A laudable goal toward achieving autonomous internet of things (IoT) devices would be to use the same circuitry for communication and harvesting energy. One way to achieve it is through simultaneous lightwave and power transfer (SLIPT) that consists of using solar cells to harvest energy and receive information signals. Here, a SLIPT-based system that uses a large area solar panel to harvest energy from light sources and decode data signals is designed. The designed system is equipped with an infrared sensor used to detect the movements of an unmanned aerial vehicle. We equally discuss the wide-scale deployment of IoT devices with SLIPT capability.