David Savastano, Editor04.09.24
There is so much potential for the Internet of Things, where trillions of interconnected items will be able to communicate information with each other and provide us the information we need for our daily lives.
However, there are challenges to making this vision a reality. While, say, it is easier to place sensors on larger items that are powered – such as an appliance, for example – smaller items will ideally need a power source to allow it to connect.
This could lead to its own problems, beginning with batteries. Batteries not only require manufacturing, but may also need maintenance and replacement. There are also end-of-life issues, as this would create trillions of batteries that would need to be recycled. Battery-free IoT would be an ideal solution.
ONiO is working on just that approach. Founded by Kjetil Meisal, Runar Finanger, and Vemund Bakken, three veterans of the semiconductor industry, this Oslo, Norway-based company has developed ONiO.zero, which can harvest energy from virtually any ambient source.
“We each brought extensive experience from companies like Atmel, Nordic Semiconductor, and Novelda,” Finanger, chief marketing officer of ONiO, noted. “But we were united by one driving vision that inspired us to start ONiO.
“We saw a major gap in the IoT and wearable technology landscapes - a lack of devices capable of operating solely on ambient energy harvesting,” Finanger added. “Existing solutions were either prohibitively expensive, difficult to implement, inflexible for different use cases, or tailored for very specific applications. Yet we could see the growing need for truly battery-free operation across numerous IoT applications.”
This sparked the concept for ONiO.zero.
“While the microcontroller market was dominated by familiar industry players releasing new ARM Cortex-M based chips iterating on similar formulas year after year, we noticed innovation was stagnating,” Finanger said. “Against this backdrop, our mission with ONiO.zero was to develop a device that could enable new battery-free IoT products and services. The conventional battery-powered approach added unnecessary complexity, cost, and inefficiency - issues we wanted to eliminate.”
ONiO.zero offers the ability to harvest energy from virtually any ambient source - RF, thermal, kinetic, or photovoltaic. It combines a powerful RISC-V processor with the analog and digital peripherals expected of a high-end microcontroller, but achieves true energy autonomy.
“This device embodies our commitment to innovation, sustainability and advancing the IoT landscape,” said Finanger. “ONiO.zero isn't just another product, but a manifesto challenging the industry's conventions. It paves the way for a new generation of energy-independent IoT devices fueled by ambient power.”
“Our technology eradicates the dependence on traditional batteries, which are notorious for their environmental impact,” Finanger observed. “Batteries not only contain harmful chemicals and metals but also contribute significantly to electronic waste. By designing microcontrollers that operate without batteries, we’re taking a step toward reducing the toxic waste associated with battery disposal and recycling.”
In addition, ONiO's integrated approach significantly lowers the number of components needed in electronic devices.
“This reduction is vital for environmental sustainability as it translates to lesser raw material extraction, minimized manufacturing energy consumption, and decreased electronic waste,” Finanger said. “Fewer components mean a smaller environmental footprint throughout the lifecycle of the device.”
Beyond the environmental benefits, the absence of batteries in ONiO’s microcontrollers presents a significant advantage in terms of reducing maintenance costs.
“Traditional electronic devices reliant on batteries require regular battery replacements or recharging, which incurs ongoing costs and labor,” Finanger said. “In contrast, devices powered by ONiO's microcontrollers eliminate these costs and efforts, offering a truly ‘install and forget solution. This not only enhances the usability and convenience for end-users but also presents a compelling value proposition for businesses seeking to optimize operational efficiencies and reduce total cost of ownership over the device's lifespan.
“Devices powered by our microcontrollers are designed to last longer, thanks to the elimination of battery degradation,” added Finanger. “Longer device lifespans mean fewer replacements, thereby reducing the waste and environmental impact associated with the production and disposal of electronic devices.”
Finanger pointed out that the ONiO.zero microcontroller stands out in the IoT landscape with its unparalleled capability to operate completely batteryless, harnessing ambient energy from diverse sources such as solar/light, thermal, AC, intermittent, RF/wireless, kinetic, TEG, and the Wiegand effect.
“This multifaceted energy harvesting ability is distinct from competitors who primarily offer solutions that either extend battery life or use single-source energy harvesting, which cannot fully replace batteries. This versatility ensures that ONiO.zero can be deployed in a wider range of environments and applications,” Finanger said.
“What sets ONiO.zero further apart is its all-in-one chip solution, integrating not only the microcontroller unit (MCU) but also power management and radio functionalities within a single monolithic die,” Finanger said. “This level of integration is unmatched, eliminating the need for external Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMICs), separate MCUs, and radios. By consolidating these functions, ONiO.zero drastically simplifies the design process, reduces the bill of materials, and minimizes design complexity for developers.
ONiO has created some significant alliances. ONiO is partnering with Ligna Energy, which has developed sustainable supercapacitors that use forest-derived materials for minimal environmental impact.
The company is also working with Exeger, whose Powerfoyle solar cell technology can draw power from any light source, whether natural outdoor or ambient indoor, and Epishine, utilizing its printed organic solar cells which give ONiO’s ultra-low-power, batteryless microcontrollers the capability of powering up from a cold start in seconds.
Finanger noted that ONiO.zero's technical prowess is unmatched, boasting the world's lowest power consumption for an MCU.
“Its efficiency in energy harvesting, power management, and radio communication sets a new standard for what's possible in energy-efficient design,” Finanger said. “This makes ONiO.zero not just a component but a comprehensive platform for all low-power and energy-harvesting projects, catering to a broad spectrum of applications that traditional battery-powered or less versatile energy-harvesting solutions cannot fulfill.
“This strategic combination of multi-source energy harvesting capability, a highly integrated single-chip solution, and record-breaking low-power operation positions ONiO as a leader in the development of autonomous, eco-friendly IoT solutions,” Finanger concluded. “With ONiO.zero, we're not just envisioning the future of IoT; we're actively building it, offering a solution that promises both sustainability and unmatched performance in the field.”
ONiO had to overcome some important hurdles, choosing to create its batteryless microcontrollers from scratch.
“Creating our batteryless microcontrollers presented a unique set of challenges, primarily because we chose to take the road less traveled: developing all our intellectual property (IP) from scratch,” Finanger said. “This decision meant that every piece of technology within our microcontrollers, from the ground up, was designed with ultra-low power consumption in mind. We didn't take any shortcuts by using existing external IPs, which also allowed us to avoid the costs and restrictions often associated with licensing.”
Finanger sees numerous markets for ONiO's technology. These include smart home devices, wearable health tech, agriculture sensors, batteryless RTL tags for retail, environmental monitoring, smart cities, industrial IoT, logistics and tracking, and the energy sector.
“These applications not only benefit from the elimination of batteries but also from ONiO's commitment to reducing environmental impact, simplifying device design, and cutting ownership costs over the product's lifetime,” Finanger added.
“In all practical sense, ONiO is the answer to the much-needed stick and forget experience in IoT, the deploy and forget sensor in all markets from industrial, predictive maintenance, and infrastructure monitoring, to precision agriculture, smart cities, home and building automation, supply chain tracking and sensing, to medical and health sensors, and all the way to consumer products,” Finanger concluded. “It covers a vast amount of sensor and human interface applications, where IoT scaling is limited due to deployment with batteries, or where convenience, reliability or user experience is important.”
However, there are challenges to making this vision a reality. While, say, it is easier to place sensors on larger items that are powered – such as an appliance, for example – smaller items will ideally need a power source to allow it to connect.
This could lead to its own problems, beginning with batteries. Batteries not only require manufacturing, but may also need maintenance and replacement. There are also end-of-life issues, as this would create trillions of batteries that would need to be recycled. Battery-free IoT would be an ideal solution.
ONiO is working on just that approach. Founded by Kjetil Meisal, Runar Finanger, and Vemund Bakken, three veterans of the semiconductor industry, this Oslo, Norway-based company has developed ONiO.zero, which can harvest energy from virtually any ambient source.
“We each brought extensive experience from companies like Atmel, Nordic Semiconductor, and Novelda,” Finanger, chief marketing officer of ONiO, noted. “But we were united by one driving vision that inspired us to start ONiO.
“We saw a major gap in the IoT and wearable technology landscapes - a lack of devices capable of operating solely on ambient energy harvesting,” Finanger added. “Existing solutions were either prohibitively expensive, difficult to implement, inflexible for different use cases, or tailored for very specific applications. Yet we could see the growing need for truly battery-free operation across numerous IoT applications.”
This sparked the concept for ONiO.zero.
“While the microcontroller market was dominated by familiar industry players releasing new ARM Cortex-M based chips iterating on similar formulas year after year, we noticed innovation was stagnating,” Finanger said. “Against this backdrop, our mission with ONiO.zero was to develop a device that could enable new battery-free IoT products and services. The conventional battery-powered approach added unnecessary complexity, cost, and inefficiency - issues we wanted to eliminate.”
ONiO.zero offers the ability to harvest energy from virtually any ambient source - RF, thermal, kinetic, or photovoltaic. It combines a powerful RISC-V processor with the analog and digital peripherals expected of a high-end microcontroller, but achieves true energy autonomy.
“This device embodies our commitment to innovation, sustainability and advancing the IoT landscape,” said Finanger. “ONiO.zero isn't just another product, but a manifesto challenging the industry's conventions. It paves the way for a new generation of energy-independent IoT devices fueled by ambient power.”
Key Benefits of ONiO’s Technology
There are a significant number of advantages of ONiO’s batteryless microcontrollers, beginning with environmental impact and eliminating the need for batteries.“Our technology eradicates the dependence on traditional batteries, which are notorious for their environmental impact,” Finanger observed. “Batteries not only contain harmful chemicals and metals but also contribute significantly to electronic waste. By designing microcontrollers that operate without batteries, we’re taking a step toward reducing the toxic waste associated with battery disposal and recycling.”
In addition, ONiO's integrated approach significantly lowers the number of components needed in electronic devices.
“This reduction is vital for environmental sustainability as it translates to lesser raw material extraction, minimized manufacturing energy consumption, and decreased electronic waste,” Finanger said. “Fewer components mean a smaller environmental footprint throughout the lifecycle of the device.”
Beyond the environmental benefits, the absence of batteries in ONiO’s microcontrollers presents a significant advantage in terms of reducing maintenance costs.
“Traditional electronic devices reliant on batteries require regular battery replacements or recharging, which incurs ongoing costs and labor,” Finanger said. “In contrast, devices powered by ONiO's microcontrollers eliminate these costs and efforts, offering a truly ‘install and forget solution. This not only enhances the usability and convenience for end-users but also presents a compelling value proposition for businesses seeking to optimize operational efficiencies and reduce total cost of ownership over the device's lifespan.
“Devices powered by our microcontrollers are designed to last longer, thanks to the elimination of battery degradation,” added Finanger. “Longer device lifespans mean fewer replacements, thereby reducing the waste and environmental impact associated with the production and disposal of electronic devices.”
Finanger pointed out that the ONiO.zero microcontroller stands out in the IoT landscape with its unparalleled capability to operate completely batteryless, harnessing ambient energy from diverse sources such as solar/light, thermal, AC, intermittent, RF/wireless, kinetic, TEG, and the Wiegand effect.
“This multifaceted energy harvesting ability is distinct from competitors who primarily offer solutions that either extend battery life or use single-source energy harvesting, which cannot fully replace batteries. This versatility ensures that ONiO.zero can be deployed in a wider range of environments and applications,” Finanger said.
“What sets ONiO.zero further apart is its all-in-one chip solution, integrating not only the microcontroller unit (MCU) but also power management and radio functionalities within a single monolithic die,” Finanger said. “This level of integration is unmatched, eliminating the need for external Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMICs), separate MCUs, and radios. By consolidating these functions, ONiO.zero drastically simplifies the design process, reduces the bill of materials, and minimizes design complexity for developers.
ONiO has created some significant alliances. ONiO is partnering with Ligna Energy, which has developed sustainable supercapacitors that use forest-derived materials for minimal environmental impact.
The company is also working with Exeger, whose Powerfoyle solar cell technology can draw power from any light source, whether natural outdoor or ambient indoor, and Epishine, utilizing its printed organic solar cells which give ONiO’s ultra-low-power, batteryless microcontrollers the capability of powering up from a cold start in seconds.
Finanger noted that ONiO.zero's technical prowess is unmatched, boasting the world's lowest power consumption for an MCU.
“Its efficiency in energy harvesting, power management, and radio communication sets a new standard for what's possible in energy-efficient design,” Finanger said. “This makes ONiO.zero not just a component but a comprehensive platform for all low-power and energy-harvesting projects, catering to a broad spectrum of applications that traditional battery-powered or less versatile energy-harvesting solutions cannot fulfill.
“This strategic combination of multi-source energy harvesting capability, a highly integrated single-chip solution, and record-breaking low-power operation positions ONiO as a leader in the development of autonomous, eco-friendly IoT solutions,” Finanger concluded. “With ONiO.zero, we're not just envisioning the future of IoT; we're actively building it, offering a solution that promises both sustainability and unmatched performance in the field.”
ONiO had to overcome some important hurdles, choosing to create its batteryless microcontrollers from scratch.
“Creating our batteryless microcontrollers presented a unique set of challenges, primarily because we chose to take the road less traveled: developing all our intellectual property (IP) from scratch,” Finanger said. “This decision meant that every piece of technology within our microcontrollers, from the ground up, was designed with ultra-low power consumption in mind. We didn't take any shortcuts by using existing external IPs, which also allowed us to avoid the costs and restrictions often associated with licensing.”
Finanger sees numerous markets for ONiO's technology. These include smart home devices, wearable health tech, agriculture sensors, batteryless RTL tags for retail, environmental monitoring, smart cities, industrial IoT, logistics and tracking, and the energy sector.
“These applications not only benefit from the elimination of batteries but also from ONiO's commitment to reducing environmental impact, simplifying device design, and cutting ownership costs over the product's lifetime,” Finanger added.
“In all practical sense, ONiO is the answer to the much-needed stick and forget experience in IoT, the deploy and forget sensor in all markets from industrial, predictive maintenance, and infrastructure monitoring, to precision agriculture, smart cities, home and building automation, supply chain tracking and sensing, to medical and health sensors, and all the way to consumer products,” Finanger concluded. “It covers a vast amount of sensor and human interface applications, where IoT scaling is limited due to deployment with batteries, or where convenience, reliability or user experience is important.”