A new microchip could make the batteries in your high-tech wearables last longer.
Adrian Tang of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and M.C. Frank Chang at the University of California, Los Angeles, have been working on microchips for wearable devices that reflect wireless signals instead of using regular transmitters and receivers. Their solution transmits information up to three times faster than regular WiFi.
“The idea is if the wearable device only needs to reflect the WiFi signal from a router or cell tower, instead of generate it, the power consumption can go way down (and the battery life can go way up),” Tang says.
