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Platform Props Up Prototyping with IoT SoCs for Energy-Harvesting Apps

Nov. 7, 2024

Ride the “ambient IoT” wave with a kit for prototyping battery-less IoT devices that grab power from magnetic/electric fields, light, heat, kinetic energy, and sound.

David Maliniak

Related To: Microwaves & RF

The Overview: A Development Kit for BLE IoT SoCs

A development kit borne of a collaboration between Silicon Labs and e-peas makes it easier to create concepts and build rapid prototypes of what’s now termed “ambient IoT” devices. Silicon Labs’ EFR32xG22E Explorer Kit features a USB interface, an on-board SEGGER J-Link debugger, an LED and button for a UI, and support for add-on hardware boards via a mikroBus socket and Qwiic connector.

Who Needs It & Why: Smart-Home and Building Apps

IoT devices prototyped with the SiLabs Explorer Kit will have applications in Zigbee-connected smart-home settings, such as doors, faucets, and switches. Similar uses might be found in smart buildings, using kinetic-pulse power harvesting for doorknobs and light switches. And, indoor solar-powered TV remotes and computer keyboards that have need of energy-efficient Bluetooth LE SoCs.

SiLabs' xG22E Explorer Kit — Silicon Labs' XG22E Explorer Kit.

Such devices might also be used in tire-pressure monitor sensors, asset tracking, electronic shelf labels, factory automation, predictive maintenance, and agriculture.

Under the Hood: Wireless SoCs for Energy Harvesting IoT Devices

The kit is intended for use with the company’s xG22E family of wireless SoCs, notable for their ability to operate within the ultra-low-power envelope demanded of battery-less energy-harvesting applications. Touted as the company’s most energy-efficient SoCs to date, the BG22E, MG22E, and FG22E devices serve Bluetooth LE, 802.15.4-based or proprietary 2.4-GHz applications.

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e-peas contributed the energy-harvesting shields for the kit. Each of the shields, tuned for different energy sources and energy-storage technologies, are custom-fit to slot onto the SiLabs Explorer Kit. One enables experimentation with alternative battery chemistries and supercapacitors. A second is geared for kinetic/pulse harvesting and uses e-peas’ AEM0300 power-management IC (PMIC) for power buck. The third shield, which employs e-peas’ AEM13920 PMIC, allows for experimentation with dual power-harvesting sources simultaneously.

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About the Author

David Maliniak | Executive Editor, Microwaves & RF

I am Executive Editor of Microwaves & RF, an all-digital publication that broadly covers all aspects of wireless communications. More particularly, we're keeping a close eye on technologies in the consumer-oriented 5G, 6G, IoT, M2M, and V2X markets, in which much of the wireless market's growth will occur in this decade and beyond. I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, developers, and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

You can send press releases for new products for possible coverage on the website. I am also interested in receiving contributed articles for publishing on our website. Use our contributor's packet, in which you'll find an article template and lots more useful information on how to properly prepare content for us, and send to me along with a signed release form.

About me:

In his long career in the B2B electronics-industry media, David Maliniak has held editorial roles as both generalist and specialist. As Components Editor and, later, as Editor in Chief of EE Product News, David gained breadth of experience in covering the industry at large. In serving as EDA/Test and Measurement Technology Editor at Electronic Design, he developed deep insight into those complex areas of technology. Most recently, David worked in technical marketing communications at Teledyne LeCroy, leaving to rejoin the EOEM B2B publishing world in January 2020. David earned a B.A. in journalism at New York University.