PALO ALTO, California — Gene Wang’s career really took off when he walked on the ceiling.
It all started in a classroom at Harvard’s business school, where Wang was a student. The professor asked how hard they would try to do the impossible. To prove a point, Wang rolled up his sleeves, grabbed his desk, did a head stand and took a few steps on the ceiling.
The cute anecdote notwithstanding, he soon dropped out and got into business, started a few companies and worked, briefly, as a vice president at Hewlett Packard.
Wang is currently the CEO of People Power, a green-tech company based here in the heart of Silicon Valley. A few weeks ago, People Power introduced a kit it calls SuRF, for Sensor Ultra-Radio Frequency, that helps connect household appliances and gadgets to a wireless network in your house.
What that means is that you could monitor your microwave, Playstation and coffee machine in real time, check their levels of energy consumption, and make apps to control how they behave. Ultimately, that could lead to substantial savings of energy and money.
“We want to combine IT and ET, internet technology and energy technology, to create an ‘enernet’ in your house,” says Wang. He likes catchphrases.
The $150 SuRF is a developer’s kit, which means you can’t simply buy it, plug it into your refrigerator, and start cutting your energy consumption in half: You have to connect it to your gadget or appliance and then build an app to make it work.
Gene Wang (left) and David Moss pointing to their creation, SuRF
SuRF consists of two boards with long-range 900-MHz radios, powered by the Texas Instruments CC430 platform. “Lower frequencies let you penetrate walls and go much further than the standard 2.4-GHz frequency,” says David Moss, People Power’s director of device engineering.
He brings out two pairs of wireless network transmitters and receivers. One pair operates on 2.4 GHz, the frequency used in many wireless devices. The other are SuRF boards running at 900 MHz. We place one of each type in the room, and walk out to the front yard with the other two. The signal from the 2.4-GHz source dies out soon. SuRF is still blinking after almost a hundred feet.
“You could go around the block with it, and it would still work,” says Moss. “We’ve tried.” The longer range could make a home with many wirelessly connected gadgets a reality.
SuRF is powered by the company’s Open Source Home Area Network operating system. OSHAN is based on TinyOS, a platform for wireless sensors that currently has about 10,000 developers. Moss hopes OSHAN-powered devices could replace the networks we have at home — Personal Access Networks, with a range of about 30 to 40 feet — with something he calls Home Access Networks, with a range of 100-200 feet.
SuRF comes in a neat, surfboard-shaped box. Open it, and you’re greeted by the sound of the Beach Boys and “Surfin’ USA.” And OSHAN is pronounced “ocean.” Yes, there’s a conscious theme there.
“We used to go surfing all the time,” Moss explains. Wang and he worked together in Bitfone, a company that figured out how to update your phone’s firmware over the air. It was sold to Hewlett Packard in 2007. The duo then founded People Power in January 2009, and have seen it grow to roughly 65 people.
“I’ve worked on wireless network sensors for the U.S. Government, in some rugged terrain,” Moss says. He used the experience to build SuRF, replacing his regular 9-to-5 job with People Power.
“He still works 9 to 5,” Wang interjects and laughs. “Except, now it’s 9 a.m. to 5 a.m.”
Moss and Wang in front of the People Power RV
I’m not exactly sure Wang’s joking: He is a competitive guy, and it seems clear he expects a lot from his team — and himself.
But he’s still imaginative when it comes to stunts like the one he pulled on the ceiling of Harvard Business School. Last month, he drove a People Power-branded RV to Washington, D.C., and performed a concert. “I’m a failed musician,” Wang says, as we sit in the recording studio he built in his backyard. “I was doing business and music, and decided I didn’t have time for both.”
SuRF and OSHAN are exciting, not so much for what they can currently execute, but for the potential they have to integrate information technology more deeply into the world of home appliances.
It’s the stuff of science-fiction books and movies. SuRF could join a growing wave of home-automation technologies, like the recent Wi-Fi-enabled weight scale. Or, imagine a tea kettle that recognizes it is cold and communicates that to you, or a fridge that notices you’re out of milk and places an order with the local store. (Or a fridge that records a video clip every time you grab a beer.)
Plus, it could be a way to save some serious energy and cash. And consumers are moving in that direction.
SuRF kit contains two boards that communicate with each other
“There’s been a real move in the market of energy cost-monitoring in the past two years,” Farhan Abid, a Park Associates analyst, says. “More and more consumers are paying attention to their consumption.”
He thinks the approach Wang and Moss came up with might work. “It’s a clash of cultures, with the utility companies operating in a very regulated market, and startups like People Power taking an open source approach, which means they can make stuff 10 times faster,” Abid says.
“It’s hard to change consumer habits just because something is cool. Green is nice, but the primary factor here is cutting cost.”
Or, as Wang puts it, “we want to put your appliances and gadgets on an energy diet.” He is pleased, as only a serial business starters can be, with the catchphrase he just came up with.
Most diets aren’t exactly appealing. This one is.
Some are buying into it already, like Bibaja, the maker of irrigation and landscape-lighting controls. “The water-consumption information will be shared with the People Power system, allowing people to track of just how much water is going into their irrigation,” Bibaja’s owner Mark Stubbs said in an e-mail.
Another customer, National Semiconductor, uses parts of OSHAN to build wireless devices that monitor outpout from solar panels.
“I’m generally picky about third-party solutions, but I’ve been impressed by People Power,” says Roland Hendel, a systems engineer at National Semi. “They are effective, committed and doing rigid testing of their stuff.”
In terms of mass-market appeal, however, SuRF and OSHAN are waiting for some clever developers to turn the promise into a consumer reality. And then we can all trim some energy weight.
Photos: Miran Pavic
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