1. Mechanical actuation generates transmission power. Ok, how is this better than RF induction given that you need to build an antenna into your object anyway?
2. Mechanical actuation changes transmission by tiny (fragile?) gears. This appears to be measuring the wrong thing in their demonstrative example. You don't care about how many times a detergent bottle cap has been twisted. You care about how much detergent is left in the bottle.
All of their examples involve either no sensing or secondary sensing that would be best decoupled from mechanical actuation. A slider could be a super simple variable capacitor. A button requires no signal modification. Leak sensors are typically constructed by simply opening/closing a circuit by direct contact with the liquid. Fluid level sensing is only slightly more involved than leak sensing, and is best done directly, not based on estimated usage.
> Gollakota suggested that e-commerce websites would like to know how a user might be interacting with the objects they sell
Oh, great!
> (after the user has given consent of course)
Of course.