Michael Robinson this week is pitching his Nova-X Report with a promise that “we’re about to witness one of the most massive rollouts in history” as a new “magic electricity” ends the days of wires and plugs and dead batteries and makes us all filthy, stinkin’ rich.
So what the heck is he talking about? The promise is large and glorious, and designed, of course, to get you to hurry up and subscribe to Nova-X Report (which is his “entry level” report, $39/year currently) … and that promise incites daydreaming, with thoughts of cars that charge wirelessly, without big bulky high-voltage plugs… blenders that make you margaritas on the beach… coffeemakers that work inside your car.
That’s all in the service of picturing a world in which you own (a piece of) the core technology that makes wireless charging possible… which feels glorious and exciting. So let’s sample a few clues from the ad and see if we can name this stock for you, shall we? Here’s some of Robinson’s pitch:
“Now is the time to take this new energy VERY SERIOUSLY.
“As we speak, this tiny Silicon Valley firm is rushing to get their NanoCrystal Electricity technology fully adopted.
“They already have the three biggest multi-national manufacturer of electronics and chips on notice…
“Including Dialog Semiconductor, which has ponied up $25 million as a partner.
“If that isn’t a promise that this is going to happen any day now, nothing is.
“But it gets even more exciting.
“The company just announced they are currently working on integrating their remarkable technology with 56 other tech firms.
“This is just the beginning of a massive roll-out.”
Sounds pretty exciting… and with the Consumer Electronics Show getting lots of headlines, we can all imagine the cool new things that could be powered by wireless electricity. More clues?
“This tiny firm is about to have a sales bonanza!
“I added up the cash major industries are targeting for NanoCrystal Electricity. This includes electronic devices, electric cars, medical, military, and retail.
“I then estimated that this company locks-in a minimum of 20% of it all…
“For over $5 billion in revenue potential over the next couple years.
“Since this company is only three years old with only $4 million in sales so far, that translates into a 125,091% increase in revenues…”
That’s hooey, of course — anyone who starts out with a massive number for sales in a major industry and then says, “if this tiny company takes ‘just’ 20% of that market, the numbers will be astronomical!” is just using shock-and-awe math. Taking even 1% of a giant industry with a new technology is a gargantuan accomplishment, so take that with a huge grain of salt.
But, of course, “downplay” isn’t in Robinson’s vocabulary:
“We know they’re the leader in a revolutionary new technology…
“They should trade at a giant premium…
“They should have high operating margins (own the IP, outsources the heavy lifting)…
Are you getting our free Daily Update
"reveal" emails? If not,
just click here...“Reasonably, half the company profits should drop into the stock price…
“Meaning this stock could pay out 78 times your money.
“And not over the next decade – over the next two to three years.”
So that’s the bold, headline promise: $1,000 to $78,000 in three years. Something to keep track of when we come back and look at this teaser in the future.
Why is all of this supposed to be happening now? What’s the urgency? Robinson says there’s an imminent catalyst:
“A green light on their NanoCrystal Electricity is expected any day now from the FCC.”
OK, so I’ll spare you my look at all the rest of the clues… because I need to jump in here and say that’s a little disingenuous. This ad just started running (as far as we can tell, at least) this week… and the ad is dated “January 2018” … but Energous (WATT) actually got their first FCC approval for an over-the-air transmitter at the end of December.
So yes, the Thinkolator identified that Robinson here is touting Energous (WATT), the wireless charging startup that’s been the subject of wildly overpromising hype-filled newsletter ads since it showed off its first prototype “over the air” charging system at the Consumer Electronics Show three years ago.
And there’s a reason for the excitement, of course — by all accounts, the technology is real, and consumers really do want to be able to charge their devices without plugging them in. After those two basic realities are covered, though, the actual investment prospect and product development timelines become radically more complicated.
Partly that’s because the company has a well-documented history over overpromising on its development timeline… and pundits and newsletters have loaded up on that overpromising, magnifying the impact on the stock price. The last time I had anything to do with Energous stock I was short the shares for a little while in the Summer of 2016, when a couple newsletters were loudly promising that Apple was on the verge of announcing that they would use Energous’ WattUp wireless charging in the iPhone 7 (which was, of course, a patently ridiculous claim).
Now, of course, the story has changed a little bit, because Energous has gotten perhaps the first really good news they’ve had since they made the partnership deal with Dialog semiconductor back in 2016 and added to it last Summer. They announced in late December that the FCC has certified its first “over the air” charging transmitter. Here’s part of that press release:
“The company’s WattUp Mid Field transmitter can deliver power via radio frequency (RF) energy to WattUp-enabled electronic devices at a distance of up to three feet. As the only technology that can do both contact-based and non-contact-based wireless charging, as well as charge multiple devices at once, WattUp is highly scalable and automatically charges devices, as needed, until they are topped off. While older charging technologies allow for only contact-based charging, Energous is the only company to achieve Wireless Charging 2.0 to-date, which is the ability to charge devices both at contact (including fast charging large battery devices such as smartphones and tablets), as well as power-at-a-distance. Similar to WiFi, the WattUp ecosystem ensures interoperability between receivers and transmitters, regardless of the manufacturer, making the entire ecosystem flexible and accessible for consumers and manufacturing partners….
“This represents the first time FCC equipment certification has been awarded to any device that charges wirelessly at a distance, and operates under Part 18 of the FCC’s rules. The FCC’s Part 18 rules permit higher-power operations than are permitted under the Part 15 rules that have been used to approve other at a distance charging devices.”
I haven’t seen what Energous was presenting at the CES this year, but they were reportedly there (and the CEO got some press, including this video interview) and they have talked up the release of the first WattUp-enabled products, including some new hearing aids and Myant’s SKIIN smart clothing line… both of those are still using the existing “near field” charger, which is essentially a contact charger that requires you to be within a centimeter or so of the charger, much like the current Qi standard chargers (such as Apple has adopted for their first iPhones that use wireless charging, or for the Apple Watch), but the promise is that although these are contact chargers, they use the same technology as Energous’ Mid Field and eventual Far Field transmitters and will be able to receive power from those future transmitters as well. So your $80 smart underwear will be backward-compatible.
The current forecast for availability of those distance transmitters is “late this year, early in 2019,” according to the CEO in that interview, and they say they’re “more comfortable” with those projections now that the chips have been produced and they have some over-the-air certification. I’m probably a little too cynical about Energous, given the several waves of massive hype I’ve seen from and about the company… I love the idea of “charging at a distance,” and Energous certainly gets most of the press in that space (though there are other technologies, including Powercast, which also uses RF power transmission, and Ossia’s Cota), but clearly there are technical or consumer challenges or this fantastical stuff we’ve been hearing about for years would be everywhere by now.
What are the analysts expecting? Well, some of them have probably been burned before, too, from the years of “a product is right around the corner” talk, but Oppenheimer’s analyst reportedly has an estimate for $3.9 million in revenue for 2018 and “material” growth in 2019, with a “bull case scenario” of maybe generating close to $400 million in revenue by 2021. That’s a pretty different scenario than Michael Robinson’s, both envision “20% market share” but Robinson calls it a $25 billion market (with $5 billion in revenue for Energous) and the Oppenheimer analyst apparently foresees a $2 billion market (with $400 million in revenue for Energous).
On the flip side, of course, there’s also still a lot of pessimism from the short sellers — Andrew Left, in particular, has been vocal in his criticism of Energous, but there are others as well… though the FCC approval may well have generated a “short squeeze” a couple weeks ago (short data that I see is usually pretty old, shortsqueeze.com says about a third of the stock is still sold short).
I think Energous’s WattUp is still a possible technology advance in search of a breakthrough product. Rosy scenarios for WattUp require that it get some kind of critical mass building, which very likely means that at least one high-profile and high-volume product is needed, and I have no insight into what product that might be or when it might happen. I expect we’ll probably see Apple rumors for WATT again this year, too, though I think anyone expecting Apple to be the first adopter of WattUp is likely to be disappointed. Apple hasn’t been much of a risk-taker on that front, they tend to prefer to perfect proven and established technologies.
The good thing is that they are very small, with a market cap of $400 million or so, so even though their finances are rickety and they keep selling equity every time they have good news that drives the shares up (as most cash-burning companies do, wisely), and even though the insiders are steady sellers (as is typical of tech startups, where stock is a major part of compensation), there’s almost always an optimistic scenario lurking under the surface if you’re willing to take the chance on the technology and the management team.
WATT is not particularly appealing to me, and I think Michael Robinson is way out in left field with his projections in this ad, since the meaningful technology won’t even be available for purchase within a year, let alone taking 20% of the market in three years (and is a long way away from being ready for high-power applications like car charging… with even cell phones arguably being a little bit of a stretch at this point), but stock speculators are hopeful and optimistic folks… maybe this one will work out.
And Robinson throws a few extra “bonus” recommendations on the pile that are secondary plays on the huge gains he sees for Energous and for wireless charging in general, including some chipmakers and such, so he’s very likely also recommending Dialog Semiconductor (DLG in Eurpe, DLGNF OTC in the US), which fell 30% in the past month on bad news about Apple orders, and perhaps Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM), to whom they’ve also been linked in the past… WATT will not have a material impact on either of those companies’ income statements over the next year, though there is potential that Dialog will eventually get a boost, as the chip manufacturer, if Energous actually builds a very large business someday.
Sound like your cuppa tea? Excited about the possibilities? Exhausted by the hype? Let us know with a comment below.
Disclosure: I own shares of Apple, but am not invested in any of the other companies mentioned above. I will not trade in any covered stock for at least three days, per Stock Gumshoe’s trading rules.
Thank you! I’m pretty simple minded and I appreciate the “rest of the story”
Here is where you can find more information on this: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – Piezoelectricity (This is what they are talking about and all they want to do is get you to buy books and so forth from them.)
keep up the good work you do….Robinson etal r likely getting paid or attempting to get paid subscribers
Here is where you can find more information on this: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – Piezoelectricity (This is what they are talking about and all they want to do is get you to buy books and so forth from them.)
$WATT Energous Receives FCC Certification for its Near Field Wireless Charging Transmitter Running at 900 MHz HT
https://twitter.com/BlinkX90/status/983442150615666688
Electrifying! 🙂
I bought Mr Robinsons report for $39 after clicking away about 15 Harassments Buy more
Simply boarded for the interest in the concert and hope to get more technical background
Unfortunately I never received the report and I think Mr Robinson is A crook , Unless he will manage to finally deliver the report that he promised entitled to me for $39
Hi Mmj,
I just bought the report! Did I get taken?
Have you received the report yet? Please let me know.
Thank you
You need to call MoneyMapPress from something like 9 to 5 . Their email just seems designed to make you mad, but maybe laugh,”Thank you but it can not be read”. I did Nova-x for a different stock and it has been my biggest winner so far, although I’m pretty new to this. It also took a terrible tumble on the 19th, which, after I recovered from the blow, helped me to acquire more. BUT I WANT TO SAY THAT, IF YOU CALL (NOT WRITE),THEY CAN BE GOOD. AT LEAST, THEY DID RIGHT BY ME WHEN I CANCELLED SOMETHING WITH THEM THAT WASN’T NOVA-X, THEN I THINK MAYBE STRAIGHTENED OUT AN OVERCHARGE WHICH GOT ME A LITTLE PARANOID, SO THAT I THINK I CALLED A THIRD TIME AND ACTUALLY GOT OVER-CREDITED. I CALLED THEM BACK SO THEY WOULDN’T THINK I WAS THE BADDIE,& GOT THEM TO CHARGE ME AGAIN FOR THAT AND ONE OTHER. My impression now is that they’re reasonably okay/good people, but not any better at record-keeping than me on my worst day. The sell-ups can be annoying, but sometimes interesting and educational, and since I lost a little with FEYE, a stock that I noticed is on 2 other more respectable-looking stock advisory groups, if not 3, I tend to prefer Michael Robinson. Being able to deliver the $ figures big into my thoughts.
As a student of Tesla and his disciples, wireless transmission of electricity has been a dream for decades. As a physician, however, I am increasingly concerned about the constant bombardment of our bodies, specifically our nervous system, with various forms of electronic radiation. There is abundant speculation in medical circles about increased incidence of brain tumors related to having a cellphone glued to kids’ ears, and one would also have to be concerned about interference with implanted electronic devices such as pacemakers, cochlear implants, and insulin pumps.
I am not a Luddite, but plugging in my cellphone to charge it as well as all the other electric devices in the home is really not inconvenient and most likely preferable to the potential for life-threatening situations that could occur (IMHO)
Thanks Stock Gumshoe and doctordan. I agree with doctordan.
I have a Samsung 8+ and if I put it in my pocket for awhile, I can feel
the signals start to make my muscles twitch. If I put 4 phones in four separate pockets and only 1 phone was turned on and 3 were off, I could tell you which one was on after a few minutes. I am wondering about what wireless transmission of electricity might do to humans.
Electric clothe irons were one of the first appliances, they took 1000 watts then and will still need 1000 watts without wires, so 1ooo watts transmitted through the air with all of the other wattages needed by other electric/electronic apparatuses will have us all glowing in the dark. Living bodies are not going to respond well to this kind of radiation, it’s not nuclear, but it is still radiation.
I have a cellphones electronic charging pad, i just lay my phone on it and it charges it. simple induction power, on a large scale I can see financial wizards buying us into a giant microwave. You are correct worrying about the electronic radiation we receive everyday. Radios , cellphones. tv broadcasts, garage door openers, and a host of other devices radiate us everyday. If you don’t understand induction go out in a field under transmission lines on a damp day and wave a 24 inch flourescent tube under them , it will light up. So my question is what is the power source, Tesla wanted to use the powerful magnetic field of the earth itself. May be but it sounds like we will be cooked over a period of time. I think of all the safety warnings we received when I was a transmission lineman about exposure and cancer risk.
well almost copied u wrote before i read but you should know You were working around AC not DC power and its radio waves not actual electricity the radio waves interact with the nano crystal to generate DC current far different from power lines and the electromagnetic and other fields they produce from so much energy moving on a line. Your talking thousands of volts and 100s of watts this is no more than 10 watts more like 5 to 6 being generated were it is needed not moving from one place to another
Thank you for your input. You are 100% right. I guess I didn’t think of the downside to wireless transmission. It’s bad enough we have so much to worry about these days with chemicals in fruits, vegetables and milk. It’s like everywhere you turn everything is bad for you. God how I prefer the days when we didn’t have all this technology and stress. We survived just fine and life was good. God only knows what the future holds. As for me, I pray and have faith in God and technology or no technology that is what gets me through life.
Life expectancy at birth in the mid-19th century was around 40 years for males and 42 years for females Good old days – no indoor plumbing, no electricity, no antibiotics, no phones, no cars airplanes etc. God may get you through this but technology will get you through a lot longer and much easier.
take a florescent bulb and walk up to a power line it will light before you even get near the actual line So we are already bombarded with electricity all the time Tesla, The real one, tried a century ago to get people to be not so afraid of electricity it moves and flows thru us constantly we are just now going to harness it and people wanna run around like chicken little we are talking about under 10watts not lighting bolts and its from Radio waves theses are even more abundant in our universe and our daily lives on planet earth. Its not magic its science 100 year old science we would already use it if Tesla wasn’t gonna just give electricity for free. He should of been the richest man ever from his AC current system we now use but he tore the patent up saying this will benefit mankind to much for me to worry about just profiting from. And ever since his mysterious death his dream of free wireless electricity died with him. Its only big power companies and their fuel suppliers who don’t want that to ever happen so they say and pay for studies that tell us this is harmful and could hurt you cause electricity is scary especially if its wireless and invisible. Come on people wake up from the dark ages and lets finally move to were we belong.
I’m with you. Our body produces kinetic energy and electricity is kinetic energy.
It is simply not true. Morgan gave Tesla $50K to beat Marconi in the race to radio. Tesla pissed it away. As a result, the Titanic had a Marconi Radio room.
Morgan discovered after investing in Tesla’s electricity, there would be no return on investment and pulled the plug. Of course a ridiculously stupid move because of all the patents available for its use in business not to mention the home.
Tesla’s free energy scheme was impossible and antibiotic. It shows one of his big blind spots, that caused him to fry his techs with x-rays. The end-of-life realization that he forget to consider the value of the bugs on his cutlery likely contributed to his depression. Don’t question the danger of microwaves. We have CHP officers missing half of their ears due to back-firing radar that was warranted as safe. Cataracts around Navy use are regular.
So much EMF we will soon be exposed to in terms of the broad rollout of G5 that a major health crisis may be in order. Perhaps we will be able to use THAT mega EMF source to power all our devices negating the technology. Kidding aside, from my field of radiation physics you are saturating your workspace, living space, car, wherever you exist with a high level of EMF. The technology is not that smart that is finds a source in need of charging an beams a narrow beam to that device leaving the rest of the nearby area untouched. Enough energy to charge all the devices, many touted as hungry will expose you tremendously. The FCC is not the FDA, not that I have a sense of trust in the latter that goes a mile long, but there are enough studies in EMF that suggest that this could be very harmful. Sadly to say approval does not equated to safety. The latter can be overruled by lobbyists and the politicians and regulators that are in their pocket. In all over promises and in all likelihood overdangeorus. Keep my toddler and pregnant wife is a household that is humming at full tilt many hours of the day. I’ll pass.
So, why does Money Map Press continue to employ so many carpet bagging snake oil salesmen? Shah, Mamphilly, Robinson, Gentile, and Moor, others? I may be looking for a homeless out of work dogcatcher to help me with my research. Frustrating.. Thank you Gumshoe for your analytical thoughts.
Why these parasites are allowed to profess their teasing without
any overseeing of their practices, without anybody checking their false claims of success of past recomendations? I would wish there would be a government department to unleash a control over their advertisements and locking-up crooks.
My sentiments are precisely the same though I conclude that the entire conglomerate of Money Map Press is a smoothly oiled marketing scam very much ahead of subscribers who invest in MMP recommendations only to find the majority of their stock recommendations are very quickly underwater. They boast about dozens of doubles and triples yet in over a year I have not bagged even one. Ah yes, but M. Robinson instructs us to use his “Cowboy Split” – wait till you’ve lost 20% of your investment before plunging in another 50%. My Watt investment has been underwater since I followed his recommendation. Shocked!!!
The nanocrystal electricity hype is so full of it that it lapses from mere puffery to bad science fiction. Robinson is full of #$%&. I speak as an electrical engineer.
Thanks for playing devils advocate. For me I can’t even consider something if the delivery person is not willing to have a clearer view point that sole purpose isn’t to mislead those that seem to still believe you cannot lie on the internet. I say tell that to all the 6’2″ 190lb black haired green eyed gods that actually do weigh 190 lbs but stand only 5’6″ their eyes are poop brown underneath the green contacts and the only black hair they have has migrated from their heads to cover their backs. When are people going to learn; only believe half of what you see and NONE of what you hear.
As always, when I see these super-hyped up ads about new technologies, I go, “Aw, come on now, who’re you trying to kid?” I remember a few months (or was it years) ago when all the hype came out about 3-D printing. It’s a great technology with a good future, but isn’t it funny that all the hype came out long after the technology was already available on the market. That being said, after hearing all this wonderful hype, I come to guys like you to get more non-prejudicial insight into what the hype is all about, and to learn if there is any truth to it. As I suspected, this was 98% hype, and only about 2% useful information. Thanks for being honest and telling it like it is. I suppose if I were a few years younger, I might consider making a modest investment in the technology, but at 71, I don’t think I’d have enough time to enjoy the benefits. Anyway, your input is extremely helpful.
I listened to the spiel by Robertson about Nanocrystal Electricity, I listened until I got so bored that I shut it down _ found myself dozing off listening to it . Thank goodness fro this website tat sorts out the wheat from the chaff.
Even if “Broadcast Power” (synonymous term for Nanoelectricity) were to be approved by all the agencies in the US – the FDA, OHSA, etc – and the infrastructure installed in a reasonable time period, what happens to a medical device that draws its power this way when the user steps into a Faraday Cage? These ‘cages’ exist to block radio transmission interference from sensitive equipment such as MRI and CAT scanners. Due to remodel work, a Faraday Cage may exist enclosing a room that was used for this purpose 20 years ago but since it is not practical to remove the cage, it remains in place long after its need. This does not even address the tremendous amount of energy that would have to be placed into the atmosphere potentially disrupting chemical reactions used by living organisms.
Great to visit this honest site. I agree with the conversation and also am now more aware of the many grossly exaggerated claims by many “newsletter” bargain opportunities out there and the inundation of emails to subscribe to this recommendation or that. The new snake skin retailers of this century. All to date a complete waste of money.
LOL the term is “snake oil salesmen,” not “snake skin retailers.” Look up the history.
It sounds too good to be true, but I hope that there will be such a thing to no longer needing plugs again. Anything is possible. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Still sounds like interesting and potentially profitable technology to me. All the overblown fear mongering over living close to high tension power lines will find a new home with this tech I’m sure. My bet is it will be based on ignorance and fear, not on science and facts. JMHO.
In 1988 the first report showing that ham radio operators had a much higher incidence of leukemia than the public was published. In response to this “fear -mongering” every single time the FCC has since considered exposure guidelines, it has revised them downwards—even while demurring that FDA should be doing the job in the onslaught of higher modulation densities (4G 5G). As wavelengths decrease, they resonate with decreasingly smaller parts of our biology, now easily able to knock chromosomes out of place.
What is most disturbing is that there are actually people with money who fall for this bullshit. Well, as they say, “A fool and his money are soon parted.”
There are also remedies. In California, we have an unfair business practices law whereby “unfair” is whatever the jury decides. If intentionality is found, the Judge can triple the damages. They proceed having calculated these risks into their offerings. And are likely too clever by half.
Since the idea of having to broadcast the amounts of energy it would take to run even small electrical devices (much less an electrical car) would involve a huge amount of electrical exposure, like what we are in when we are close to power lines, I think the idea may be something that would be a health danger. Is that a reasonable concern? I don’t know but I think we have to be cautious.
The idea is worse than you can imagine. You can’t broadcast 60 Hz waves past a foot. Their idea is to use microwaves to fry everyone. They think they are New Teslans—they are superbly oblivious.
I. Knew there was too much hype and no facts ….and no tech …. …,he’s just a hawker selling his paper ,..
I’m g9ing to 2atch WATT but getting a hype salesman to pump your company ….. Says desperate ….
Why don’t I just build an antenna in my yard and get the power from the AM radio stations ;-). ..as if !
You have to supply the power and convert it at both ends, without violating exposure guidelines. Dangerous and dubious.
This is called induction and I don’t see it happening on a large scale. It’s safe in small quantities like wireless phone chargers. To do what they claim, you would have very strong magnetic fields which are controversial. To be out in the middle of nowhere and run electrical appliances, how would they be able to charge you for it?
Another quarter, another announcement that product launches are not proceeding nearly as quickly as management had expected, and another few months of essentially no revenue, though Dialog did ship enough WattUp chips to generate a little bit of royalty revenue.
Not so much talk about the “Tier 1” customers this time around, so instead of dreams of getting this contactless wireless charging into the iPhone, the dreams are, pending regulatory approval, that someone might launch a hearing aid that uses their charging technology. Investors have long speculated that their “key strategic partner” is Apple, and the stock has been touted over and over as a huge winner when it gets the iPhone business, but the only thing they really said about that this time out was the same “maybe someday” verbiage they’ve used in referring to this program for a few years:
There was even a testy exchange with a financial advisor on the earnings call that almost got to an Elon Musk moment — here’s a bit of that:
And that was how the call ended — with a pointed exchange with an adviser (not an analyst, to be clear, he’s a broker/advisor), and a closing from the company that uses the word “nonbelievers.” Frankly, the moment a CEO starts complaining about “nonbelievers” I want to short the stock… though sadly, it didn’t get inflated enough or pumped up enough this Summer for me to short it before now. We’ll see how it goes … I continue to hold out hope that the newsletters will get the rumors about WattUp in the iPhone surging again, since that has been my “time to short” signal in the past, but perhaps they’re a little gun-shy at this point.
Oh, and the stock dropped 20% on that earnings report.
Great Commentary Travis!!