A thermoelectric generator maintains hot and cold junctions of two materials with different Seebeck coefficients. Mobile charge carriers redistribute in the temperature gradient, producing an open-circuit voltage of magnitude $|V|=|S_p-S_n|\Delta T$ for constant coefficients. A load permits electric current; pairs of p-type and n-type legs are commonly connected electrically in series and thermally in parallel. Maintaining the output requires continuous heat transfer from the hot reservoir and rejection of heat to the cold reservoir. The thermoelectric figure of merit $ZT=S^2\sigma T/\kappa$ expresses the favorable combination of large Seebeck coefficient, large electrical conductivity and small thermal conductivity. Contact losses, Joule heating and parasitic heat leaks reduce practical efficiency.

A pyroelectric generator instead exploits a change of spontaneous electric polarization with temperature. If the relevant component of the pyroelectric coefficient is $p=d{P}_s/dT$, an electrode of area $A$ receives a short-circuit electric current approximately $I=pAdT/dt$. A heating stroke and a cooling stroke produce opposite charge changes. Rectification or a synchronized electrical cycle can transfer energy to storage. A spatial temperature difference drives the thermoelectric device; a temporal temperature change drives the pyroelectric device. Uniform, constant temperature gives no continuing current from pyroelectricity even if the material is hot. Reported nanowire generators deliberately use changing temperature, rather than infer continuous generation from a static hot specimen.^[ref]

Both approaches can be compact, silent and free of macroscopic moving parts. The thermoelectric generator gives continuous output under a sustained gradient, but needs two effective thermal contacts and sufficient heat flow; very small $\Delta T$ gives a small voltage and thermal contacts can consume much of the available gradient. Thin films exhibiting pyroelectricity can respond to intermittent heating without a permanently maintained hot/cold separation across their thickness, but require repeated thermal cycling, low electrical leakage and suitable charge extraction. Their thermal time constant limits useful cycling frequency, and sensible heating/cooling can dominate the heat budget. A steady hot pipe with an available cold sink favors a thermoelectric generator; periodic radiative heating can favor a pyroelectric generator. Neither converts equilibrium thermal motion at a single fixed temperature into sustained useful work.