With the pandemic affecting virtually everything and everyone this past year, it has been a roller coaster, for sure. However, despite manufacturing delays, working virtually and a myriad of other challenges that have popped up over the last year, Ossia continues to thrive.
I wrote, a few months back, about how Ossia has experienced an acceleration of interest and demand for wireless power: we signed six new big deals in just six months. The interest and momentum for wireless power continues to grow. We are contacted, daily, by companies who are wanting to build and/or integrate Cota Real Wireless Power into their products.
A little background to remind you: Ossia develops the Cota technology that manufacturers and product developers integrate into their devices, such as IoT, mobile devices, and scanners, that runs on wireless power over air.
As you know from our recent announcements, Ossia has launched the Next Generation 2.4 GHz Platform and is FCC approved. You can purchase the 2.4 GHz Reference Design Kit today and begin to integrate Cota into your products. That milestone will be supplemented with continued momentum of signing several new deals in the upcoming months. This is your teaser, Ossia will be making several announcements with more commercial partners, regulatory achievements and investors, leading the company into a new and prosperous 2021.
To give you a glimpse into Ossia’s goals for 2021, I will outline three areas where you will see a lot of activity from Ossia:
Cota-in-a-Box: Asset Tracking for Large Retailers
Already FCC approved, Cota-in-a-Box was determined to solve a huge problem for big box retailers such as Walmart: keeping track of their hundreds of trucks and the millions of products they carry to and from the retailers’ warehouses. It’s a tremendous undertaking and has been difficult to scale.
With Cota-in-a-Box, instead of taking the time to personally cruise down aisles of semi-trucks in a golf cart looking for the right vehicle number, employees will be able to view, via the cloud, exactly where trucks are located on the lot.
Here’s how it works: On entering the gates, the driver will pick up a Cota-enabled tracker from the guard. This wirelessly powered tracker will pinpoint exactly where the truck was parked. When the truck leaves, the driver will then drop the tracker back in a box at the gate, which will automatically begin to re-power the tracker.
With retailers such as Walmart implementing this solution in their distribution centers, Xirgo Technologies committing to build the receivers, and T-Mobile building the network infrastructure, we have a win for everyone involved. You can read about the announcement of this partnership here. We are excited to roll this out to the market.
Cota Wireless Power for ESLs and Batteryless IoT for Big Box Retailers
Our second project on track for launch in 2021 is a Cota-enabled Batteryless IoT system, focused specifically on Electronic Shelf Labels (ESL’s) for several big box retailer deployments.
IoT presents many opportunities for retailers to understand and meet customer needs and optimize their revenue, but batteries -- with their limited life-span and energy output, replacement, recycling, and size -- have always been an obstacle. This is a non-issue with Cota’s battery-free IoT system, which can power everything from electronic shelf labels (ESLs) and hand-held scanners to smart shopping carts and signage that can sense a consumer’s presence.
Cota’s ESL system, which runs on the 2.4 GHz technology, is also already FCC approved, and is the only batteryless ESL technology available today. What’s more, once an ESL system is set up, it’s also automatically ready to power other in-store Cota-enabled IoT devices.
Optimizing Wireless Power Technology
With these two products active in the real world, we expect many more manufacturers and deployment centers will clamor to invest in wireless power technology to solve their challenges with and the limitations of wired and battery-powered products.
That’s why, in 2021, Ossia is continuing to advance our 5.8GHz technology, as well as fine tuning the 5.8GHz Reference Design Kit (RDK) and associated components.
Why Focus on Cota 5.8 GHz Wireless Power Technology?
Several applications, including wireless power for wearables, mobile devices, automotive, and medical, will benefit from 5.8 GHz technology. With 5.8 GHz, devices can receive more power at a greater distance and the hardware can be much smaller.
At the same time, we’re fine-tuning our RDK, the bundle of information and supporting prototype equipment that you need when you build a product with Cota, and that we provide when companies license our technology.
2021 Will Be a Big Step Toward a Wirelessly Powered Future
In driving toward commercialization and products in market in 2021, Ossia is well positioned to not only broaden the scope of asset tracking and batteryless ESLs and IoT for other retailers, but also have the technology and partners in place to support a new wave of wirelessly powered devices, for business and for consumers.
Join us in this wireless power journey, that is delivering on the promise of a new paradigm, free of wires, disposable batteries and cords!
