Most smart lock manufacturers need to throw out some big scare quotes about the “smart” brand, because a lock that stays permanently locked when you forget to charge the battery doesn’t really look very smart. But soon, that may no longer be a limitation, thanks to a new chip that allows your lock to draw all the power it needs from your smartphone to unlock it.
If you’ve ever wondered how the invisible Near Field Communication (NFC) chip in your debit or credit card can work for years without needing a charge or battery change, it’s because it consumes all the power it needs to transmit your short range. signal from the chip reader scanning it. It works more or less like a wireless charger does, using coils of wire and magnetic induction to induce a current from a distance, without the need for any physical contact (touch to pay doesn’t actually require that touch).
The limited functional range of NFC (less than four centimeters) and the small amount of power transferred by a wireless scanner are the reasons why your power-hungry smartphone won’t charge with NFC, but other devices that lack a screen giant, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS apparently can be. At least, as long as they only need power at certain times, like when a lock is picked. As The Verge points out, smart locks that get all the power they need to unlock via NFC have been around for several years, including iLOQ products, but chipmaker Infineon has developed a chip that opens up that functionality to any manufacturer. of smart locks you want to license and embed your hardware.
The Infineon NAC1080 is almost an all-in-one solution, with an integrated ARM Cortex-M0 processor, 128-bit AES encryption, and NFC hardware to recognize a smartphone and draw power from it. AC power generated by a nearby NFC-enabled smartphone is converted to DC and then used to charge capacitors that can power small electric motors that disable a simple locking mechanism. In a demo video shared on Infineon’s website, the shackle of a prototype padlock automatically opens after a few seconds of being within range of a compatible smartphone, with a mobile app showing an animation of the internals of the lock. padlock charging fast. But performance can vary from device to device, depending on the size and location of its NFC antenna and how efficiently it can transfer power wirelessly.
The few seconds it takes to open a smart lock using this approach doesn’t seem like much of an inconvenience compared to having to remember to charge your lock, but whether a similar approach could be used to power up more complex locks remains to be seen. with moving parts, such as a front door latch, that requires a large piece of metal to be fully retracted before the door can be opened. It’s doubtful that this solution would seem so convenient if it requires users to hold their phone against a lock for 30 seconds or more to build up enough charge to power the lock’s mechanisms.
