Energous Partners With E Ink to Develop Wirelessly Charged Electronic Paper Display Tags

Energous Corporation (Nasdaq: WATT), the developer of WattUp, a revolutionary wireless charging 2.0 technology, today announced a collaboration with E Ink Holdings, "E Ink" (8069.TWO), a leading innovator in electronic ink technology, to develop WattUp-enabled Electronic Paper Display (EPD) tags for IoT displays such as logistics tags, electronic shelf labels and retail signage, offering wireless charging at distances of up to 15 feet.

“Today’s announcement of our partnership with E Ink represents our commitment to innovation and opens up an entirely new application for our revolutionary WattUp wireless charging technology. We believe that WattUp is a very attractive option for companies within the electronic ink industry because of the significant advantages it offers, such as a small footprint, interoperability and freedom of placement, while providing over-the-air charging capabilities,” said Stephen R. Rizzone, president and CEO of Energous Corporation.

The goal of the collaboration is to enable manufacturers to utilize E Ink’s Display technology and layer in Energous’ WattUp wireless charging technology before printing the ink onto an EPD tag. Utilizing the WattUp PowerHub transmitter, the EPD tags can potentially be charged wirelessly at distances up to 15 feet away. Logistics EPD tags are a form of electronic label designed to give immediate and accurate tracking information to monitor and trace assets in the distribution chain.

“EPD’s low-power consumption is one critical factor that serves the industry needs in IoT. E Ink is continuously working to improve and develop new low-power consuming ePaper solutions. We are delighted to co-work with Energous in developing the long-distance wireless charging technology. We believe the wireless charging technology offers the versatility and flexibility that will enable greater freedom for users of our EPD tags,” said Johnson Lee, CEO of E Ink.

“We believe the announcement of this partnership highlights one of the biggest potential applications of Energous’ WattUp RF-charging,” said Mark Tyndall, senior vice president corporate development and strategy at Dialog Semiconductor. “Flexible charging options will help enable a fully connected ecosystem for both electronic signage and asset tags.”

The global e-paper display market was estimated to grow to $5.73 billion by 2023, according to Market Research Future. A major portion of this market are electronic shelf labels which offer retailers a number of benefits, including the ability to update shelving signage copy quickly and efficiently, without the need for wires, paper tags, or store representatives to change them manually. Another core segment are logistics EPD tags that give immediate and accurate tracking information to monitor and trace assets from the factory, to the warehouse and ultimately to each retailer in the distribution chain.