John Discovers ENOCEAN

Sometimes I think I am the last to find out about stuff. Not trivial stuff, some fairly important stuff. The latest is ENOCEAN (www.enocean.com).

I traveled a lot in Europe. Probably 15 times over the last 10 years. I’ve been all over, from Italy to Ireland to Holland and lots of places in between. On those travels I’ve always wondered about the slot where you have to stick your hotel room key card. Sticking it in the slot makes all the lights and everything else powered up on the room. It’s kind of cool and I always wondered about it.

I may be the last to understand it but I just discovered that most of that stuff is something called ENOCEAN. That’s a self powered wireless standard that is some really cool technology.

It truly is self powered wireless. When you get to your room you slide your hotel card through the slot. It turns out that sliding it down the slot provides just enough power to read the strip, validate the key code and open the door. When you get in the room the same thing happens at the docking station where you put your card. It wirelessly signals the rest of the room to activate all the outlets. Every outlet has a wireless receiver with relays that get turned on when you store your card and turned off when you remove your card.

I think it is pretty interesting technology and I’m going to learn more about it. It’s too bad it took me so long to find out about it.