Blog – Kliskatek

Three roadmap strategies for supporting wireless protocols in a battery-free product — commit to one protocol (single market, lowest cost, the right default); ship one but keep the sensing core reusable (recommended when a second market is plausible; add a radio later, not a redesign); and plan a multi-protocol line (two or more funded markets, highest cost, justified only when the markets are real) — with a shared sensing core making options two and three affordable.

One Protocol or Several? The Roadmap Decision Behind a Battery-Free Product

2026-07-20 by Mikel Choperena

Should a battery-free product commit to one wireless protocol or plan for several? A roadmap framework — and what adding a protocol later really costs.

From stuck to scoped: three "stuck" situations — a project stalled across vendors, a capability gap just hit, and a system built but not behaving — flow through a short paid scoping study into four "scoped" outputs: an architecture proposal, a realistic plan with an investment range, an integration-risk map, and an honest go/no-go recommendation

From Stuck to Scoped: How a Paid Scoping Study De-Risks a Cross-Domain Project

2026-07-13 by Mikel Choperena

A paid scoping study turns a stalled cross-domain project into an architecture, a costed plan and an honest go/no-go — the lowest-risk way to start before you commit.

Two-panel diagram comparing periodic inspection and condition-based maintenance of a high-voltage asset: on the left, calendar-based inspections miss a fault that develops in the blind window between visits; on the right, continuous battery-free condition monitoring catches the same fault at the action threshold and triggers intervention before failure.

Condition-Based Maintenance vs Periodic Inspection: The Business Case for Utilities

2026-07-132026-07-06 by Mikel Choperena

Condition-based maintenance vs periodic inspection for HV switchgear: what each really costs, and how to build a business case utilities will actually sign.

Diagram of battery-free SF6 monitoring in gas-insulated switchgear: a battery-free sensor inside the sealed gas compartment measures pressure/density and humidity and is read from outside via an engineered RF path (a gas-tight feedthrough or a dielectric window), feeding leak alerts and F-gas compliance data into asset management.

SF6 Monitoring Without Batteries: Pressure & Humidity in Gas-Insulated Equipment

2026-06-29 by Mikel Choperena

Battery-free sensors track SF6 density and humidity inside sealed gas-insulated switchgear — no wires through the gas boundary, no batteries. How it works, and why F-gas rules make it matter now.

Diagram of battery-free busbar hot-spot monitoring inside a switchgear cabinet: SenseID temperature tags mounted on busbar joints detect a hot spot, are read by a UHF RFID reader, and feed per-joint temperature into asset management (CMMS/SCADA).

Battery-Free Temperature Monitoring for Switchgear: Busbar Hot Spot Detection

2026-06-22 by Mikel Choperena

Battery-free temperature sensors detect busbar hot spots inside live switchgear — no wires, no batteries. How it works, which protocol to choose, and the business case.

Two-panel diagram showing HV asset constraints on the left (sealed, high voltage, long lifecycle, mission-critical, no cables, no batteries) and the seven cross-domain engineering challenges on the right (antenna, energy harvesting, power management, sensor, firmware, communication, software), with a section explaining why the system can't be split across specialists.

Predictive Monitoring for High-Voltage Equipment: Where Owning the Whole System Is the Only Option

2026-06-222026-06-16 by Mikel Choperena

High-voltage switchgear, GIS and transformers are sealed, inaccessible, and mission-critical. Monitoring them requires battery-free sensing — and battery-free sensing requires a team that owns the entire HW/FW/SW/RF stack. Here’s why.

Seven engineering domains radiating from a battery-free sensor tag at the centre — antenna/RF, energy harvesting, power management, firmware, sensor signal conditioning, communication, and software/SDK — showing how each domain interacts with all others, with an arrow pointing to four other cross-domain project types (semiconductor test platforms, industrial test equipment, wireless product development, condition monitoring) that require the same integrated capability.

Why We Build Battery-Free Sensors: The Hardest Proof of Owning the Whole RF/Firmware/Software Stack

2026-06-222026-06-08 by Mikel Choperena

Battery-free sensors are our hardest product — and the most demanding proof that we own the complete hardware, firmware, software and wireless/RF stack. Here’s why that matters for your next cross-domain project.

Three-level filter for determining whether an asset needs battery-free sensing — Level 1 (sealed, inaccessible, battery-free is the only option), Level 2 (accessible but maintenance is costly, battery-free eliminates a pain point), Level 3 (accessible with standard maintenance, consider alternatives) — with three qualifying questions.

Does Your Sealed, Inaccessible Asset Actually Need Battery-Free? A Practical Filter

2026-06-02 by Mikel Choperena

A practical three-question filter to determine whether your monitoring application genuinely needs battery-free sensing, or whether battery-powered or wired alternatives might be simpler and cheaper. Honest guidance on when to call us — and when not to.

Side-by-side comparison of two approaches to a cross-domain project — splitting across four specialist vendors with the integration risk falling on the client, versus one team owning the complete HW plus FW plus SW plus wireless system with integration risk managed internally — illustrated with three real project examples.

When One Vendor Can’t Own It: The Hidden Cost of Splitting a HW/FW/SW + Wireless Project

2026-05-25 by Mikel Choperena

What happens when a project that needs hardware, firmware, software and wireless to work together gets split across four specialists. The integration risk nobody budgets for — and how to avoid it.