Building on its unique hybrid solid state battery and rapid recharge internal to the card, power management system, SmartMetric, Inc. has successfully added to its card power system powerful energy harvesting technology. This technology harvests electrical energy emitted from instore contactless card readers used for contactless payments and converts this electrical energy into power that powers the card's internal processor used for the biometric fingerprint reading of the card user's fingerprint. Holding the card within close proximity to the contactless card reader sends radio waves that are converted into an electrical field that is then used to power the instant fingerprint reading of the card holder.

Simply speaking, the user simply holds the finger on the card's biometric fingerprint sensor while they hold it over the instore contactless reader which in turn provides the power to the card to perform an instant fingerprint verification that unlocks the card. This radio wave energy harvesting, while being an exciting innovation, does have its limitations. The power harvesting from the radio waves emitted from a card reader are not standardized, which poses electrical engineering issues in calibrating power absorption in relation to the power available from the source card reader radio emissions.

Another issue is that the actual power that is able to be absorbed into biometric card is affected by the time the card is held over the reader. So, a calculation between card reader power emission by the time the card is held in close proximity of the power field comes into calibrating the actual power provided to the SmartMetric biometric card. Add to these variables, another calculation needs to be taken into account which is the distance the card user holds the card in proximity to the card reader.

Functional experience is that the company is able to power biometric card from the radio waves emitted from a contactless reader. However, because of the variables involved, it may not work in all contactless readers. The other functional limitation is that such energy harvesting can only be converted into enough electric power to provide power for one transaction.

It can not harvest enough power to allow for storage into the card's hybrid solid state battery. While the company is excited about power harvesting that the company has been able to achieve, it does have its real-life limitations. Most of the world's ATMs are not contactless enabled so relying on energy harvesting in this situation would not work.

Not all retail stores have contactless card readers at this point in time. Then, because of the functional variables, will have a number or contactless card reading situations where power harvesting just simply won't work. The SmartMetric biometric credit/debit card has engineered into the card three power sources.

A miniature hybrid solid state battery, a power feed from contact readers when the card is inserted into a contact store reader, or a regular ATM and the contactless energy harvesting from contactless card readers. Having the internal hybrid solid state power storage inside the card allows the card to scan the card user's fingerprint prior to it being inserted into a card reader, allowing the card to function across all card reading types - contact, contactless or even readers such as found at gas pumps and ATMs. The SmartMetric card uses an almost paper-thin hybrid solid state battery connected to an advanced rapid charge power management system inside the card that allows the card to scan and match a person's fingerprint biometrics before the card is inserted inside an instore card reader, ATM or Gas Pump reader, making it the first and only biometric card solution that will work across all of these credit/debit card reading devices, in the world.