SBIR – Non Dilutive Funding for Your Company

This is a reblog of an interview I did last year for IEEE-USA, the original can be found here.

What if I told you there is a funding opportunity in the US that is restricted to small companies, focuses on technology, and takes no equity (non-dilutive), debt stake (grant or contract, not a loan), or claim on Intellectual Property (IP) for what may be a seven figure investment? The SBIR – Small Business Innovation Research – program has been operating since 1982, providing funding totaling over $2 billion per year, and giving early starting capital to companies that grow from there including the likes of Symantec, Qualcomm, Intuitive Surgical, and Illumina. 

History

The SBIR program came into law in 1982, founded by Roland Tibbetts, whose goal was to fund innovation, supporting American companies and giving them the support to take ideas to a stage where other private investment can take over. It was last renewed as part of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act and is currently authorized to September 2022.

All federal agencies with a large R&D budget are required to set aside part of that budget (3.2%) exclusively for small businesses, with 500 or fewer employees, that are majority owned by Americans and permanent residents. There are 11 agencies that administer SBIRs - the Department of Defense (DoD) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) are by far the largest and account for nearly 70% of the ~$2.5 billion of funding, then Department of Energy (DoE), National Science Foundation (NSF), and NASA provide under 10% each, and the remainder is split between the other 6 agencies. Application processes vary between agencies, but there are common factors between them.

The Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) is a sister program to SBIR. It is similar but requires participation of an academic partner, is restricted to a smaller number of agencies, and with a smaller set-aside. Aside from these differences, the broad strokes of SBIR also apply to STTR.

SBIR Phases

Most SBIRs start with an application for a Phase I – often a proof of concept – that is expected to take between 6 and 12 months, with funding for $100,000 to $400,000 (depending upon agency and project area). Applications usually take the form of a 6 to 12 page technical proposal, a project plan, a commercialization plan, a single page budget, personnel biographies, letters of support, and other relevant information. The proposal is reviewed by a committee, and typically awardees are notified and funded within 4 to 6 months. By the end of Phase I, the company has ideally demonstrated a proof of concept, and its competency, to take the project further.

Phase II is a more substantial effort with greater budgets – up to around 3 years and $2,000,000 (again, depending on agency and topic). Usually an agency invites a company to apply for a Phase II after a successful Phase I – there are some Fast-track and “Direct to Phase II” options but are unusual. The application is usually much more detailed, and budget and timelines come under more intense scrutiny, and so is recommended for more seasoned applicants. By the end of Phase II, a successful project is usually expected to have something between a working prototype and a commercial product. 

Phase III is the commercialization phase and receives no specific SBIR funds, though some agencies do have matching and follow on funding. Agencies with very specific needs often try to ensure valuable technologies make it to market, such as the DoD connecting a small business with primes like Boeing.

With a few months between Phase I and II, it can take as much as 5 years to get from application to the end of a successful Phase II – these are not small projects or commitments!

Application Process

Companies applying for SBIRs need to follow a few administrative basics – the first is setting up a for-profit company (e.g. an LLC, C-corp etc) in the US, with >50% ownership by US citizens or permanent residents, and obtaining an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS. The company should then apply to Dun and Bradstreet for a DUNS – a unique identifying number. (They may try to sell you other services. Just keep telling them you need it for a federal grant application and you get it for free). The next step is registering with the System for Award Management (SAM) to apply for government contracts. As you can see, all this takes some time and effort, and can take a couple of weeks to complete. The SBIR.gov site has a walkthrough to help here.

Each agency has a specific application site. NSF uses Fastlane, the NIH uses eRA Commons, the DoD uses DSIP etc. Each site has its own registration requirements for the company and potentially the key investigation staff, that also may take a few days to setup. I usually tell applying companies to allow a month prior to submission to get this process completely done the first time. Subsequent applications are then much faster.

Each agency like the DoD, NIH, NSF, DoE, and NASA maintain their own SBIR websites, while there is also an overall SBIR site, where more details on submission can be found.

Every proposal has key staff and a Principal Investigator (PI) who must work at least 50% of their time at the company. Proposed budgets may cover items such as salary for key staff, consultants, equipment, and materials, justifiable travel, as well as reasonable overhead costs. The majority of the budget must be spent within the company (not outsourced), and any outsourced work should be done within the USA.

Agency Specifics

As mentioned, each agency administers the SBIR in its own way. The DoD has very targeted needs and this is reflected in its methodology. Twice a year the DoD SBIR topics are opened up, and each branch has a number of targeted topics (For example, the Navy may call for development of a more compact and higher performing SONAR buoy. The application deadline is about 2 months after the topic release, after which the topic is gone.

The NSF has a different approach, with 4 deadlines a year, where a submission on any topic within its remit is encouraged. Companies can pre-submit a short description to the NSF, and receive feedback on whether an application is warranted or not.

The NIH has a mix, with three submission dates a year for most applications, which similar to the NSF can be anything within its broad remit. Applicants are usually encouraged to speak to the SBIR manager in that area to gauge general response, and as a courtesy to let the NIH staff for review. The NIH also has calls on specific topics that run for a limited period, for example one to two years, on areas of particular need. Dates on some topics may vary slightly.

How Agencies Benefit

What do the agencies get for this money? First of all, they don’t get equity in your company, they don’t get paid back, they don’t own any product or IP that is created, and provided you label everything sent to them in reports they don’t own data rights either.

They do get research and products in areas critical to them. The products may not sell, or the research may show an approach is not viable, but it’s understood that there is risk involved. You owe them the reports, milestones, and deliverables listed in the proposal. Even then if the ongoing research shows a pivot is needed, every monitor I have been involved with has been very reasonable about changing course.

In most cases the project monitors are have spent their career in these fields and care deeply about curing disease, advancing technology areas, or helping those in the military get the best equipment and tools, or whatever their area is. They aren’t in this for personal reward, and they want you to commercially succeed because it means more and better products in their key areas. In my personal experience, almost every government agency representative is an exceptional advocate for their field, and works hard to get positive outcomes for the company, agency, and the country.

The other side of this is that the funding for SBIRs comes from an overall pot, not from an individual group’s budget. Getting awards in their area effectively increases their departmental budget, and your success benefits them in multiple ways. They *want* you to be the next Qualcomm.

This is one of the few times you will have a counterparty who doesn’t care solely about the bottom line.

The Downsides

So far it seems easy – write a few pages, join some websites, and you get up to $2.4 million. These awards are competitive - there are many others applying, and your application is only one of many other worthy contenders. NIH Phase I submission success rate averages around 15 to 20%. Phase II averages around 30 to 40%, and there is no guarantee you will be in that pool. An excellent idea with a top notch team and a well written proposal will put you above that average, but you are unlikely to be there on your first application. When I work with companies writing SBIRs, I advise them to consider them for the long term, and that several attempts will be needed before they succeed. 

As with anything new, the first proposal you write will take some time. Just the administrative preparation can take a few weeks, as you work with various websites and develop the company boilerplate sections, key member bios, and learn budgeting methods.  You’ll also need to write compelling research and commercialization plans. Companies should expect to invest about 6 man weeks into writing their first SBIR proposal (apart from the administrative setup), 2 weeks into the next, and a week every one after that. As the business minded among you are calculating, it does not make sense to have one of your most important staff members spend 6 weeks for a 20% chance of $150k – but if you are in for the long haul and assume this is going to continue over years, then it quickly shifts to being worthwhile. Over time, you will learn not only how to write SBIRs but when to apply and which ones not to. Ultimately, you can get to the point where a few days' work on a well targeted application gets you a >50% chance of success.

After receiving the award, you are subject to Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), which require careful financial tracking and reporting and limits how you can spend your funding. It is not a pot of money that can be used any way you want, but a well-run company with good accounting should have no problems meeting FAR.

While the federal government will always pay, sometimes it takes time for federal payments to arrive, or for contracts to be renewed. This can leave periods where your company is left without income but still has employees. While agencies try to minimize this, it is a concern. If possible, try to maintain sufficient revenue or cash in your company to pay staff during these uncertain times.

The Upsides

There are several upsides beyond “up to $2.4 million of non-dilutive funding”. The agency is a customer, giving you input and feedback as you develop, and may ultimately be a source of revenue. This third party endorsement proves to others your idea and team have merit, and if you are raising money from other sources, helps validate you.

Even if not initially successful, the process of creating the research and commercialization plans often focuses a company on where they are and where they need to go I’ve often found that this is the first time a company has laid out a formal plan for their technology and business. Further, the reviews returned can be eye opening as to what other experts feel are the strengths and weaknesses of your approach, and can direct future improvements. Of course, there’s always the chance that “Reviewer 2” is simply an idiot who doesn’t appreciate your genius, but that’s been grant applications throughout history!

One often forgotten benefit of SBIRs is that because they are competitive, if you have won one in a particular field, you have now met the competitive requirement in any such federal contract, so it can be a rapid way to beat your competition to the punch.

Writing a Successful Application

Beyond having an excellent idea and a great team that meets the need of a federal agency, how do you write a good application? When writing my own, the first thing I think is that I’m not writing a report, I’m telling a story. I’m leading a reviewer on a journey so by the end they know this proposal needs to be funded. I start with a title that combines an obvious and important problem and solution, and catches the eye and makes them want to read the first paragraph. The first paragraph conveys the core of the proposal over and makes them want to read the rest of the first page. Then I have the rest of the first page to make it obvious that this is the solution that’s needed. That first page is critical. The rest is only showing that you have the background and team to make this work, and not giving them a reason to doubt you. Have people you trust outside your company read your first page, and find out what excites them and why, and build that feedback into the next draft.

Keep the proposal simple and targeted. A straightforward application that picks one clear goal is easier to explain but more importantly does not give “targets” for reviewers to pick on and make negative comments. Remember that when you are up against other good applications, one small criticism may cause the agency review panel to pick another awardee over you.

Lastly, remember these are reviewed by experts who are volunteers. They have day jobs and this is usually done at midnight after a long day working. Make it easy for them to read. Use large font, short paragraphs, lots of figures and bullet point lists so they don’t have to work to understand your genius. Remember, nobody likes opening a document to see 10 pages of nine point font!

Summary

The SBIR program is a great way of accessing millions of dollars of non dilutive funding, feedback from experts, and gaining a prospective customer. It involves a lot of upfront work and discipline, but a consistent approach can yield a significant benefit to your company.

Talking to Journalists

Something I learned in the early days of writing this blog is "how to talk to journalists", and so I thought I'd do a post on it partly to remind me in future when I forget.

First thing - you do not have to talk to them. If you are uncomfortable, then don't. For the most part, they need you more than you need them. If you don't speak to them, you are exactly where you were prior and you carry on with your day to day life - but they don't have a story (or a weaker one) and those things they need. So - again - if you don't want to, just don't talk.

Journalists are not your friend even if they are friendly. They have a job to do, and you're a source of information for them in getting that done. It doesn't mean they are hostile or out to get you, but don't speak to them like they're a friend. 

Remember that like in any profession there are good ones and bad ones. Most I've spoken to were professional, checked all pieces of information given, went to multiple sources, and tried to make sure they were writing a good story. Some clearly didn't care. Before you talk to them go look up their previous articles, the publications they work for, and see if they are well written pieces and reputable publications. If you don't like how they write, don't speak to them or do so very very carefully.

Choose your words with care, they might end up on the front page of a national paper. Pause, think, and imagine what someone you don't know will read into your words, including future employers.

Email is also a good approach to communication - you have time to think about your answers and edit, and in the end there is no question of what you did or did not say. Journalists seem to prefer voice communication though, at least in initial discussions.

Also remember that anything you say can and may be used in their story with attribution, even if you say "this is on deep background" and then tell them something. They have to agree to that before you tell them something, otherwise they are under no obligation to do so. So, if you want to do the "off the record" thing, get that clear agreement first, (possibly in an email), and also make sure you understand what the terms actually mean. Taking from Associated Press definitions:

On the record (Default): The information can be used with no caveats, quoting the source by name. 

Off the record: The information cannot be used for publication.

Background: The information can be published but only under conditions negotiated with the source. Generally, the sources do not want their names published but will agree to a description of their position. AP reporters should object vigorously when a source wants to brief a group of reporters on background and try to persuade the source to put the briefing on the record. These background briefings have become routine in many venues, especially with government officials.

Deep background: The information can be used but without attribution. The source does not want to be identified in any way, even on condition of anonymity.

In general, information obtained under any of these circumstances can be pursued with other sources to be placed on the record.

I've sometimes taken the approach of "I'll speak to you on Background, where you can describe me as 'a person familiar with the company'. If you want a quote attributed to me, I'll consider and send you it in email" because I want control on what my name is attached to. I've found most good journalists agree to this or something similar. Ones who are looking more for hits than a solid story drop you quickly - I'm not sure if that's because this makes more work for them, or because it signals they are dealing with someone who knows the game.

If you think a Non Disclosure Agreement applies to anything you are talking about, then you really, really want to talk to a lawyer first. If the lawyer says it does apply, then you do not talk unless you want to risk a lawsuit. If you still think you need to talk to them, then ask your lawyer for advice on how to do so. If in doubt, just don't. And if you can't afford a lawyer for an hour (~$500) then you can't afford a lawsuit and need to stay quiet. Similar rules apply if you are speaking regarding a person with deep pockets or access to a lot of someone else's money, even if there is no NDA, as they can still cause a lot of pain legally. 

If you've signed a government secrets act and this applies, then be prepared to go to jail for a very long time. Seriously, just don't risk this one.

uBeam (Sonic Energy) Gets Another CEO

Merry Christmas everyone. It's been an insane last few months for me personally and professionally, and I've just not been able to post anything. I'm aiming to change that starting next month (edit May 1 2021, that didn't work out so well, more like 18 months), but for now here's a short post on uBeam (now Sonic Energy, not at all trying to clean up their terrible Google search history...)

A press release on the company website now lists Will Kain, formerly uBeam board member and Acting CFO, is now the Acting CEO. Previous CEO, Simon McElrea, didn't quite make it to his one year anniversary and has departed for reasons unknown, but to leave without an actual CEO in place always causes a raised eyebrow.

From the release:

Will Kain, Board Member and Acting CEO, has announced that uBeam Inc. is officially changing its name to SonicEnergy™, effective immediately. The new name is being implemented across the company and should be completed by year’s end.

Kain explains that the new name better reflects the evolving focus of the company, adding “This is an exciting time with the exploding IoT market and resulting opportunity for wireless power. This name change reflects both the evolution of the company as well as its vision for the future focused on IoT, and our expanded B2B partnerships.” He continues “As a company with its roots in ultrasonic technology, we have been planning this name change along with other strategy changes for some time. With our upcoming participation at CES in Las Vegas in January, this is the perfect time to refine our image with a new, more relevant name.”

Along with this name change, a newly redesigned company logo has been revealed and a new website at www.sonicenergy.com prominently features the company’s focus on their newly-developed 2.0 technology platform and the dynamic team behind it. The company’s ownership and staff have not changed as a result of this name change.

"expanded B2B partnerships"? I'd like to know if they even have a single one. 

"staff have not changed"? Hard to change the staff when 50% were laid off in June and several have left since. Try going through the page on LinkedIn for staff at uBeam, it's several pages before you find more than one or two not "formerly uBeam", and even then I know some of them have left. The technical team left, IMO, is just enough to keep the smoke machine going.

So a CEO who replaced an Acting CEO who replaced a cofounder/CEO who may have been pushed instead of jumped, is now being replaced in less than a year by another Acting CEO who is a money and not tech guy, just as they are doing a massive down round raise. Hmmmm, really not a good look there.

That it's a finance guy really does point to the tech side being sidelined and that it's now an operation just to sell this thing to a greater fool, IMO. My opinion is that greater fool is unlikely to be a company with deep pockets and any sense, there's just nothing there - no useful hardware and the IP portfolio is not strong - and so I'd expect them to go to the "greater fool of last resort", the general public. I'm expecting to see them attempt to IPO and pull an Energous (I'm hearing Ossia is trying similar), and a CFO type is exactly who you'd want for that role. If it's not that, then the other explanation is "Downround failed, CEO exits, CFO steps up to liquidate the company".

That's it, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone.

uBeam is now Sonic Energy - And Raising a Down Round

Last we left uBeam they'd laid off half their staff and co-founder Perry had left entirely. In the last few days, uBeam has rebranded themselves as "Sonic Energy" (though apparently has some difficulty in spelling their name correctly, continuing the stellar performance we've come to expect from their marketing department). I'm guessing uBeam is something of a problem in Google searches on the company, I wonder why. 

But importantly, they're raising a new round (calling it a Series 1, which is new to me, it's really a massive down round Series C), led by Upfront Ventures (Lead in the Series A and B) again alongside OurCrowd (convertible note inbetween A and B and possibly in the B). They are looking for up to $7.5m at a pre-money valuation of $20m (about 27% of the company to the new investors), which compares to the estimated $120m to $140m post-money valuation after their Series B. 

It's most certainly a down round, where the valuation is lower in a later round, and has serious consequences for wiping out existing shareholders - which is particularly interesting as I believe the major shareholders getting taken down are Upfront, OurCrowd, and Perry herself.  Are two of those three taking major write-downs in their prior investment, just to regain it with the new investment? Doesn't that mean they are putting money in to end up exactly where they are now (or perhaps worse)? Unlikely that this will be happening - more likely is that the Preferred stock holders, Upfront and OurCrowd, will have some anti-dilution terms in their agreements and will maintain their existing % ownership as well as add the new %. Perry, no doubt, will be reduced from what I think was the single largest shareholder to a minority shareholder, a point probably not lost on Upfront and OurCrowd. 

To me it's telling that across multiple major funding rounds it really has only been Upfront and OurCrowd (crowdsourcing) that have been seen to invest. No other institutional investor or strategic with strong due diligence capabilities have taken a stake in the 5 years since the Series A, which if it were the billion dollar idea claimed and just on the verge of explosive growth I think we'd see. Can't the amazing VCs at Upfront persuade some of their other big VC buddies to participate, why rely on crowdfunding and small investors? So right now it seems to me the only people willing to invest are those with a financial incentive to ensue ongoing funding (ideally from others) and those who have no due diligence capabilities.

It's also interesting that OurCrowd are back in for another round - they are hardly touting the success of the Series B investment, and appeared to have taken that off their site.

Where are uBeam/SonicEngery going with this? I expect the narrative the company is putting out is that they have a solid technology at developer kit level, IP to back it, a revamped team and company, and building relationships with key partners - and suggesting to investors this is a quick "in and out" and the company will be sold in a couple of years. If the developer kit was so amazing they'd be showing it off a lot more publicly, and other large VCs would not be allowing crowdfunders to take a slice of this future growth. In my opinion, the exercise for the CEO is as it has always been - put lipstick on this pig and get it sold to a greater fool.

My advice to anyone thinking of investing again at this stage - don't be that greater fool.

Perry's Future
And what is former CEO Perry doing? Seems like it's brain/machine interfaces with Elemind, based in Boston, and "next generation wearable neurotechnology". Over a year ago she had tweeted about something that allows you to fall asleep at the touch of a button, I wonder if this is it?

She had pictures of herself with Marc Cuban in June, so perhaps this funding well has not run dry for her? It doesn't seem to be a company she founded, so has been brought in as a CEO, perhaps as the source of the funding contacts. Maybe, finally, she can use this as the vehicle to give those pesky engineers the finger the way she has always wanted to.

Text of Series 1 offer:

OurCrowd is reinvesting in uBeam (which recently rebranded to SonicEnergyTM) in an up-to-$7.5M Series 1 recapitalization round led by Upfront Ventures, a leading Los Angeles-based VC with investments in companies such as Bird (recently valued at $2.5B by Sequoia), Goat (recently raised $100M from Footlocker) and Ring (acquired by Amazon for over $1B).

uBeam seeks to deliver Always-On Wireless EnergyTM at a distance, utilizing ultra-safe ultrasonic technology to deliver reliable, wire-free charging. uBeam has developed proprietary transducers, transmitters, receivers, and custom enterprise software. The company plans to deliver wireless power to a wide range of electronic devices in the high growth Internet of Things (IoT) sector, including automotive, aerospace, healthcare, industrial and home.

 Listen to a webinar with Simon McElrea, uBeam's CEO, and Jon Medved, OurCrowd CEO and Founder, to learn more about uBeam:

ubeam iii webinar

Wireless Charging Market

While the wireless charging market is growing at a CAGR of over 40% and expected to reach ~$21B by 2023, it remains largely untapped due to current technological limitations with induction-based charging methods and many power-at-a-distance technologies being limited by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). uBeam claims that it has a patent-protected ultrasound technology that is FCC approved and safely transmits wireless power at a distance. IHS Markit also forecasts that by 2030 there will be 125 billion electronic devices that will need safe and always-on power. The largest vertical in this growth market is in IoT (smart home, aerospace, automotive, healthcare, commercial, etc.). uBeam is focused on this space, having already secured POCs with three global tier-1 Original Equipment Manufacturers in the aerospace and electronic device verticals, while also working to provide software and support, enabling potential partners and clients to monitor and run large networks of wireless energy.

Funding

With 16 employees, primarily in R&D, the company believes that, upon completion of this Series 1 raise, it will have runway through the first half of 2021, when it hopes to start generating over $6M dollars in annual revenue. During this period, the company plans to continue engaging with high volume manufacturing partners to scale the product while delivering on customer milestones and expanding its IP portfolio.

OurCrowd is working with Upfront Ventures to help finance the company through its current business pivot from mobile phones to the IoT space. The current recapitalization round offers investors the opportunity to finance a deep technology company with $40M of historic capital already injected, but at a $20M pre-money valuation.

Team 

Simon McElrea, CEO – Simon replaced Meredith Perry as CEO at the beginning of 2019.  Before joining uBeam, Simon served as CEO of Semblant, a UK and Silicon Valley based B2B nanotechnology company specializing in the protection of IoT, automotive and consumer electronic devices. Prior to Semblant, Simon was Vice President of IP, Licensing and Marketing at Energous, a wireless-charging company that completed its successful IPO in 2014. Simon has also held a series of technology commercialization leadership roles at Amkor Technology (Nasdaq: AMKR), Honeywell (NYSE: Hon) and Johnson Matthey Electronics (LON: JMAT). An author of over 30 US patents, Simon holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, with honors, in Engineering Science from Oxford University.

Will Kain, CFO - Will Kain, who joined uBeam as a Board Director and CFO in June 2019, has spent the last 12+ years in leadership positions with early-stage energy and water technology companies.  In addition to his duties at uBeam, Will is currently Principal and CFO at Rusheen Capital Management, an early growth-stage private equity firm investing in energy and sustainability technologies. Will started his career with UBS Investment Bank in New York, after earning his BA in Economics and Government from the University of Virginia.

Perry Out at uBeam

uBeam cofounder and ex-CEO, Meredith Perry, recently updated her LinkedIn profile to show that not only was she was no longer in either of those roles as of September 2018 (or was it May 2018?), she is now no longer a board member at uBeam as of this month.

For someone who controls a pretty hefty amount of stock in the company, it's hard to be removed from the board. So resigned? Pushed? Founded her new venture and no time to do the arduous task of one 4 hour meeting per quarter? (She is asking about best banks for startups on her Twitter account, which you'd think having already done once she'd know...)

Interestingly it's almost 4 years to the day since I sat with a board member and lead investor and told him that IMO Perry was a liability and needed to take action or the company was in serious trouble. Well 4 years and near $30 million later and maybe he listened to me? :)

So how much longer does uBeam have? IMO it has to be measured in single digit months, possibly weeks as there's a new Acting CFO according to the webpage. We'll know soon enough. (Edit May 2021 - it actually took around 18 more months)

Wired and Qi Charge Rates for a Pixel 3

Since I've been writing about wireless charging, I thought I should do some quick tests especially after being challenged by Qi advocates that I'm being harsh on the technology. A couple of years back I tested with a phone and was getting around 2 to 3 W rate, and wasn't impressed, but it has apparently improved since then (or my data point was skewed). I took my Pixel 3 which has wireless Qi Charging, and tested with two wired and two wireless options. The phone is about 2 months old, so hard to get a better test case, and the battery is around 10 Wh in capacity. For the wired tests I used the USB C cable and adapter that came with the phone (18 Watt), then an Anker 60 W PowerPort Atom PD 2 with a USB C cable rated for up to 100 W(about $60 worth of charging gear). For the wireless Qi I used the Google Wireless Charger for Pixel ($80) and an LK Qi Fast Wireless Charging Pad ($16). (Annoyingly the LK cable in the box only goes to a USB A, you need a USB adapter to actually plug into).

Google Wireless Charger (Left) and LK Fast Wireless Charger (Right)

Now this was not a scientific experiment where I placed the phone on the chargers with sub-mm precision, made sure the environment was identical each time, or run multiple tests to check for outliers, so there's going to be some error here. I also didn't use any high end equipment to measure the performance, just the % battery as reported by the phone itself, and the clock, so especially early on there will be some integer related errors - however this is more as an example of what a user will actually experience, and in the end the results were pretty definitive.

The Pixel charges faster to about 50%, then starts to slow down. The out-of-the-box wired approach gets to 50% in under half an hour, and a full charge in about 1h15min, while the more expensive wired charger takes around 35 minutes to get to 50% but then 1h46min to get to 100%, with about 25 minutes of that being the last 10%, not sure why it slowed down so much (I did look at the battery temperature, it didn't report as high). Assuming 10Wh in the battery, that means an 11W rate for the first 50% of the charge and 8W overall with the default charger, and around 8.6W/5.7W for the Anker charger. It looks like, with this one data point, that there's no point in spending the money or using anything other than the default wire charger for a Pixel 3.

For the wireless Qi approach the official Google Wireless Charger for Pixel takes about an hour to get to 50% charge, and 2h30min to fully charge, giving a 50% charge rate of ~5W and overall at 4W. I did not see the 10W fast charging claimed for a Pixel 3 - my results are a bit slower than I saw in this article, which got 22% charge in 15 minutes (an effective 8.8W rate). I have a plastic case on my phone, I tried with and without the case and it really made no difference to the rate. For the LK Charger, it's 1h40min to 50%, and nearly 4 hours to 100%, for 3W charging to 50% and 2.6W to 100%. It was painfully slow, and I had to do the test a couple of times as I fell asleep while waiting and woke up the next day at 100% charge.

Unsurprisingly, wired wins, and by a lot. Up to 11W is pretty good when only a few years ago wired USB was at around 2.5W, and getting to 50% in under thirty minutes is really handy if you need to top up quickly. The charge rate with the official Pixel charger was about half, so 5W for the first 50%, but I have to say it felt adequate, and I wasn't really frustrated by the speed of charging. The LK on the other hand charged at 3W and was really frustratingly slow, and near 4 hours for a full charge. For me it seems there's a break point between 3 and 5 Watts that makes a huge difference if I'm awake, if I go to sleep it just charges overnight and it really makes no difference if it took 2 or 4 hours.

While it was adequate to charge at 5 Watts with Qi, I still found I prefer wired, as for the most part I really wasn't running out of charge during the day. Now that I was paying attention, I was finding that I'd leave home at around 8.30am at 100%, and still be at 20% charge at midnight, with some days even getting to late morning the next day before running down to 0%. I don't use GPS much, so that may help, but that's a lot of use time in a phone, so a quick wired charge in the evening while I have dinner is usually more than enough. It was kinda handy to drop the phone onto the stand, but it wasn't so good that I stuck with it consistently.

The Google charger comes with a few extra features such as auto-do-not-disturb, slowly brightening lights before an alarm goes off, and photo display. I didn't particularly like these things, and found them of no value. My wife, however, did. She tried out the Google Wireless Charger for her Pixel 3 and I was quickly told I wasn't getting it back, and now it's what she uses exclusively. I got left with the LK, which sits on my nightstand and I sometimes use it if I'm going to sleep to charge overnight, but otherwise it sits idle.

So, for me I'd say the Google Wireless Charger does a reasonable job, but not so good that I personally find it worth the $80. If it did 10W the marketing claims (or someone can tell me why I'm limited to 5W actual during the first 50%), then that would be different and I might be more easily persuaded. It's clear I'm not the target market though, and it was a big win with my wife - if you're not looking for the absolute fastest charging and like the additional features, the Google Wireless Charger seems a good buy. At $16, for occasional use the LK charger is adequate, but I wouldn't miss it if it were gone.

So Qi wireless charging has come along in the last few years, and for the right person, is a good choice and for the Pixel 3 go with the official Google Wireless Charger, especially if you think you'll like the features that it comes with.

Addendum, May 21 - Google had a sale on their chargers a while back, and at $40 each I thought they were actually worth it, and bought 2 - one for my office, one for by the bed. They're actually pretty handy. So for me it was a case of "Interesting, but only at the right price" and clearly that price was closer to $40 than $80!

Ossia and FCC Approval

Earlier today (Thu 27th) the FCC published that Ossia, the RF at-distance wireless power company, had been granted Part 18 approval for their charging system. This has many similarities to the Energous system that got similar approval around 18 months ago, but also a number of differences. The first similarity is that it seems a lot of cost and effort to deliver very little power across an annoyingly short distance though in a more elegant manner than Energous. If you want to look up the data for yourself, you can go the the FCC OET Authorization Search page and enter "Ossia" under Applicant Name. Ossia are clear in its intended application:

The Cota power system is intended to power sensors, actuators, small displays and other devices in a commercial or industrial environment for which changing batteries and/or connecting wires is impractical.

So no charging your phone, or any other significant electronics, and also it seems to be for fixed receivers, not mobile.

This is a large area transmitter, around 0.36m^2 (imagine a ceiling tile), and outputting 5 Watts, not that much more than a cellphone or a wireless router. For comparison, at the claimed 145 dB SPL uBeam would be emitting 100 Watts acoustic from the same area panel.

Having had a little time to read the 100+ pages of data, I'll summarize the results:

• Uses 2.45GHz band (12.25cm wavelength), compared to ~900 MHz used by Energous (33cm)
• Tries to be tightly +/-10MHz, to limit interference with WiFi?
• A 16 by 16 antenna array (256 total), compared to the linear 12 antenna used by Energous
• A 60 by 60cm ceiling tile size transmitter, compared to a flat bar for Energous
• Means a 0.3 wavelength spacing, so good steering possible
• A maximum of 5 Watts emitted, compared to 10 Watts max for Energous
• Claiming 1 Watt delivered, unclear if to the receiver or battery, possibly 500 mW to 1 Watt actual, max. Energous in the 30mW to 150 mW range.
• Limited by a SAR of ~1.42 W/kg, compared to ~0.97 W/kg for Energous (FCC limit is 1.6)
• No increasing power from here
• Max range 1 meter, compared to 90 cm for Energous
• Creates a more confined beam, better steering, but no "hotspot"
• They claim to be able to steer around objects, some viability to that claim with a large phased array and test results 
• A 15 by 15cm receiver with unspecified output
• Ossia website says "meaningful power at 1 meter" but no numbers given
• No indication of a "keep out zone" that Energous 
• Ossia website claims the phased array steering means it's not needed
• Fans on the transmitter, possibly for compute/ADC heat phase-shift electronics
• If 30+ Watts for electronics, efficiency is likely ~1.5 to 3.0%
• ~10 mW CW output from the receiver, for location
• No consumer use allowed, professional installation only and a 20cm offset from people from transmitter and receiver
• I cannot see a significant business case for this system, even at OK power the range and stationary nature limits it
• No personalized message of congratulations from Ajit Pai, FCC Chair

So the summary seems to be that Ossia have a larger 2D phased array at a higher frequency and so can control the beam better than Energous, transmit half the power, to a fixed receiver the size of two phones, needs professional installation and never closer than 20cm to people, barely enough power to charge a phone, but potentially a very low efficiency. They also cannot increase the power beyond where they are without breaching the SAR safety limit (I'd guess they scaled down to the 20mW per antenna to get under the SAR limit, and some indication they started at 40 mW per antenna). The worst case seems to be immediately behind the receiver, on page 94 of the RF Exposure report Part 2.

Front of the Ossia Cota Transmitter Panel

Without impedance information it's hard to calculate what the power is even if we assume a half-wave dipole and multiple antenna, and know the field strengths. Obviously it's less than 5W received, they claim "meaningful power at 1 meter" but no numbers given, and no use cases such as "charge your phone" so I would guess it's starting to confirm the low power number in the high 100s of mW. (Update: This article claims around 1 Watt delivered so I'll guess it's somewhere from 500 mW to 1 Watt at the battery, max under ideal conditions) If it were much greater than a Watt I think they'd be saying that very loudly, so ~10 to 20% efficient on receive (emitted to battery and *not* overall system efficiency, which is wall socket to battery). (These are estimates, I will reserve the right to update later! Which I did...) I'd be interested to see how WiFi and Bluetooth work around this, even if they have restricted to one or two of the channels.

Back of the Ossia Cota Transmitter Panel

The receiver outputs a signal at a constant 9dBm, which is <10 mW. This is the signal that's used to determine location. Now that signal I expect gets received at up to 256 channels on the transmitter, sampled (assuming the same number as transmit), so Analog to Digital Conversion (ADC). Sampling will likely be in the high GHz to get the phase accuracy needed. You can look at ADCs in the 10GHz+ range, such as this AD913 part, and they are going to consume (say) 5 Watts per channel. If sensing/location duty cycle is 100% then that's 1.25 kW of heat just from the ADCs, and so fans will be needed. Wording in the report indicates they do this 50 times a second, so I expect a lower duty cycle, let's guess 10%? Even at 100 Watts for this with simplifications and good engineering, the system is using 105 Watts to charge ~1 Watt, so overall end-to-end efficiency is <1% which is not good. (This is not certain it's what they do, but given what I'd guess the phase delay precision requirements are to make this work, it's the most obvious solution).

Update 29th June 19. I'm glad I left the caveat on different ways of doing things, as a conversation with a colleague who has a lot of narrowband phased array radar experience covered alternative ways of doing this. My expertise is most heavily in broadband ultrasound for medical, and applications of using time reversal have been really precise in sending back the exact same signal, not just phase shifting a CW train. It's a reminder that general engineering expertise gets you so far, but specialized knowledge is invaluable. If anyone from Ossia was reading it they were probably rolling their eyes :). Very quickly, they would expect that they use phase shifters rather than ADCs, and that they'd expect the electronics to be around 30+ Watts to do this. With distributed electronics, it's just easier to put a fan on the back rather than heatsink everything. They also estimated you'd manage to contain about 80% of the power into the beam, would have around 75% loss of power in the 1 meter propagation path, and then around 50% receive efficiency, so you'd see about 1 Watt RF at the receiver, and about 500 mW converted to usable power. Assume they do a good job, that's in line with the 500 mW to 1 Watt estimate. That would put it at around 35 Watts in to get between 0.5 and 1 Watt out, so 1.5 to 3% overall end-to-end efficiency.

The compute on this to work out how to send the signal back should be pretty minimal. As an alternative to this system (barring, of course, a length of wire) I note the receiver is about a 15 x 15 x 3cm block so about 775 cm^3. At 500 Wh per L, that means around 390 Wh in a Li-ion battery that size, so anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks runtime at 0.5 to 1 Watt requirement.

Why limit to 1 meter? Well with a panel 60cm across, and 12.25cm wavelength, the near/far field boundary is at around 75cm, so it gets hard to have a bounded energy region beyond about 1 meter. That may be a consideration here on the regulatory side.

The report also makes it seem like the phased array nature of the array is used not to track a moving receiver, but to act as the safety system and try to route the signal around obstructions. Both the transmitter and receiver are likely fixed. How this is then useful in most circumstances is very questionable.

I'd be interested to compare this to a modern multi-antenna wifi router with MIMO like the ASUS AC5300 with the firmware hacked to up the power transmitted and see what gets received. Might be a fun 1 to 1 comparison.

What Ossia Want the Public to Think Their Tech Is

Most of the press articles on this are pretty light reading, simply regurgitating the talking points handed to them by Ossia. In the 18 months since Energous manipulated them, the press still fall for this approach, and it remains as frustrating as ever. Interestingly, what Ossia wants them to talk about is not this system, but mythical future ones, that what they have here is "a critical first step". It's like they are embarrassed by it, even the pictures they've given out are for non-existent desktop products. This is a shame as I think the engineering team has done as good a job as could be expected, this data shows they are ultimately limited by laws of physics and regulatory safety rules - ultimately I think this is as good as it gets. It's a successful approach though, they get the press talking about phone charging even in the headlines - something that's hard to do when you can't be within 20cm of your phone... Read for yourself the similarity in articles from IEEE Spectrum, Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, and VentureBeat.

What's the importance of this approval? The nominal use case of charging sensors in an industrial environment IMO doesn't hold up when everything is fixed and <1m distant, a wire or large battery does the job cheaper and better. It seems to me about as important as Energous' equivalent approval from 18 months ago, good for marketing/smoke and mirrors, but meaningless if you want to charge anything.

As far as I can see, no-one has beaten Powercast yet for just getting the job done without hype.

Note: I posted a version of this article earlier, but wrote it late at night and realized when I got up I had made some mistakes, and didn't have time to correct, so took the article down for a few hours until I had a chance to fix. So if you think you saw it and then disappear, you are correct.

EEVBlog Does uBeam Again

You may remember that EEVBlog did a great video on uBeam a couple of years ago, which if you've not seen you should go watch now (also below). With the new information out on uBeam, Dave has done it again, and it's a nice straightforward description of the latest website and presentation. I encourage you to watch it if you want more accessible coverage than I write here.

The discussion of the video and business side is the first 16 or so minutes, but around 18m45s is where the more tech side of the coverage begins.

To save you going hunting for it, here's the EEVBlog uBeam debunking video from 2017.

Yet Another uBeam Video

I posted a uBeam promotional video earlier today, and a comment had a link to a presentation given by the current uBeam CEO at the OurCrowd summit a few months ago (OurCrowd were one of the larger funders for uBeam).

Most of it is unremarkable, with the usual marketing claims, but three slides have some interesting info - this is a post that gets reasonably technical, just warning, so a summary of my opinion of this video is:

• The uBeam proprietary transducers seem a variation on existing commercial devices
• Measured surface data shows the don't perform evenly
• They can't focus sound where they want to (2 meters target, 1.2m actual)
• The transducers may be highly directional, limiting steering in the array
• They will never deliver more than 1W to a phone, even under ideal conditions (10 hours to charge)
• The transducers are 5 to 10mm thick, likely doubling the thickness of a phone
• Estimated phone case cost - $150 minimum

At around 2:40 the slide shows the transducer with a measured response from the surface.

These transducers seem to be the proprietary designs that are essentially (IMO) a variation on the standard Murata devices used in car parking sensors, with what looks to be a bar rather than a disk of piezoelectric material and then a cone shaped 'speaker' on the front. I expect the bar to be either prestressed or a bimorph layered component. The transducer diameter is large, appearing to be larger than a wavelength of sound in the ~40 kHz range, which would mean in phased array operation steering would be hard as you'd send energy in unwanted directions. The other image shows what I expect is a "heat map" of the vibrational characteristics of a single transducer in operation - where you are looking at the round face, and red indicates a lot of motion, green indicates little. If this is a magnitude map, then it indicates this transducer is not operating particularly well, as you'd want red evenly around the surface to get maximum power out for the area available. Now they may have chosen a bad result just to "throw us off" but I don't see what that would buy them, and this tells me that the transducers are, unsurprisingly, inefficient.

The next interesting images appear at around 3:22 and seem to show data on performance (not clear if simulated or measured). Axes on the left image are hard to read but seem to show a linear reduction of power with distance, though some of the markings on the y-axis indicate it may be logarithmic. The very interesting one is on the right and says "Focused Power @ 2 Meters", which is really weird because if you look at where the peak amplitude is it's around 1 to 1.25 meters, so not particularly good targeting there if you are looking to deliver power safely. What surprises me though is that there are no grating lobes, as mentioned above the spacing means in phased array application I'd expect some beams at an angle, but it's really clean. 

Two possible reasons for this - one is that the transducers are highly directional and really only send energy forward, so there's just no power at angles to form strong grating lobes - the other is that they aren't steering or focusing at all, just driving all over the elements together and letting a 'natural focus' form, same as if you had a single large vibrating plate and not many individual elements. Were would that focus? Well, from the Y-axis it looks to be a 20cm wide panel, and an approximate distance for the near-field/far-field transition peak is (width^2/(4*wavelength)) then for 40 kHz (8.6mm wavelength in air) that gives a "focal peak" at 1.16 meters - amazingly right on top of where that peak shows up in the plot. 

I don't think they are focusing at all, something essential if you want to carefully target devices for efficient and safe power delivery. If they want to prove me wrong there, the same plot as the one on the right, but steered at 45 degrees up or down, and placing the focus at various depths along the Z-axis, would make it clear. Not sure if they aren't focusing because they can't, or because showing that data would be ugly, but I'd like to know.

Last slide of interest starting at 3:59 or so, has power delivered versus distance. Now I'm skeptical of these numbers, but let's take the uBeam ones at face value (not the Next Gen ones of course, since they fired the entire team that would be working on them). What this claims is that a phone sized object can get around 1 Watt of usable power, and given that at 145 dB a phone gets around 3W of acoustic power incident, then that implies a ~30% reception efficiency, which is impressive if they can show that (to be clear, I don't think it's that high in reality). So impressive that I'm shocked there isn't a demo that makes that clear and proves the doubters like me wrong. Hmmmm. If you notice, that implies the next gen devices would have been 2x as efficient, or near 60%, given a 145 dB limit, which is an incredible feat and humanity is worse off for us not receiving this technology. Given 'circles in squares' leads to an effective usable area of around 79% max, that's getting to the limit of what's achievable (yes, I know hex layouts are more efficient, except in finite sized areas where the perimeter is a substantial fraction of the area)

More than that though, the numbers are just weird. The limit on usable power received is "Incident Acoustic Power Density x Area x Efficiency" and given the latter two are fixed, only the Incident Acoustic Power Density is the limit. That is set by the regulatory limit at 145 dB (really it's 115 dB, 1000x lower, but we're being nice) so 300 W/m^2, and the area of the transmitter. Let's say a 30 x 30 cm transmitter is used, that's around 30W acoustic transmitted and with really good focusing you can target most of that to the receiver. That means as you move further out, with a large transmitter you can maintain power at the receiver by using more transmitter area and so power received should remain constant for a period (when limited by 145dB ceiling), then dip when you run out of transmitter area to compensate for the increasing in-air losses. Indeed because of the natural focusing effect you want to be increasing the array used as you move the receiver further out. Of course, efficiency continuously decreases, and transmitter cost goes up, but that's 'hidden' in this plot. There's no reason for a plot like this not to assume a huge transmitter, so maybe they are admitting the can't steer/focus arbitrarily, or perhaps they are simplifying for the lay audience, or maybe it's just kinda nonsense.

The power received here is for a phone sized object, around 0.01 m^2, but an individual transducer is around 100th of that. That implies at point blank range the max power per transducer is around 10 mW, and barely 3 mW at 2 m, under ideal conditions. Note for IoT charging, you don't get much space.

Nothing on cost here - a Murata transducer in bulk is a bit under $1, so even assuming they do an awesome job and produce at 50c (doubtful, most likely they'll be more expensive), then a phone case has around 100 of these, so $50 in COGS before anything else like electronics, putting the case at $150 retail, minimum. Ouch.

So, nothing surprising here, but a few extra bits of information that we didn't have before that mostly confirm our existing expectations.

Oor Wullie's Big Bucket Trail

An Oor Wullie Statue in Candleriggs, Glasgow

I was fortunate enough to get a week off and went back home to Scotland to visit family. Just as I was leaving, a summer long event started called "Oor Wullie's Big Bucket Trail". Oor Wullie (Translated: Our William) is a comic strip character from newspapers (specifically DC Thompson papers from my home town, Dundee), started in 1936 and still going today. For American readers, I'm thinking the analogy may be Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes.

From Dundee, with Wullie Showing layers of computer graphics, and Lemmings (studio was Dundee based) for those who remember that far back

For the 80th anniversary in 2016, there was an exhibition of large painted statues of Wullie in Dundee, and this summer they've gone even bigger with Oor Wullie's Big Bucket Trail with around 200 full sized statues in Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Inverness, and around 300 smaller ones. The event aims to raise money for a variety of Scottish children's hospital charities. A variety of groups have painted the statues each with a different theme, and they are located in various parts of the cities - some are just fun, some represent Scottish historical or artistic figures, or aspects of Scottish life. Like cow parade (for those of you familiar with it), it's a fun outdoor and large scale exhibit - and it gets you walking around the towns to try and see more. The official site is here, and there's even an app to help you cross them off your list and learn more. You can also follow them on Twitter @OWBIGBucket and the hashtag #OWBBT

Town center in Dundee, with the permanent dragon statue in the background

I caught the first couple of days of it in Dundee and Glasgow, just before I left. I was up at 11pm walking around Glasgow the night before I left to get a couple more (Scotland is really far north, it's light late this time of year), but I never did find the Glasgow Green or Strathclyde Uni ones.

Oor Jimi in Glasgow

I had a few favourites for different reasons. Jimi Hendrix shows up as Oor Jimi, and given I live in Renton WA where Hendrix is buried, I liked it. Nearby was another that appealed to my childish sense of humour:

A Whoopie Cushion Wullie in Glasgow

This one made me laugh, and it's another opportunity to remind people that Scotland's national animal is indeed a unicorn. Next one might be my favourite of all though:

Traffic Cone Wullie in Glasgow

I used to walk past this pretty much every day, and even tried to get up on the statue to place the cone once (and failed). It's just Glasgow. I wish I'd had a day or two more to go see the rest, it took me to a few places in the cities I'd not been to in some time, and they seemed to be getting a lot of positive attention. Hopefully it also raises a lot of money for charity in the three months or so it runs.

I'll post a few more pictures later but one last thing, I always try and get some good Scottish food when I'm home. My dinner of choice - Cullen Skink (soup with smoked haddock, cream, potatoes), haggis neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes, this time in a whisky cream sauce), and sticky toffee pudding. This was from the Bothy restaurant in Glasgow, and I'll be going back next time I'm home.