The upside of Wi-Fi is that it’s everywhere – invisibly connecting laptops to printers, allowing smartphones to make calls or stream movies without cell service, and letting online gamers battle it out. The downside is that using Wi-Fi consumes a significant amount of energy, draining the batteries on all those connected devices. Now, a team…

University of Washington engineers have developed a novel technology that uses a Wi-Fi router—a source of ubiquitous but untapped energy in indoor environments—to power devices. The Power Over Wi-Fi (PoWiFi) system is one of the most innovative and game-changing technologies of the year, according to Popular Science, which included it in the magazine’s annual “Best…