Researcher has developed, at a cost of less than one dollar, a wireless light switch that runs without batteries, can be installed anywhere on a wall and could reduce the cost of wiring a house by …::A U of A engineering researcher has developed a wireless light switch that could reduce the cost of wiring a house by as much as 50 per cent.
The article says they are powering it using dedicated transmitters:
“each floor would have one or two RF (radio frequency) power transmitters to power up all switches inside the house.”
It’s confusing because earlier they talk about energy harvesting, which implies “free”. But then they talk about how you will need to run these transmitters, which certainly isn’t free.