Backing out of backscatter for intermittent wireless networks

Backscatter has emerged as the dominant paradigm for battery-free networking among the (potentially) trillions of devices in the future Internet of Things, partly because of the order of magnitude smaller energy consumption, but at the cost of collisions, low data rates, and short distances. This position paper explores the alternative approach: using low power, yet active radios to communicate among the battery-less swarm. We describe the challenges of using active radios in this context, including lack of tight time guarantees, high listening costs, and intermittent operation. While backscatter is promising, this paper hopes to broaden the conversation around alternative methods for networking the future IoT.