Energous FCC Approval Found: It's a renamed approval from April 18

My last few posts have asked where the FCC approval for the recently announced product was, as it wasn't showing up on the FCC search site. While the FCC site doesn't have it, it can be found at a different site and is ID VAW-NF910. It is indeed by SK Telesys, was granted on Dec 27th, and is for wireless charging under FCC Part 18. Reading further though, it's clear this is not a new product, but rather simply a renaming of an earlier near field charger, the 2ADNG-NF230.

Since I've written a lot this week, I'll summarize here:

• This transmitter is a rebadged 2ADNG-NF230 that Energous mad a fanfare about in April 18
• If it's been approved since April and is awesome, why can't I buy it yet?
• There is no receiver that works with it yet approved (known of), so no product sale possible
• If so, no PSAP/hearing aid approval could then be claimed
• For safety shouldn't be within 10 centimeters of a person when operating
• Maximum output is 1 Watt, so likely under 100 mW charging max
• Slower, less safe, less versatile than a Qi charging case for earbuds
• Share price continues to fall from this brief spike

So back to the detail:

I did a full post on this 'product' back in April and I was as unimpressed then as I am now, I titled it "Energous FCC Approval Shows Weakness of WattUp Technology". Basically, slower than Qi, with further safety restrictions and less compatibility. There are already Qi based charging cases for earpieces, why is this any better? Or should I instead ask, why is this not worse?

The user manual for the 2ADNG-NF230 is here, and the FCC Approval from April 9th 2018 can be found here. Below are pictures of the device and antenna from those documents.

An interesting statement from this documentation:

The NF-230 Charger requires all persons to be at least 10 cm afar from the charger at all times except when placing or removing the device to be charged. 

Don't sleep too close to it!

With one antenna active at a time, it's 29dBm output so just under 1 W transmitted. They maintain the SAR limit (1.6W/kg) at around 0.86W/kg, so judging by the previous Part 18 approved device which was similar output after the safety cutoff zone (though 10W transmitted), we can probably expect no more than 200 mW of received power, and after conversion from RF to DC down to around 100 mW at most. 

Interestingly, if SK Telesys and Delight are simply rebadging existing Energous applications, there is no current FCC Approval for a receiver for this, so the transmitter can send, but there's nothing to take the power. The only parts in the same frequency range approved are the larger sized transmitter (2ADNG-MS300), and a phone sized receiver (2ADNG-MS300A), and are not appropriate for this.

I would give some comment on their DA2223 chips and what they might be able to do in a receiver, but unlike regular electronics, the vendor provides no data sheet, only marketing level material. Without receiver approval, there's no product here!

And doesn't this mean that a statement like "FCC approval of the Delight PSAP hearing device" in the press release is a bit of an exaggeration when it's a charger that's approved, not the PSAP? There really needs to be another approval somewhere we've not seen.

Well done Energous, great marketing hype given there's absolutely nothing new at all. What did that do for your share price?

Oh, a bump and back down 40% from there. I hope the insiders managed to sell at that high - we'll see in a few days if they do.

(Repeating the seemingly obligatory statement - I have no financial position, short or long, in Energous or any related company. Nor have I ever had any such positions.)