Your next smart lock could ditch the battery by harvesting energy from your phone

One of the great things about Near-field communication technology is that tags don't need a battery to communicate, so you won't have to buy a new coin cell for your employee badges. Infineon wants to make smart locks that are powered by your phone.

It is possible to buy fancy door locks in Europe and basic padlocks in China that will do the trick. Infineon is selling a new chip and has full detailed instructions for anyone who wants to learn about it.

The NAC1080 is a single chip that does everything. The smart lock has circuits to recognize your phone, harvest its power, and drive it. It has both security features and a processor to make sure that you and your phone are allowed to open and close the lock on the device. You can charge your phone while you run.

GIF by Sean Hollister / The Verge

The manufacturers will have to provide the antenna, 3V mini- motor and Capacitors. It looks like we are talking about a few seconds based on the example unlocked you can see above.

Don't expect this feature to show up in other smart locks, like the deadbolts you would mount on the doors in your home. The key is the smart mechanical latch design which can be opened and closed with very small energy use. It admits that the response time for more complex doors is longer.

The instructions for designing these locks show that the motors are supposed to turn the lock's secret, not move the lock itself. After the small piece that keeps it locked moves out of the way, the lock shackle opens. The video shows the energy moving a pair of tiny pins with your fingers.

You're right, yo.

Depending on what phone you have, you can use these locks or not. Mainstream mobile phones provide 20mW on average in the company's testing, but the field strength depends on your phone's antenna, lock's antenna, and how closely you can bring them together when you're trying to unlocks it.

I am wondering what other kind of gadgets we could make that would bring my phone to life. I would totally tap my phone to my kitchen scale if it could power it and save its readings at the same time, because I would love to stop replacing button batteries in my child's sing-along books. Infineon has an idea of a passive tire pressure sensor for bikes.

In June of last year, researchers showed a prototype of a device that could be used after a patient's heart is stable.