor or more unbelieva Wanek devices running no wires no battery changes in any application industrial any applica any application it's that good it's that universal remember it's a trillion dollar idea that Mark Cuban or whoever said is a trillion dollar idea absolutely look at this Ida forklift a forklift what on earth and do you like a whoa it comes up with this crap right and then what they got a transmitter on the roof were you hearing something on all this industrial machinery here what is this some sort of like CNC lathe or this is ridiculous well IOT networks smartlav and she looks happy look at the baby oh yeah look the blender over power your blender with you baby yeah they're only like what a thousand watts a five hundred watts or something for a blender no workers and what does it lights up here I don't know the rangehood look at that you've got two lamps in your range hood wow yeah and the sensor up on your wall here comes up with this stuff consumer electronics this is just ridiculous as if they gotta power all these things of the phone is face upwards you can't use it when it's face upwards where are they gonna put the transmitters are the receivers in in the keyboards of these netbooks you can't even get the power out of the smart agriculture agriculture yeah because you know that's only like that's only like 10 20 30 meters away 50 meters away from the transmitters here but it's gonna work a treat you're lucky if you get microwatts out of it at that distance aerospace their jet engine America all the medical stuff automotive oh yeah because you know you definitely want it in your car in the entertainment like navigation consoles and stuff that are already in there and hardwired into the car that's where you need your power your ultrasound just have it up above you in the car and then you can just beams everything down sure yeah wherever you need to keep critical spaces charged and always on you the best is so bad you imagine combining a nest III don't know if this is a natural nest but they imagine combining the boondoggle that is the nest sensor with technology it's a match made in heaven on you beams turnkey hardware and solutions solutions turnkey hardware this receiver works with these lids apparently the lids are just directly connected across the ultrasonic sensor so it if it receives enough energy power sled right I believe this directly I don't think there's any active circuitry inside this thing in fact they implied as much in the demo look you can say that this thing is moving yet the LEDs aren't really moving much in their look or what are all these dead spots and things like like it's not even like it it's pointing up if you look at the angle maybe there's some parallax like the angle they filmed it evident like it moves and the lady hardware software solutions with give you the ability to keep Network sensors and devices runnings harvest and learn from the data el duderino busting all these factory equipment you can all without using radio frequency waves is the red lasers or electromagnetic interference I'm afraid realizes yeah with the infrared lasers there that's the recharge that I've also I haven't really debunk that that does work but it's like once again it's impractical you beam works in quote marks it's just impractical for any kind the ultrasound waves bounce right off the bottom you use safe for you and everyone around she looks at vultures and everyone around you choose ultra safe ultra simple ultrasounds or technology like when sea waves who target this crap - obviously pivoted towards b2b customers that's a fact and as if any company any technology company looking for a wireless charging solution like this is going to go look at you beam and go oh yeah look at her watch this video I'm sold yeah we need to partner with them because we can integrate it into all of our products that would just be magical it's unbelievable like well no wonder they haven't announced and they're not going to get any customers taking this seriously somebody's probably just sitting in the background who might need this for some really niche technology and I don't like it there is still some niche value in this for niche applications maybe you know ultra low power Internet of Things sensors that you know you have a direct transmitter at it because it's the best solution you might need it over two or three meters or something like that you might need you know like a few little tens of millions or something like that and indeed my end you don't care about the efficiency at my but you know there's got to be Nisha applications for it but it's definitely not gonna make him any money so there's probably some supplier or manufacturer or whatever just sitting back out you Bheema gonna go I'm that they're gonna go I'm just gonna pick this up for pennies on the dollar they're just not gonna buy why why licensed the technology now when you can pick it up in six months time when they go bust you'll be able to pick up the IP for a song automotive this is your power your wireless world your wireless world fantastic I I'm sold thank you very much you babe 125 issued patents and applications unlimited potential unlimited potential if you partner up with you beam always on wireless energy absolutely ridiculous anyway there's more there's more because the CEO this is actually old this happened back in April the CEO presented at this summit thing and it's got some interesting stuff in the video so let's have a look this guy does know his stuff but he's that like obviously being handed the empty bag you know Stuart is best so I love this this meme that somebody hacked the basic human needs which you know it's basically better a shelter Wi-Fi because we walk around with our point Amin connectivity to the internet it's useless so what we really need to do is solve the second half of the problem which is always on wireless energy without wires without having to worry about charging or changing batteries it's so enthusiastic I don't know if it's a yeah he's not very good at public speaking or whatever or he's just knows he's been handed the soggy bag of Technology and it's just trying his best oh my god like I feel sorry for him either he's tried his best but he's just yeah it's like I've got to try and flog this technology to someone and that's what I've been put a CEO for to just hope find a buyer for this turd and poor guy feel sorry for he came from images images which is of course I haven't done the video images for Paul Reynolds has done heaps of videos on energist and it's basically a scam it's a it's floated on the stock market it's a basically a competitor RF technology to a wireless charging a competitor to you beam and well yeah that's just poor anyway he comes from there so from one sinking ship to another I don't be putting short options on images let's just say that so they're just like projecting what the markets gonna be for wireless energy opportunities and they think they've got a chance with impractical technology they've got some some chance in some niche application but as I said somebody who's just by for pennies on the dollar in six months when the money eventually runs out and once again yeah they're just targeting like not phone not really consumer anymore they're targeting Internet of Things and warehouses and also agriculture and all that so the Weinke stuff but yeah anyway there's some interesting stuff in this video now here is this is interesting they've got their own sensor transducer technology which is very Murata off-the-shelf like a bit we've seen various incarnations of their possible sensors we saw a photo back there as well with the perforated holes around the outside of what looks like a focus in array or focus in a cone on the top or something like that and they've got this interesting transducer act like heat map energy heat map by the looks of it now I won't go into the details here because Paul's already done that things here well there's the sensor tag yet here he talks about the the heat mapping of course he's the former CTO he knows what he's talking about so he goes into some detail about the technical you know tries to analyze it all I so I won't go through that again you can read that for yourself I highly recommend you do and in here they've got a the delivered power at a distance and here you go you beam technology can deliver Watts up to one meters in fact we'll see in the next slide contradicts this slide because they can't do what's past a meter so yeah oh I can't even do what's a Demeter so it's tens of hundreds of millivolts or one or two meters in 10 milliwatts beyond 2 meters I think that might say down here and they've got this interesting focused power here distance and Paul shows in his long he actually from the arrays size he actually calculates the focus and they say it's at 2 meters here but he calculates the focus point based on the dimensions and everything else at 1.2 meters and that's actually about where the energy so I think Paul's spot-on that's about where the hotspot energy is it's not a two meters so I don't know whether or not that's real data whether it's just simulated data we we just don't know anyways silly and they don't have any side lobes grating lobes or anything like that which is kind of weird but anyway Paul goes into all that detail in his blog so if you're interested in the technical details of that now here's the money shot here is the money shot they've never released once they've never released their efficiency figures this doesn't include efficiency but this is usable power on the y-axis here versus distance and look this guy here's the but you beam ultrasound technology in the blue here this is the current generation and this is the you beam ultrasound next generation which they're employees who are no longer with them are gonna work on so yeah oops there will be no next generation you babe and as if they can suddenly double the efficiency or more of it come on give me a break anyway look currently I look I love how they have put and these big ellipses in here to sort of like Pat it out and make it look like it's sort of better than what it is you can actually draw to get the real figure which will be a best-case figure because they always do best-case in these sorts of that scenarios is to draw a straight line from there from the tip down to this tip down here so a straight line through there like that is what you'll realist realistically get best case because there's no way are they gonna leave their best case off the table and look at this it one what one what right which is nowhere near even the 500 million charging current of the old-school phones at two-and-a-half Watts up here at five volts like it's nowhere near and that's it like what 15 to 20 centimeters like this far away they can't even pop it one more like can't even barely do one what their they could actually deliver I'm sure they can deliver more power do that you just pump more power in but there's air saturation and things like that but I'm sure they could if they pumped enough energy in but they probably realized well they can't do that because there's various requirements and safety standards for like they can't pump out the 145 DB they claimed before so this new transmitter they got may actually pump out a lot less than that and that's why they're only getting the one what here but they won't tell you the efficiency the efficiency is going to be horrible Paul actually says it could be as high as like 30% the efficiency and that's possible but he doesn't think it's that high but he sort of calculates that based on the numbers but he still doesn't believe it so yeah it's gonna be much worse and and as it drops off with the distance it's gonna be bugger all so yeah look at this at a meter you're only talking like 0.7 watts or something like that and it two meters you're only talking like point three point three five watts I mean it's bugger all so they're never going to get this next generation thing they're not going to suddenly magically the oompa-loompas at the ultrasonic sensor Factory I got a pump out and suddenly twice as efficient transducers so yeah it's just no yeah and they've got no staff to work on anyway so thinking tight on it so that's the best case so if they haven't published sort of this sort of stuff before it's interesting to think that they think there's a huge market in this and based on this this is why they make them ellipses like this I look at the amount of range it's you know it's a psychological trick look at the amount of range of market because really the the area on this graph is the market that you can capture but is that market they're like no right and there's got tons of impractical stuff in you being that they're not factoring in this is under ideal case with that transmitter which is not phased array it's just direct it's just fixed direction like that just pumping it out and yeah I know anyway they they have a small niche and they're making it look better than what it actually is because look if you look at the induction over here right that's in every mobile phone at the moment right that's your Archie charger that's it everyone's doing that right you can buy a cheap charge of a five bucks and delivered on eBay and you can charge your phone currently so anyway that's an interesting graph but once again no efficiency figures don't I'll never tell you cuz that's horrible and why you beam always on wireless energy unless you need to track the thing and then it's not gonna work ability to charge devices and distances of five meters without wires or batteries well you're gonna run into like you know you doubt in the tens of millions region or something you down in the bug or all proven safe non-invasive technology not limited by FCC power regulations but there are regulations for maximum ultra sound energy and things like that so yeah they can't do the original 145 DB they claimed simple hardware and software does solutions blah blah blah so they claim that they actually have turnkey solutions available that you as a client to be a b2b client can integrate in your products whether they do or not I don't know protected by more than 100 patents which you'll be able to pick up the intellectual property for a song when they go bust in six months free and us all from battery anxiety once again the only battery anxiety we have a notebooks and phones these higher power devices which they can't do that their own graphs and numbers and you could have said that seven eight years ago anyone within any engineer with half a brain could have seen that with a focus on critical solutions first convenient solutions second so convenience solutions are you consumer stuff and they know that market is shot and all they've got is critical critical no one's gonna use it for anything critical that's ridiculous anyway there's some niche products out there anyway poor Simon McElroy I I feel sorry for him he's left holdin the soggy bag and he's got to try and promote this it doesn't sound that infinity this est Kabaddi I did so for true always on power you feel the energy argent distances of up to 5 meters unintended and proven safe this is the way to do it its way to do it entering the market place this year and you're in products entering the marketplace but they they haven't named anyone that they've teamed up with no one's gonna bother because they'll just sit back and it's not gonna happen my service is up thank you you beams seven years is up the Gonski anyway enough of poking fun at ub they're pretty much gone ski so if you liked the video please give it a big thumbs up and as always you discussed in the comments down below or over in the EUV blog forum in particular the you beam FAQ thread which frequently asked questions which is enormous it's like a hundred pages long fantastic or a bedtime reading anyway I thought we couldn't finish off the video without hearing some words of wisdom from the founder herself Meredith Perry because well it's just such a fantastic TED talk and challenged you to sit through the whole like 15 minutes of it I'll link it in at the end somewhere here and down below but take away Meredith for each technological hurdle deemed insurmountable by the experts I would spend just a few hours thinking about the problem from a variety of approaches so I was able to solve problems when the PhD experts couldn't with just a few hours of really simple research every single argument over why the technology couldn't work has been indisputably wrong has taught me to be skeptical of experts the expertise represented a narrow way of looking at things engineers are inherently linear thinkers and tend to take a very binary approach to solving problems as a non expert I had an advantage because I could look at a problem from different angles because I just didn't know it was possible by thinking outside the box by thinking around corners you can out think the top thinkers and now eight months later I have four of the top ultrasonic engineers in the world working for me we're working with me it's going to work and it's going to be awesome and I can't wait to give the middle finger and smiled all the engineers that criticize the crap out of me I married this is why you beam it will never work on [Music]

Channel: EEVblog

Views: 92,586

Keywords: eevblog, video, ubeam, mark cuban, wireless power, energous wireless charging, ubeam wireless charging, debunk, debunking, meredith Perry, ultrasound (industry), ultrasonic wireless charging, wireless phone charging

Id: t1R9IQF0Y9s

Length: 29min 34sec (1774 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 25 2019