Uladzislau Bayouski

There are 19.8 billion IoT devices in the world right now. Every single one needs power. Most of them run on a battery. And in the most useful deployments — sensors inside factory walls, trackers on livestock in remote fields, monitors sealed inside bridge supports — that battery is essentially impossible to replace. Multiply that problem by 40 billion devices by 2034. The math breaks down entirely. Energy harvesting is the fix. And in 2026, it's finally at scale. 🔋 The Short Version Instead of storing energy in a chemical cell that degrades over time, harvesting devices capture energy that already exists in their environment — continuously, passively, for free. No replacement schedule. No maintenance crews. No e-waste from dead cells. Four sources power most deployments: Solar — indoor photovoltaics now optimised for dim warehouse lighting and fluorescent tubes; smart shipping labels that track pallets through supply chains without ever touching a battery Thermal — the...

Every IoT product lives or dies by its chip. The wrong choice means your device drains batteries in a week, misses the connectivity standard that just became mainstream, or ships without the security features enterprise buyers now require. In 2025, the IoT chip market is more competitive — and more interesting — than ever. The Short Version Four requirements define what a serious IoT chip needs in 2025: energy efficiency, robust security, support for Matter and next-gen protocols, and on-device AI capability. The chips that nail all four are the ones shaping the next generation of connected products. Here's the list: Qualcomm QCA4020 — tri-mode SoC (BLE + Wi-Fi + 802.15.4) built for multi-protocol smart home ecosystems and Matter compatibility Nordic nRF5340 — dual-core Bluetooth 5.3 powerhouse with LE Audio and direction finding; the go-to for wearables and health monitors Espressif ESP32-C6 — the developer favorite evolves: Wi-Fi 6, BT 5 LE, native Matter support, and l...

We talk endlessly about faster processors, smarter algorithms, and better connectivity. But there's a quieter revolution happening underneath all of that — in the materials IoT devices are actually made of. The next generation of connected devices won't just be smarter. They'll be flexible, biodegradable, self-powered, and in some cases, wearable directly on — or inside — the human body. The Short Version Materials dictate more than you think. Size, power consumption, flexibility, durability, cost — and whether a device can exist in places rigid silicon simply can't go. The shift from traditional PCBs to advanced substrates is unlocking entirely new form factors. 18 materials are driving that shift. Here are the ones that matter most: Graphene — single-atom carbon layers with exceptional conductivity and flexibility; already in commercial wearables for sweat analysis and hydration monitoring MXenes — 2D transition metal carbides enabling on-chip photodetectors and e...