Klas Engström, Sales Director at Nichicon, talks about how power architecture decisions quietly determine whether IoT deployments succeed or fail at scale. Drawing on more than a decade at Nichicon, Klas explains why batteries are often treated as an afterthought in device design, and why that mindset breaks down once LoRaWAN devices move from prototypes to real-world, long-life deployments.

The conversation centers on lithium titanate oxide (LTO) batteries and where they fit between supercapacitors and conventional lithium-ion. Klas outlines three practical use cases where LTO excels: energy-harvesting systems that need continuous recharge with high pulse currents, hybrid designs that extend the lifetime of primary batteries by offloading power spikes, and applications where fast charge times enable entirely new duty cycles. Rather than positioning LTO as a universal replacement, he is clear about tradeoffs in capacity and cost, and why understanding current capability and lifetime behavior matters more than headline milliamp-hours.

Klas also discusses Nichicon’s work on self-charging batteries using indoor photovoltaic cells, demonstrating how LoRaWAN devices can remain energy-autonomous even at high spreading factors under typical indoor lighting. The episode explores cold-temperature performance, safety characteristics compared to other lithium chemistries, and why LTO can be charged and discharged safely at temperatures where most batteries fail.

Throughout the discussion, Klas emphasizes total cost of ownership, arguing that service visits and battery replacements often dwarf component costs in real deployments. For business leaders, engineers, and advanced builders alike, this episode reframes power as a strategic design decision rather than a line item on the bill of materials.

Links:

Klas on LinkedIn

Nichicon

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Today's guest on

2

MeteoScientific's

The Business of LoRaWAN is Klas Engström,

3

sales director at Nichicon, where he's

been working for more than a decade

4

at the intersection of power electronics,

batteries and real world IoT deployment.

5

In this conversation, Klas

6

walks us through how power constraints

actually shape IoT system design.

7

Why lithium titanate oxide batteries

sit in the gap between supercapacitors

8

and traditional lithium ion,

9

and where they make sense

for low end devices in practice.

10

We dig into concrete

use cases like energy harvesting,

11

extending the lifetime of primary

batteries by offloading pulsed currents

12

and rethinking

13

duty cycles for devices that need fast

recharge and long service life.

14

We also talk candidly about trade offs,

cost, capacity and the benefits

15

of cold temperature behavior,

and why total cost of ownership matters

16

more than the bill of materials

when devices are deployed at scale.

17

This episode is sponsored

by the Helium Foundation and is dedicated

18

to spreading knowledge about LoRaWAN.

19

If you'd like to try Helium’s

publicly available global LoRaWAN for free

20

and support

the show, sign up at metsci.show/console.

21

Now let's dig into the conversation

with Klas Engström.

22

Klas,

thanks so much for coming on the show.

23

Super excited to have you.

24

And talk about power for IoT.

25

Hello, Nik.

26

Pleasure to be here.

Thank you for inviting me.

27

Yeah, we recently met at CES,

so a worthwhile trip just for that.

28

I thought

before we started talking about power.

29

It was interesting to me

30

Here we are in 2026.

And you're still there?

31

Yes. Seems pretty odd for people

to be at a company for a long time.

32

Like,

why are you so pumped to stick around?

33

What's what's rad about that place?

34

Japanese companies

do you do not change normally?

35

Are you working yourself all the way up?

36

So now I'm very happy to be working

for Nichicon So it has always been a huge,

37

you know, opportunity

38

for me a good platform to develop myself

and develop the company at the same time.

39

So now I'm happy to be here.

40

Oh, interesting.

41

So there's a 20 years I did stick along.

42

So yeah,

43

there's a culture there

of Japanese culture

44

where like, you don't leave,

we're grooming you

45

or you're going to stick around

and make this thing awesome.

46

Right.

47

Eventually, with 85 or 90 years old,

I can retire.

48

So still have to wait a while. Yeah, yeah,

I was.

49

As long as you enjoy what you're doing

while you're doing it.

50

That's right.

51

Okay, well, let's kind of scope

out the convo as this power for IoT.

52

We'll get into LTO stuff, but let's start.

53

Tell me a little bit

about batteries for IoT. What's out there.

54

And then maybe we get into

what's different about Metricon.

55

Yeah.

56

So net chicken is very well known

57

maybe for aluminum capacitors,

58

Also a very special type of batteries.

59

They look like capacitors,

but it is a battery type

60

and it's called LTO

the term titanite oxide.

61

And yeah happy

to be here to talk about that with you.

62

Okay.

63

Now I'm super familiar with lithium ion

and some variations on that.

64

I've used those a bunch.

65

Some of them are big,

some of them are small.

66

Why would I want to use LTO What,

what makes it a good fit?

67

Yeah. Describe it to me, please.

68

Well, the

69

the positioning is maybe a first help

to, to get a feeling for for what this is.

70

So it is positioned to fill the gap

between supercapacitors

71

and lithium batteries. It's

just in between there.

72

It comes

with the super high power density,

73

but maybe not as high energy density

as lithium.

74

The conventional lithium technology.

75

Capacitance is a little bit lower but

the power capability is extremely high.

76

That's where we are where we play. Okay.

77

And where does that make it a best fit.

78

Is that something that

if I'm a manufacturer

79

I should think like I'm going to swap out

all my lithium ions right now

80

or is it much more specific?

81

And it's like, oh,

this is really good for super cold temps.

82

So this is really good for really low

charging or where does it fit the best.

83

Yeah, that's a very good question.

84

So that's what I'm very happy to talk

with you about because we need to educate.

85

You know, engineers

out there in the world.

86

Because it's relatively new.

87

Many people do not know about this,

88

and it's not that straightforward

that it's always best for this and that.

89

Well, I put it into three categories

where this is interesting.

90

One is about energy harvesting.

91

So whatever kind of energy hubs

92

you have means

you refill your battery continuously.

93

That is where we sit very well

because then you do not need obviously

94

a large capacitance value,

but you still need to have bit performance

95

to to support high current pulses

when needed.

96

So that's maybe area number one

where it's interesting.

97

Another area would be what I call

lifetime extension.

98

So you may continue to work

with your large cell or primary energy.

99

And you add up this small niche battery

of your technology in addition to that.

100

And you let that handle all the,

troublesome power pulses

101

to extend the lifetime

of, of the primary battery.

102

That's number two.

103

And the last one, number three, that

I would say is, well, we suit very well.

104

That is, in use cases

where you can rethink the duty cycle.

105

So let's take a restaurant picture

as an example.

106

So, those pages, they go out from tables,

they vibrate,

107

they blink,

they pay, they go back to the counter.

108

They are recharges a little bit,

but no lithium ion technology.

109

You can't charge that fast.

110

So over a whole day

you continue to drain the battery.

111

And then over the night time,

you can fully charge it once again.

112

So the duty cycle becomes one day them.

113

But with our technology, you can charge

these little cells extremely fast.

114

So from empty to food,

you charge them in three minutes.

115

And you do that,

you know, ten thousands of times.

116

So it's extremely durable.

117

That means that you decided that becomes

one time up the table

118

extremely fast charge

or maybe 30s to two minutes or whatever,

119

depending on how much you drained

the battery and you're ready to go again.

120

So that opens up, I think, new ways of

thinking about the duty cycle.

121

Okay, so the energy harvesting piece,

I understand.

122

I remember talking to the Dracula folks.

123

I think you guys work with Epishine,

124

but there's a bunch of these companies

out there that we work with

125

with Dracula as well.

126

Actually, I had just before I jumped

on this call, I wrote an email to Dracula.

127

So, yeah, we worked with them, too.

128

Well, familiar.

129

They seem like the coolest company,

130

and they certainly have

the coolest business card out there.

131

So I get

132

that where you've got this little battery

and it's getting charged inside.

133

The second one

I didn't understand as well.

134

Can you kind of unpack that for me

a little bit more? Sure.

135

So lifetime extension.

136

So you have very good

lithium ion batteries on the market

137

with very high capacitance values,

but they tend not to live so long.

138

Maybe on the spec,

it seems it could work quite long.

139

Battery life is normally specified.

140

As you know it's not minimum two years.

141

It's up to two years.

142

Something like this okay.

143

And they drain. Yeah.

144

And then you need to replace them

eventually.

145

And that's not good for environment.

146

It's not good for total cost of ownership

either.

147

So if you could

then have that one work in cooperation

148

with our empty old cell,

you kind of transfer energy

149

from the primary cell

over to our very small battery.

150

And you do all the pulse current

out of our battery.

151

If you do that, it means you will not

deteriorate the primary cell.

152

So you can let that just slowly,

with very low C rates, move energy

153

over to our cell and then do all the hard

work from our small cell.

154

Okay, cool.

155

And that makes much more sense.

156

Maybe maybe

I just just better the second time.

157

And what are the sizes of this

are these kind of and I'm talking

158

just in very rough terms.

159

Are these batteries

kind of the size of my thumb,

160

the size of my pinky,

or are they the tiny ones I see?

161

Yeah.

162

What are we looking at?

163

Are like big car battery sized ones.

164

So it's it's very small batteries

specifically made for IoT use Bad.

165

Okay.

166

You know, they start with the they look

like capacitors as I've mentioned.

167

So they are cylinder shape with the

lead wires, which is also interesting.

168

So compared to other battery technologies,

our batteries are in circuit products.

169

So you saw that them to your PC board

170

and you handle them

like normal electronics components.

171

And they start from dimensions

of diameter.

172

Three millimeter length is seven.

173

That's the smallest we have at the moment.

174

And the largest one that is a diameter

12.5mm and 14 millimeter length.

175

So that you get your your range. Got it.

176

And what are the specs on those things

for the

177

for my nerd engineers who are listening.

178

Yeah.

179

So the, the smallest one starts

at at the capacitance

180

relatively low, 0.35mA hours.

181

And the largest cell

that goes up to a specified capacitance

182

of 150 milliampere hours.

183

Okay, that's the range we cover.

184

But you need to bear in mind then, that

the power capability is very, very high.

185

We do specify our cells

with a continuous charge discharge

186

rate at 26 A 20 times

specified capacitance.

187

And when we talk about pulse current

you can drain pulse current

188

out of these at rates of up to 100 times

the capacitance.

189

So for the hundred and 50 million per hour

cell that means 15 AMP.

190

You can drain out that as a pulse current,

So that's extremely powerful.

191

Yeah yeah yeah.

192

Don't don't put that thing in your tongue.

193

Yeah okay.

194

Super cool.

195

Now you work with the IoT folks,

but you also do automotive furniture.

196

Can I handle automotive batteries?

197

Is there any crossover between the

what I'm assuming are really big batteries

198

and really small batteries

that might be useful for IoT people,

199

at least to know about? Yeah.

200

I mean, the technology itself is in

some cases,

201

even used in automotive field,

but it happens to be.

202

So the technology we have

is in cooperation

203

with the company

and other Japanese company called Toshiba.

204

And we have split the market.

205

So Nichushkin is doing these

very small cells.

206

Toshiba is doing much larger

sets that go into the automotive as well.

207

Okay.

208

So I mean, just for interest, like

if you have busses that stop at the bus

209

stop and you want to charge it within,

you know,

210

seconds or minutes at the bus stop,

and then you want to continue going.

211

That's where this is quite interesting.

212

Maybe I was super cool. Okay.

213

So that's that's one of the big things is

just how fast it charges and discharges.

214

And then what are the downsides?

215

Are they I'm assuming

216

they're more expensive because nicer stuff

so seems to be more expensive.

217

Right. What are the

what are the cost comparisons here.

218

Yeah, I would say as a rule of thumb,

this is in the area of what

219

you used to see for supercapacitors

so substantially more expensive

220

than lithium ion batteries

if you count by capacitance.

221

But if you start counting by,

222

by current capabilities,

it isn't necessarily expensive.

223

So yeah, that that might be in some cases

a downside or something

224

that people need to be aware of.

But it is not a super cheap battery.

225

Maybe another thing

is obviously the capacitance value.

226

Also that compared to the DMI,

capacitance values are relatively small.

227

So that's a way to to work with that.

228

As well. Okay.

229

Although I'm assuming that one truck roll

230

would erase the savings of going

just lithium ion

231

if this is going to be a good fit

for either LTO

232

or the the combination

that you talked about because, I mean,

233

it's not like that's a thousand bucks

for a tiny little battery, I'm assuming.

234

No, that's right. Yeah.

235

This is always interesting.

236

You know, it depends on always on

on which people you speak with.

237

And unfortunately,

238

many times you speak to the people

just responsible for the bill of material

239

and they count the sense, of course,

but at the end of the day, it's the end

240

consumer somewhere out there that needs

to pay the bill for replacing batteries.

241

You know, some electronic equipment.

242

It's it's delivered without a battery.

243

And the first thing you need to do

when you buy it is to, to buy a battery.

244

And you know, the cost for the consumer

to buy a battery, it's not free of charge.

245

So yeah, you're right,

246

it's not typically extremely expensive

in that sense.

247

No, I wonder it I'm assuming it's,

somewhere deep in your desk drawer.

248

There's a comparison of lifetime cost

for lithium ion and Leo.

249

And does that pencil out over

whatever a 5 or 10 year life?

250

Or is it still like,

they're usually a little bit

251

more expensive,

but not as bad as it seems at first.

252

Now, I would say as soon as

someone is ready to really seriously

253

think about total cost of ownership,

I would say that these kind of setups

254

that I mentioned, these three things,

it starts becoming cheaper already.

255

So I mean, one thing is that it

lives longer, but just as the thing

256

that you do not need to replace it,

I mean, IoT and is normally serviced

257

by professional service engineers somehow,

and that costs money.

258

If you need to send out someone

to replace a battery every second year, or

259

let it be a fifth year,

260

that's already a substantial cost

that already easily pays off.

261

The difference in material cost up

going for our battery technology.

262

Okay, so for folks thinking long term,

this is a totally viable option.

263

It is.

264

Yeah. Okay.

265

That makes sense that you developed

the Self-charging battery.

266

That that sounds like that can exist.

267

Tell me tell me what that means

268

and what it does

and why people should pay attention.

269

First of all, it's a super good buzz word.

270

So I remember just chatting

271

in front of a booth in Vegas

looking at our, you know, display.

272

So the charging battery,

what is that? Yeah.

273

And you're like, oh, work.

274

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

we got one more to talk about. So.

275

Yeah.

276

Yeah, it is, it is simply said it is

277

our battery

hooked up together with an indoor PV cell.

278

Organic Phoebe cell

you mentioned earlier episode.

279

So that's something we have done together

with the company episode.

280

And it is just a very good fit

between the battery voltage, the PV cell.

281

So it operates at the same voltage range.

282

So we can charge this battery

in a very simple

283

way with, just, you know, discrete Leos.

284

So it's a super small circuit

to charge the battery.

285

Got an indoor

light, keeps this battery soon over time.

286

So at the show, as you might remember,

I didn't

287

trade this battery every 90s.

288

But with the current consumption of Lora

spreading factor 12 with the exhibition

289

light indoors, the battery remains

full throughout the whole show.

290

So that's what you can do with this.

291

You speak in love

language of listeners of the show

292

and you get in the spreading factors. It's

good.

293

Let's see, I saw that you guys worked

with Koy tech on the OTT, OTT,

294

which I just think is a Rad device,

and people should know about that.

295

If you want to measure energy

use of things.

296

Super cool for that.

297

Yeah, it's beautiful to look at

298

and the performance is great

and it's easy to use also.

299

So actually I, I carried those with me

when, when I go to shows.

300

But if we exhibit,

we have them on the show to show people

301

what our battery

can actually do, how capable it is,

302

because seeing is believing.

303

But I mean,

I even have one in my backpack.

304

If I go as a visitor to to an exhibition,

and I just took a

305

look it up with USB cable to my computer

in seconds and I can show people

306

it really works, there's, well,

how capable the batteries.

307

So that's super, super cool.

308

I guess maybe we wrap this thing up.

309

Is that before the show?

310

You're telling me

that you were originally born

311

about 50 miles in the Arctic Circle

in the very cold of Sweden?

312

And that may be

where the letters also shine.

313

Really well,

we had talked at CHS about this project.

314

I'm doing, getting a little medicine

and tiny little device

315

up to 40, 50,000ft, -70 Celsius.

316

And this is right at the edge of prior

what these things can do.

317

But certainly it highlights how

well they work in the cold.

318

Can you give me some idea

319

of how they perform versus

other batteries out there in the cold?

320

That's a good point.

321

We should talk about that.

So cold temperature.

322

There are

323

battery technologies that you can operate

and you can use them at low temperature.

324

But what you normally can do

with any other battery technologies

325

is to charge batteries.

326

Our batteries can be charged,

327

discharged all the way down

to extremely low temperatures.

328

We happen to have a specification

329

say they are,

you know, rate the down to -30 degrees C.

330

That happens to be because at that level

we still have 50% capacitance left over.

331

But you can theoretically go even further

down temperatures with the batteries.

332

And actually the capacitance

is going to keep dropping.

333

ESR goes a little bit higher,

334

but it is allowed to use you can charge

discharge it at high power and it's safe.

335

So that makes this technology

very different.

336

Yeah. It's such a it's such a cool thing.

337

I've got to throw a shout out.

338

There's a buddy of mine on my discord

server that originally turned me on

339

to Altos and led me in a winding path

to you, to class.

340

Anything else that we should talk about

before we sign off here?

341

When it comes to niche economy or altos,

I think safety

342

safety is is a concern of anything

that is called lithium.

343

Our batteries are called lithium titanite

oxide, but they are extremely different.

344

So they do not have safety concerns

like lithium batteries do.

345

So you can cut these two.

You can poke them.

346

You can do basically

whatever you want at our booth.

347

If you remember in Vegas

we showed a video loop the whole day

348

showing how we put them,

even under a torch, and we burn them

349

and the gas safely decays

when they get very, very hot.

350

So yeah, it's a safe technology

that should be mentioned.

351

Okay.

352

And for your use case, I'm actually

353

looking forward to you

starting chilling out our batteries.

354

So the the altitude you talk about.

355

So temperatures by nature of course.

356

And so yeah that probably you see capacity

got to be very low.

357

But I hope they're going to work

reasonably for you.

358

Yeah.

359

But then another concern is

of course the pressure.

360

So obviously these batteries

are sealed with a rubber seal.

361

And we are curious

to see the results of your test.

362

What's going to happen.

363

Because obviously they are produced

at the street level. Atmospheric.

364

Yeah. Yeah.

365

But 7060 tour and I'm

going down to 50 tour so see what happens.

366

So I'll follow you.

367

Yeah. Yeah.

368

Hopefully it doesn't blow up the chamber

I think.

369

I think it'll be okay though.

370

Cool glass

thanks so much for making time coming on.

371

I know you're super busy.

372

I appreciate you carving out some time

to talk to us.

373

Yeah, actually,

being on the show, I can't.

374

That's it for

this episode of The Business of LoRaWAN.

375

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376

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377

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382

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384

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385

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389

I'm Nik Hawks with MeteoScientific.

390

I'll catch you on the next episode.