Nowi: Enabling the Internet of Things

January 6, 2019 Las Vegas, USA: Dutch semiconductor firm Nowi and Swiss module company MMT (Manufacture Modules Technologies SA) announce commercial availability of the new MMT 285EH module for use in hybrid smartwatches.

The solar power module offers a package of Nowi energy harvesting power management , Nordic semiconductor Bluetooth communication, accelerometer functionality, and smartphone connectivity in an extremely small module footprint previously unavailable. By utilizing Nowi’s advanced energy harvesting integrated circuit, MMT is able to offer watchmakers a platform to design unique hybrid smartwatches that eliminate the need to be charged by consumers.

Phillipe Fraboulet – CEO MMT “The ability to offer a watch providing a unique sustainable technical solution is important to our clients and their brands. Our customers are known for tradition and craftsmanship that they have cultivated over many decades, but they aren’t standing still, they want some of the latest technology while not sacrificing aesthetics and tradition. Durability and ease of use are key for our customers and this complete module offering from MMT and Nowi helps them make that first big step.”

“ MMT has understood from the beginning the opportunity that a greatly reduced energy harvesting PCB footprint offers for hybrid watches. Nowi has been able to combine the reduced bill of materials with top energy harvesting performance. Especially the fast Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) has proven to be key in enabling hybrid watch applications. As the user moves the angle and type of light are continuously changing and this forces the energy harvesting chip to continuously adapt to retain the highest conversion efficiency. Nowi’s MPPT is able to adapt in less than a second which in practice means significantly more harvested energy.”

Simon van der Jagt – Nowi CEO

Visit Nowi at CES press announcement January 7^th 12:00 at the Sands convention center, Dutch Pavilion Stand, Swiss-made sample watches will be available to view.

About NOWI: NOWI is a private semiconductor firm from Delft, the Netherlands, founded in 2015. Their expertise is in energy harvesting (low) power management IC and IP design. The company is focusing on enabling IoT and consumer product applications to become ‘Plug & Forget’.

• Website: https://nowi-energy.com
• Email: info@nowi-energy.com

About MMT: Manufacture Modules Technologies SA is a Swiss company specializing in the delivery of complete Horological Smartwatch modules including; firmware, apps and cloud management software.

• Website: https://mmt.ch/
• Email: info@mmt.ch

Download the press kit: Link

November 21, 2019 – Delft, The Netherlands: Investors from Disruptive Technology Ventures (DTV) announce a substantial additional Series A investment round for semiconductor firm Nowi.

Initial DTV funding in March 2018 in conjunction with Dutch government backing enabled Nowi to reach several key milestones towards commercialization of its unique patented energy harvesting integrated circuit. Pushing past established competitors such as Texas Instruments, Analog Devices and others with a novel multi-patented process, Nowi is now readying commercial release for 2020.

Investors from DTV have confirmed a new fund to accelerate the commercialization of Nowi’s semiconductor.

Ad Scheepbouwer – Investor from DTV: “DTV has an investment philosophy that centers around disruptive and enabling technologies that address global markets. Nowi’s energy harvesting fits seamlessly in this profile. Over the last two years, we have seen them grow the team to a professional organization, their commercial efforts have created a highly promising sales funnel and the technology has transitioned from a promising technology to a mature product. As such, DTV is very excited to take the lead in this new round of funding and support them as this technology is commercialized globally.”

Menno van de Marel – Investor from DTV: “Connecting millions of devices presents all sorts of problems that do not play a part on smaller scales. Particularly as different applications will have their own distinct set of challenges. Part of what has excited DTV to lead the new round of investment in Nowi is how their technology is able to address some of the challenges that very diverse IoT, consumer and semiconductor applications all share. Size and cost are always determining factors in the economic feasibility of an application and even more so due to the high volume and low price points of products in these markets.   Compared to all other PMIC alternatives on the market Nowi has been able to decrease the PCB assembly footprint by 97% and reduce the BOM cost by $1 per device, while still having top efficiency performance.” 

“This new $10m series A round of funding enables Nowi to further grow the team and complete the transition from start-up to a mature organization, while still retaining a majority position in the company. As we launch our first NW-A2.3 Energy Harvesting PMIC product in the first half of 2020 we will further expand our commercial activities. This also enables collaborations with partners with a longer time horizon.”

Simon van der Jagt – Nowi CEO

About NOWI: NOWI is a private semiconductor firm from Delft, the Netherlands, founded in 2015. Their expertise is in energy harvesting (low) power management IC and IP design. The company is focusing on enabling IoT and consumer product applications to become ‘Plug & Forget’.

Contact us:

• Website: www.nowi-energy.com
• Email: info@nowi-energy.com
• Download the press kit: Link

Announced today at CES Unveiled in Amsterdam, Nowi is officially selected as one of the most 50 innovative Dutch companies to be present from 7 to 10 January 2020 at the world’s most prestigious technology event in Las Vegas – Consumer Electronics Show CES 2020. Together with the group of game-changing startups, his Royal Highness Prince Constantijn van Oranje, State Secretary for Economic Affairs and Climate, Mona Keijzer and Gerbert Kunst, Consul-General in San Francisco, will also be present in Las Vegas.

With approximately 200,000 visitors, CES is the largest technology fair in the world. Every year, the latest technologies and next-generation innovations are shown to the market. The focus this year is more than ever on presenting resilient technologies that will make the world future-proof and offer solutions to social and global challenges in the areas of the energy transition, healthy living, health and sustainability, water and food, and smart cities.

As one of 50 most innovative Dutch startups, we are proud to be with State Secretary for Economic Affairs @MonaKeijzer to ring the @euronext_nl bell, officially opening #CESUnveiled in Amsterdam.@TechleapNL @Constantijn14 @RVO_Nederland#NLinnovatief #Banenvandetoekomst https://t.co/Vb6XpFlq58

— Nowi (@nowi_energy) October 17, 2019

CES 2020 is a great opportunity to meet the Nowi team, learn more about our energy harvesting solution and discuss potential partnerships. Feel free to fill in the form below and set up a meeting with us at the event!

Request a meeting at CES Las Vegas 2020:

More details can be found at Techlead.nl’s official announcement. And don’t forget to follow our social media for more frequent updates.

Another quarter of 2019 has passed. Here at Nowi our summer was filled with fantastic activities and events. We welcomed visitors from all over the world: Korea, China, the UK, Austria. And as a result, several exciting collaborations will be announced soon.

So, don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter or check our website for frequent updates.

Product Highlights

Events

The NiPS energy harvesting summer school

In September, Nowi’s engineers attended the NiPS Energy Harvesting Summer School in Perugia, Italy. Organized by EnABLES EU – European Infrastructure Powering the Internet of Things, the event gave us a great chance to exchange knowledge and discuss our projects with experts in energy harvesting from all over the world.

IFA Berlin and the upcoming world tour

Continuing the success of IFA Berlin where we had the chance to meet up and connect with several partners, in the next six months, Nowi team will have a very busy schedule with its “world tour”. From IoT Solutions World Congress Barcelona to CES Las Vegas, Nowi world tour will be a great opportunity to meet our team and discuss potential partnerships. 

Team Updates

Nowi team is growing fast. Within few weeks after moving to the new office, we’d already welcomed two new members to our team: Peter van der Hout – Head of Validation and Anirban Roy – Market Research Intern.

Peter van der Hout – Head of Validation

Peter has a few decades of IC validation and testing experience at leading technology firms, his work ensures the Nowi IC’s reliably perform as they should.

Anirban Roy – Market Research Intern

Roy is conducting research on developing markets in which Nowi’s energy harvesting technology can play a key role.

For more updates, visit our social media:

A comparative study to understand the economic and environmental impacts of the lithium battery and energy harvesting as two power solutions for the smart parking industry – White paper by Nowi’s Market Research Intern, Anirban Roy.

This video illustrates how by reducing the number of external components, Nowi’s PMIC can save you tens of thousands of euros bill of materials (BOM) cost.

While traditional solutions require over 15 external components and inductors to make a chip work, the Nowi PMIC needs only 1 external component and no inductor. It means that in order to make a product work properly, using the Nowi PMIC is over 15 times more cost-saving than other alternative solutions.

In other words, if an external component costs 7 cents on average and you want to produce 100.000 products, all the additional required components for traditional solutions will add €90.000. In comparison, the additional BOM cost for the Nowi PMIC only adds €7.000. It is a 94% reduction in BOM cost!

If you are interested in reducing your BOM cost by using Nowi’s advanced energy harvesting technology, feel free to contact us for more information or to set up a meeting with us:

Maximum power point tracking is a method to achieve the highest energy harvesting efficiency even when the energy input changes. This particularly important for IoT applications as these devices are placed in various environments where the energy source might change over the course of time.

This video explains how Nowi’s MPPT method is different from traditional solutions.

1. Maximal energy harvesting efficiency

Energy harvesters behave differently depending on environmental conditions. Traditional solutions require an application engineer to pre-program the device to work well in a limited set of conditions. Nowi’s MPPT uses flexible algorithm to find the exact maximum power point in any condition, resulting in a maximal efficiency over a wide range of inputs.

2. Independent on harvesters’ specific parameters

Nowi’s patented MPPT method use the converter output as a key parameter for changing the conversion settings. Unlike existing alternative solution, Nowi’s MPPT is independent on specific parameters of the harvester. Therefore, any harvester whose required outputs fit the specifications of the chip can be used without losing any efficiency during its operation.That means the same chip design can be used for different types of harvesters such as thermoelectric generator, PV cell, or even RF energy harvester.

3. No external components needed for MPPT to function

Nowi’s MPPT uses a flexible algorithm which changes its own parameters. This logic requires no external components , whereas other IC may require up to 6 external components for their MPPT alone to function. This means that the product footprint on the PCB is reduced and the BOM costs are lowered.

4. Self-programmable

The Nowi MPPT is completely self-programmable and therefore requires no additional application engineering in order to function, making it highly adaptive. This pattented MPPT is a key feature of Nowi’s PMIC to achieve Plug & Forget IoT devices.

The internet of things is set to transform the way in which people communicate and exchange data with one another.

For the time being, however, many IoT applications are struggling to deliver on their promises, due to the energy limitations of existing devices. In fact, most devices are currently powered by batteries, which have an inherently limited lifetime and deteriorate over time.

Being aware of the problems associated with battery-powered sensors, NOWI—a European start-up based in the Netherlands—has developed an energy harvesting chip that can boost voltage with approximately 92% energy efficiency, regardless of the source input.

Their chip, which is 30 times smaller than other energy harvesting chips, allows devices to use external energy sources as an additional means of power, via solar, thermo-electric, and radiofrequency energy harvesting.

The technology developed by NOWI enables the creation of new devices that are either entirely battery-less or otherwise have a hybrid battery with a far longer lifetime than usual. Simon van der Jagt, one of the company’s founders and its present CEO, believes that NOWI’s power management integrated circuit (PMIC) and other energy harvesting technologies could be the key to ensuring that the IoT reaches its full potential.

Ingrid Fadelli: Before we begin, could you tell us a little bit about your background, your area of expertise, and your role at NOWI energy?

Simon van der Jagt: I am NOWI’s CEO and founder, together with Omar Link. My background is in innovation management and NOWI was founded based on a project at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft).

IF: When was NOWI energy founded and what is its key mission?

SJ: NOWI was born out of our belief that technology is a predominantly positive force in the world and that the internet of things is one of the greatest technological developments of our age. At the same time, we saw some big practical bottlenecks that could very well stop society from reaping the benefits that IoT developments could offer. Without solving these problems, IoT technology will not deliver on its promise. Arguably, its most crucial limitation is power—and NOWI has set out to solve this problem.

IF: What do you feel are the greatest challenges, responsibilities, and exciting aspects of being a European startup that caters to the electronics engineering industry?

SJ: I think there might be a few aspects to consider here. Firstly, as Europe is a collection of countries, this can make certain IoT applications extra challenging to implement. For instance, applications might need adjustments per country in order to operate effectively, or there might be different regulations. On a higher level, however, the main problems shared by European countries are the same all over the world.

Everyone requires their devices to outlast the applications they are being used for—and thus eliminate the need for device maintenance—which makes limited battery life a big problem. This is the same in the Netherlands, the USA, and China. By working with international partners, who have their experience in different countries, we are able to circumvent these issues.

IF: How did you first become interested in energy harvesting technology, and how did you start developing it at NOWI (e.g. what chips/approaches/designs did you use)?

SJ: Personally, I started working on energy harvesting technology in 2015, during a project at TU Delft. Our core technology team, however, has been conducting research on this topic for much longer than that. What surprised us was that a big portion of the people working on IoT technology never talked about device lifetime. The ones who did mention it, on the other hand, made big claims, such as a 10 to 15-year device battery lifetime, which a simple ‘back-of-the-envelope’ calculation would show is generally not feasible.

At the same time, we learned about new and fascinating academic research on energy harvesting, which still lacked a clear application. We connected the dots and started applying this research to the development of low-power, IoT technology. The first prototypes were simple ‘proof-of-principle’ designs. They were big, expensive and worked very poorly, but they did get the point across: we can, in fact, use ambient energy sources to make IoT devices ‘plug & forget’.

IF: Why do you think this technology is so important in today’s world and for the future?

SJ: We believe that technological progress benefits humankind and that the IoT is one of the biggest technological developments of this decade. The IoT seems to revolve around making things ‘smarter’—smart cities, smart roads, smartwatches, smart factories, and so on. And in order for something to be ‘smart’, it needs to be able to ‘feel’.

‘Feeling’ is essentially data coming in and being processed by the ‘brain’ (cloud), so that the system can act accordingly (e.g. by changing the temperature in a room). For the world to be smarter, it thus needs to be able to feel. This means deploying billions of ‘feeling devices’, or, in other words, deploying connected sensors.

The problem is that changing batteries in billions of sensors every few years is simply impossible. Batteries pollute the environment, and perhaps even more problematic, are the high labor costs involved in the maintenance of battery-powered sensors.

This kills most IoT businesses, and as a result, we are not seeing IoT change the world, even though it has the potential to do so. Energy harvesting technology, such as the one developed at NOWI, could help to make countless IoT business cases profitable—by eliminating the need for sensor maintenance.

IF: Could you explain how NOWI’s sensors work, how they differ from other sensors on the market, and what their key advantages are?

SJ: The NOWI PMIC allows low-power connected devices to harvest energy from external sources, such as light, radio waves or temperature gradients. It can do this with the world’s highest efficiency, as well as with a 30 times smaller footprint, as it does not require external components to operate. This means that NOWI technology can also be used in small devices, such as small IoT sensors and smartwatches, and could even be directly integrated into RF communication modules. No more changing batteries, no more wiring cables. Instead, simply ‘plug & forget’.

IF: How are your sensors developed and what key challenges did you confront when you first started designing them?

SJ: We are combining decades of academic research into a single chip that can have a wide range of applications. Doing this is a cost-intensive process, so we have to balance financing, product development, and team growth while ensuring that we retain the highest performance for as many use cases as possible. We have been fortunate enough to have strong advisors in both the technical and business side of things who have helped us to navigate this.

IF: What are some examples of your sensors’ useful applications?

SJ: The NOWI energy harvesting power management chip can be used in a wide range of applications. Typically these are applications that require small amounts of energy for a very long period of time. For example, it is currently being implemented in smartwatches. It has also been used in smart road projects, and very recently, a collaboration with Huawei has been announced in which our technology is being directly combined with narrowband-IoT connectivity.

IF: Who are your target customers and how do you typically anticipate and meet their needs?

SJ: NOWI is licensing the chip design to other semiconductor companies or very high-volume OEMs. We support the integration of our technology in their products. This allows these companies to offer fully-featured products that are not low-power, but zero-power.

Energy harvesting ensures that these products are able to have full functionality (connectivity, sensing, etc.) without the need for manual and external energy sources, such as battery changes or cables.

IF: What are your hopes for the future of sensor production, sensor use, and for the electronics engineering industry at large?

SJ: As we are producing the technology in low-volume ourselves and licensing our system intellectual property for higher volume production, our key hope for the future is greater integration. At NOWI we have a dedicated team that provides all necessary support to partners on how to optimally integrate the chip with their devices.

Researchers and industry experts have been highlighting the IoT’s huge potential for several years now, but existing devices are still preventing it from truly revolutionizing the way in which we communicate with one another.

In years to come, NOWI’s chip and other technologies that support the development of battery-less or hybrid devices could pave the way for more successful IoT implementations, making the world even more connected and allowing us to take the next step in exploring the internet’s infinite possibilities.

The last few months have been busy for us at NOWI. Here’s a summary of what we’ve been up to recently. Don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter or check our website for more frequent news.

We announced our collaboration with Huawei

After several months of work with Huawei’s R&D team in Cambridge, UK,  the demo was showcased in Mobile World Congress Shanghai MWC2019 from June 26-28.
The solution employs a Huawei Boudica V150 development board which enables plug and play of various sensors and peripherals alongside the highly integrated V150 NB-IoT SoC and battery charging circuitry based on NOWI’s Ultra-High Efficiency NW-A2.3 PMIC Energy Harvesting device.

We have moved!!!

Our newly designed office with a separate dedicated lab environment is located at Molengraaffsingel 10 – Delft, The Netherlands. The new lab will help us continue testing and developing our energy harvesting PMIC with more advanced equipment.

Find us on the maps

We also traveled a lot

Our agenda was filled with business trips across Europe. Oslo, Zurich, London, Cambridge to name a few. As a result, we are looking forward to upcoming partnerships announced in the near future. Also interested in a collaboration with Nowi?

Set up a call with us

For more updates, check our social media:

Huawei is showcasing an NB-IoT solution in which energy harvesting is used to power the NB-IoT SoC indefinitely through a new PMIC and attached solar panel. This removes the need for manual intervention (changing batteries) or cabling to supply power in applications which zero maintenance and zero power supply.

The solution employs a Huawei Boudica V150 development board which enables plug and play of various sensors and peripherals alongside the highly integrated V150 NB-IoT SoC and battery charging circuitry based on NOWI’s ultra-high efficiency NW-A2.3 PMIC Energy Harvesting device.

Power has proven to be a bottleneck in the adoption of many IoT applications, with battery maintenance or power cabling reducing the ROI of an IoT system significantly.

• Battery life in many use-cases is shorter than the application life, thus requiring maintenance during system usage and thereby greatly increasing IoT total cost of ownership.
• IoT nodes are typically distributed in remote or difficult to access areas, making cables impossible and changing batteries even more expensive.

NOWI, a new semiconductor company based in the Netherlands, has pioneered novel energy harvesting technology that enables capturing of ambient energy sources such as light, temperature gradients or radio frequency, with the highest efficiency. It has achieved this while at the same time lowering the PCB assembly footprint by 30 times and removing the need for many external components such as inductors. As a result, NOWI’s energy harvesting technology can both power and fit into virtually any small IoT device, or even in RF modems directly, and thereby enables these devices to become ‘Plug & Forget’.

“Huawei is dedicated to achieving a fully connected, intelligent world and as a pioneer in low power wireless chip technology, we see energy harvesting as a key component in achieving ubiquitous connectivity for our customers. We are, therefore excited to be working with NOWI in this area.”

Charles Sturman, Senior Director IoT Product Marketing at Huawei Technologies Ltd

“The Boudica V150 NB-IoT SoC is a market leading IoT communications device integrating modem, radio, power management, application subsystem and dedicated security core in a single chip. With only a few required external components, it enables low system cost and is able to support all of the global NB-IoT frequencies whilst operating direct-from-battery with ultra-low current draw. As such, it is the ideal device to be paired with our breakthrough energy harvesting technology to achieve power autonomy without sacrificing functionality.”

Simon van der Jagt, CEO NOWI

Simon continued; “The low-power design of the Boudica V150 chip together with the high energy harvesting efficiency of the NOWI PMIC make it possible to harvest sufficient energy for frequent NB-IoT transmissions, allowing autonomous connectivity for up to 15 years. That means no more cables or battery changes needed. Simply, Plug & Forget.”

Applications

The combination of low-power connectivity and high performance energy harvesting allows devices to become ‘Plug & Forget’. This has the advantage of eliminating the need for node maintenance and thereby greatly reducing the total cost of ownership of an IoT system. In the following examples this is expected to have a big impact:

Smart Cities: Devices will be placed spread over large areas, making maintenance costly if not impossible. The bulk of Smart City business cases require energy harvesting to be viable. (See more: Pilot project: BAM, T-Mobile and Nowi embed Plug & Forget sensor in roads)

Smart Industry: IoT nodes will be used for tracking and monitoring in various industrial applications. The devices are often placed in dangerous or difficult to reach places, making any form of maintenance problematic

Smart Wearables: Usage of Wearable devices for health purposes require the devices to have a high degree of autonomy. NB-IoT and Energy Harvesting make it possible for the user to have connectivity without a smartphone in close proximity and without having to remember to charge the device frequently. (See more: Collaboration with MMT to develop ‘Plug & Forget’ hybrid watch)

Source: Yahoo Finance

Omar Link and Simon van der Jagt, founders of Nowi have been recognized in Sifted’s list of cutting-edge European innovators. The list features some startups and their life-changing technologies.

“They are all the real deal in terms of innovation. If they succeed, people’s lives will change. A true dent will be made in the universe. Take a peek into the future.”

Sifted

Here is the part featuring Nowi’s founders in the article:

What if your smartwatch worked forever?

There will soon be 30bn connected devices around the world, from smartwatches to traffic sensors. All of them will need power. Nowi has created a small chip which continuously brings energy to a device in lieu of wires or batteries, by using the power that is already available nearby – for example, light, heat, movement or even radio waves. This should enable the creation of products that are either completely batteryless or hybrid battery devices with an extended lifetime. In short, it is set to power the next generation of connected cities and consumer wearables.

Key facts: From Delft, the Netherlands. Founded in 2015. Has raised €2.5m in seed funding.

Sifted is an FT-backed media site for European startups and innovators. Read the full article here.

Dutch semiconductor innovator firm NOWI was awarded first place for its work in solving the power bottleneck in smart devices. NOWI’s innovative solution continuously brings energy to your device in lieu of wires or batteries by using the energy that is already available around the device. This can be light, heat, movement or even radio waves. Taking a form of a small chip that can be used in IoT devices, this technology will enable the creation of products that are either completely batteryless or hybrid battery devices with a greatly extended lifetime.

For consumers, having this technology will save both monetary and environmental costs associated with charging your devices. With predictions that there will soon be over 30 billion connected devices in the world, the requirement for power is only going to soar, so technology like NOWI’s that can help make IoT devices more efficient is becoming ever more significant.

Read more at: Gemalto Blog

2. WHAT ARE THE KEY MILESTONES YOU HAVE REACHED SO FAR?

After a year and a half of prototyping, we have reached a “proof of principle” demo that was good enough to land us €350.000 of government funding. We used this to get to a proof-of-concept, which was a fully functional energy harvesting demo. We then secured a €1.5 Mio VC round to develop this into a first product version. A small chip that makes it extremely easy for any company to power their devices with energy harvesting. Last year, that vision has come to life more and more as it has been used in a pilot project for road monitoring. A Swiss watch manufacturer is also currently implementing it in their next-gen smartwatch.

3. WHAT WERE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES YOU HAVE FACED IN YOUR JOURNEY?

Any start-up faces at least some of the same challenges. Product-fit, team, and funding. Product-fit can only be achieved by leaving the office and interacting with as many companies as possible. Each conversation provides a bit of feedback which slowly shapes the product solution. We went from a technology-push of energy harvesting technology to a clear market-pull of use-cases where companies absolutely need what we have made. At the same time, we need the brightest minds to help bring this all to live. We have been non-stop recruiting the best talent and we now have a 15-people team with 3 Ph.D.’s and 7 MSc’s, and a combined 30 years of energy harvesting research experience. Finally, all of this needs to be paid for. Fundraising is a continuous effort as a result.

4. WHAT’S COMING IN THE NEAR FUTURE?

For Nowi, 2019 is a very exciting year as our energy harvesting technology is being embraced by the first global companies. The industry is starting to see that energy harvesting is one of the key building blocks in many IoT solutions as it improves the user-experience or reduces the need for maintenance and thereby the cost of ownership. As first, companies deploy this technology, others cannot stay behind. This year, several collaborations between Nowi and other large companies will be announced, and we believe this will act as a catalyst for the rest of the industry.

More details at: Innovation World Cup

With its leading technology in energy harvesting, Nowi has been listed in 10 European IoT startups to watch in 2019 by Eu-Startup, one of the leading online publications with a focus on startups in Europe.

Nowi Energy – The Delft-based startup offers complete sensor platform powered by outside sources such as GSM and WiFi signals, or light and movement, enabling sensors to have an extremely long maintenance-free lifetime and simply become a ‘Plug & Forget’ solution. Nowi’s patented Energy Harvesting PMIC has been recognized worldwide and is a winner of a range of international innovation awards.

More details at: Eu-Startup

This can be light, heat, movement or even radio waves. NOWI technology enables companies to use the energy that is readily available around the device.

With a reputation accumulated over 15 years of successful competitions, the IOT Innovation World Cup® Series is no doubt the largest open innovation platform worldwide for IoT and tech solutions.

Read more at: Business Wire

The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) has granted NOWI €1 million in funding. The credit will be used to further develop the NOWI Energy Harvesting PMIC technology.

According to CEO Simon van der Jagt, the additional funding from RVO enables Nowi to make its technology market-ready. Nowi is translating its leading technology position in low-power energy harvesting into a small chip that can be used in a wide range of devices. As the Internet of Things begins to mature, it is becoming clear that there are hundreds of millions of so called smart-devices that need to become ‘Plug & Forget’. From smart watches to sensors and asset trackers, all of these devices have started to incorporate energy harvesting technology in order to significantly increase their lifetime and reduce the need for cables and battery changes.

The world will soon have 30 billion connected devices – which require a lot of energy, and now typically rely on limited battery power. The Delft-based startup Nowi is developing a chip that enables IoT devices, such as smart watches and sensors, to live forever.

Founded in 2015, Nowi has received €1 million in funding from RVO, which it will use for the commercialisation of its ‘Energy Harvesting’ technology to provide lasting power sources for IoT devices. The company previously raised €1.5 million from the Disruptive Technology Ventures fund in 2018.

Nowi CEO Simon van der Jagt explains: “Instead of needing to continuously bring energy to your device in the form of batteries or power cables, Nowi technology enables companies to use the energy that is already readily available around the device. This can be light, heat, movement or even radio waves. There is energy all around us that can now be used to power IoT devices.”

With Nowi’s patented technology, it is becoming possible to effectively use these sources to power devices.

More details at: EU-Startups

The Chinese Advanced Semiconductor Association has granted Nowi an innovation award for it’s energy harvesting technology.

Former Intel and GE Senior Executive, IASIC Judge Mr Charles Zhang “The NOWI IC is a revolutionary product for the IoT industry, especially for devices like wearables or very power sensitive IoT sensors.  With the ability to capture and process tiny bits of energy from the environment, this innovation can benefit all types IoT sensor devices. The NOWI team did a great job to not only develop this technology but to already be working with customer for the real time deployment. That is why this is a winner.”

http://third.iasic.com.cn/content/content-12.htm

MMT and Nowi have initiated a collaboration to develop the world’s first ‘Plug & Forget’ watch. A hybrid watch with smart functionalities, such as activity tracking, auto updates and notifications, that never requires user-charging can be achieved when the Nowi Power Module is integrated in the MMT smart watch module.

“The deep experience of MMT in the design of ultra low-power watch modules, combined with Nowi’s breakthrough energy harvesting technology enables a new generation of smart watches.”

MMT CEO Philippe Fraboulet

Innovation enabling a new generation watch

A joint-feasibility study has been conducted by Nowi and MMT, clearly showing that a hybrid watch that will never run out of power can be created.

“Considering as little as 1-hour a day, or 3 to 4 hours on the weekend of direct light, the watch is able to combine a wide range of functionalities, such as step-counting, sleep tracking, notifications and auto-time updates, without ever requiring charging by the user.”

Nowi CEO Simon van der Jagt

In the study a small solar PV cell has been covered by a watch dial. The remaining light that reaches the PV cell through the dial creates a low output Voltage which can be used to power the smart watch. The Nowi IC is able to boost this Voltage, from as low as 40mV, with an unprecedented 92% efficiency.

Opening a new realm of possibilities

Both parties have entered in to a strategic collaboration in which a fully functional watch demonstrator will be developed based on the MMT watch module with Nowi technology inside.

“This non-exclusive collaboration aims to show to the entire smart wearable industry the new realm of possibilities that is opened by new energy harvesting technology and low-power design in smart watches.”

Nowi CEO Simon van der Jagt

Worldwide wearables sales will grow by an average of 20 percent each year over the next five years, becoming a $29 billion market with 243 million unit sales by 2022.

According to industry analyst CCS Insight.

As part of the Wearable Technologies conference in Singapore, Nowi CEO Simon van der Jagt will be presenting how Nowi technology can improve wearable products. The extended lifetime of wearables by the effective use of energy harvesting technology made possible by Nowi improves the value proposition towards the user.

A short 1-minute YouTube video gives you an overview of what we do at Nowi and what the impact of this technology will be

Nowi receives €1.5 million in funding from Disruptive Technology Ventures for the further development of their Energy Harvesting technology and finalization of the Power Module.

Besides this, industry titans such as former KPN telecom CEO Ad Scheepbouwer will actively help the company in the further commercialization of the Nowi sensor technology.

Dutch energy startup Nowi has raised €1.5 million in funding from Amsterdam VC firm Disruptive Technology Ventures.

Nowi is developing a power module for IoT sensors that it claims won’t run out of power.

“By getting energy from WiFi, GSM signals, light and movement that is all around us and effectively harnessing this to power sensors,” explained CEO Simon van der Jagt.

“The Nowi power module eliminates the need for frequent battery changes or impractical cables. Instead it enables any sensor company to use external ambient energy sources and thereby reduce the need for maintenance. We call this Plug & Forget.”

Simon van de Jagt

The new funds will be invested in commercialising the technology. The company is also being advised by Ad Scheepbouwer, the former CEO of Dutch telecom KPN, on bringing the product to market.

“This €1.5 million investment and the experience of the investment team brings this vision a significant step closer to reality,” said van der Jagt.

Source: TechEU

Nowi has received a R&D grant together with Qualinx from ‘Provincie Zuid-Holland‘. The aim is to further develop Nowi’s Power Module and combine this into a demonstrator with Qualinx ultra-low power GPS module.

In this pilot project a temperature sensor that can be embedded in asphalt is being tested. Deploying such sensors can help in predictive maintenance and decrease the amount of salt needed to manage ice covered roads in winter time. The project has been enabled by the creation of an ecosystem of innovation between T-Mobile, BAM and Nowi. Within a few months a larger set of sensors will be deployed in Amsterdam. This development has been supported by Provincie Zuid-Holland.

DEWA is the largest utility company in the UAE. As part of their strategy for a sustainable future in Dubai smart building technology is key. They require maintenance-free temperature sensors in order to long term have a working business model around climate management. Nowi has created a ‘plug & forget’ temperature sensor based on the Nowi Power Module.

As part of a Ducth trade mission to India Nowi has received an honorary Smart CIty Innovation Award from Minister Bert Koenders. Nowi was invited along to present cutting edge technology from the Netherlands. The minister has praised the potential benefits for society resulting from this technology

The Dutch RVO has granted Nowi a loan. The loan is part of a program to help technology startups that have the potential to have significant economic impact. The money will be used to further grow the team and further speed up product development.

The jury from Accenture, ranging from technology experts, business leaders and politicians, has named Nowi the winner of the Accenture Innovation Awards. The global scale of the problem Nowi solves and the strong technology approach in doing so were named as reasons why Nowi was the winner.