When Ben Calhoun and Dave Wentzloff co-founded Everactive in 2012, analysts and tech companies were forecasting a massive increase in the number of internet-connected devices, collectively referred to as the internet of things (IoT). IBM, for example, predicted a staggering 1 trillion IoT-connected devices by 2015.
But Calhoun and Wentzloff knew better. The pair, who’d met as graduate students researching ultra-low-power circuits in Anantha Chandrakasan’s research group at MIT, recognized that 1 trillion devices meant the near-impossible task of managing 1 trillion batteries to sustain all of the sensors needed to continuously collect, analyze, and send data.
Source: “The future of the IoT (batteries not required)”, MIT News Office
