New Technology Could Double Smartphone Battery Life

[zakislam]

Power amplifiers found in smartphones waste around 65 percent of a device's power.

New Technology Could Double Smartphone Battery Life : Read more

 

[derekullo]

Old Technology Could Halve Smartphone Battery Life

 

[cats_Paw]

As far as i know, a battery could fuel a Laptop for a month with todays top notch technology. Its just too expensive, and the probability of failure is higher, so that "1 year warranty" would increase costs for companies.

Its a bit sad, since having a "mobile device" is little to no use if you must have a power source each 10 hours of use.

 

[techcurious]

I am not convinced by 50% savings claim.. that is if everything else in the smartphone is the same except that.. unless they are talking about stand-by time or talk time while the screen is off..
It is my assumption that during active use, the Screen is one of the bigger power drains on a smartphone. So between the screen, the processor, memory and the Power Amplifier, the power amplifier uses the lions share of your battery at about 65%? If that were the case, then why did older phones from 6 years ago that also had WiFi etc last at least 3 times longer than current smart phones?
My assumptions could be wrong of course..
Oh, unless they are also planning to combine the inevitable improvements in screen, processor and memory power efficiencies, in 12 months, with the improvements they offer and then say "See! We were right, your phone now lasts twice as long!"

 

[abbadon_34]

I'm glad I sat through that HP battery video from a few months back, that battery life is constrained more by consumer preference and product liability than anything else. We have the tech for a laptop battery to running a power hungry game like BF3 for over 24 hours but "practical" constraints limits a gain of 10% per year. Apple (device must be pretty) + US Trial Lawyers (one mistake you're out of businesss) = Poor Battery Life.

edit: "US" Trial Lawyers

 

[Thomas Creel]

Will we see anything similar in laptops?

 

[tomfreak]

an ideal battery length should be 24hours .Since we human will always go to bed every 18hours.

 

[techcurious]

[citation][nom]Tomfreak[/nom]an ideal battery length should be 24hours .Since we human will always go to bed every 18hours.[/citation]
When they develop a battery that could last 24 hours, they won't equip your laptop with it. Instead they will use a battery half it's size and you end up with under 12 hours of use.
Their logic is that any excess battery size and weight (and cost) that is not used by the majority most of the time is a waste, and they would rather keep costs, size and weight of their final products down. Also, reducing the capacity by 50% would also reduce the charging time by about 30% or more..
Same thing applies to smartphones..
But I think that although they shouldn't change this attitude for all models (so people have choice), the majority of smartphones now (and for the last 2 years) can afford to be a bit thicker to accommodate bigger batteries to give a full day of active use.
Lighter and slimmer should be an option, but not the default across the board.
That way if you really don't use your laptop for more than a couple of hours a day, why shlep around an extra pound of weight that gives you 12 hours or more of extra and unneeded battery time?
I would like a 12 hour laptop and a 24 hour heavy use smartphone.

 

[CrArC]

[citation][nom]techcurious[/nom]I am not convinced by 50% savings claim.. that is if everything else in the smartphone is the same except that.. unless they are talking about stand-by time or talk time while the screen is off..[/citation] They are indeed on about standby time. The screen, and the CPU/GPU combination required to drive it (especially these newer super-res devices) drink battery life in comparison to a little radio. You wouldn't really notice the difference in battery life if comparing while the phone is being used.

However, it's still important, and double-life is not an outlandish claim. I can already double the battery life of my phone by installing an app that manages radio use better (Wifi, 3G, etc) when I am not using the phone. And it really is double

Unfortunately this comes at the cost of response time (as the various radios must fire up occasionally to check for messages/data and also fire up when try to use the phone), whereas the technology that this article describes would allow the radio to remain active and respond immediately with similar results on battery life.

Having said that, we're only talking a few seconds for my phone to wake up the radio gear at present. It's not that big a trade-off for twice the battery life, tbh. Obviously the phone also drains at the normal rate when being used, but that's the thing - most of the time, your phone is not being used, so there are big savings to be made.

 

[icemunk]

So many cynical posters... If you haven't noticed, battery life for laptops has increased substantially in the last few years. Rememeber the 1.5 hour laptop battery life just two or three years back? Now we can get 4-5 hours, and efficiency is increasing at a staggering rate these days.

 

[techcurious]

[citation][nom]icemunk[/nom]So many cynical posters... If you haven't noticed, battery life for laptops has increased substantially in the last few years. Rememeber the 1.5 hour laptop battery life just two or three years back? Now we can get 4-5 hours, and efficiency is increasing at a staggering rate these days.[/citation]
we got a little off topic with laptops, as this article was talking about smartphones.. and smartphone battery life is still quite low.. no one said laptop batteries haven't improved (even 9 hours with some ultrabooks).. but that has nothing to do with the topic at hand..

 

[danwat1234]

Boost by 65%? Last I checked, on a smart phone's power usage screen, the screen backlight takes the most power. Unless you have the screen shut off or dimmed all the way, the power amplifier is not the main consumer of power in a smart phone.

 

[IndignantSkeptic]

I thought devices already modified the amount of power used for data transmission according to need. Also, 20 million times per second?! Isn't that excessive? Wouldn't even 1 time per second be excessive?

 

[lamorpa]

[citation][nom]Cats_Paw[/nom]As far as i know, a battery could fuel a Laptop for a month with todays top notch technology...[/citation]
You need to know more. That's not even close to being true.

 

[lamorpa]

[citation][nom]Thomas Creel[/nom]Will we see anything similar in laptops?[/citation]
Why? Almost no laptops use a cellular connection. Did you even read the article?

 

[tomfreak]

[citation][nom]techcurious[/nom]When they develop a battery that could last 24 hours, they won't equip your laptop with it. Instead they will use a battery half it's size and you end up with under 12 hours of use.Their logic is that any excess battery size and weight (and cost) that is not used by the majority most of the time is a waste, and they would rather keep costs, size and weight of their final products down. Also, reducing the capacity by 50% would also reduce the charging time by about 30% or more..Same thing applies to smartphones..But I think that although they shouldn't change this attitude for all models (so people have choice), the majority of smartphones now (and for the last 2 years) can afford to be a bit thicker to accommodate bigger batteries to give a full day of active use.Lighter and slimmer should be an option, but not the default across the board.That way if you really don't use your laptop for more than a couple of hours a day, why shlep around an extra pound of weight that gives you 12 hours or more of extra and unneeded battery time?I would like a 12 hour laptop and a 24 hour heavy use smartphone.[/citation]I disagree on 12hours laptop, i have use my ipad 3, 6hours isnt anywhere near enough for heavy use to totally ignore charging for the day. 9hours batttery is for light usage only. as for laptop? I even completely skip using my laptop on battery because it is too short to make any sense.

and I personally do not think people have to bring their powerbrick with their laptop to work outdoor. 12hours of battery life isnt gonna be enough for heavy user, u also need to factor in the battery capacity losing its charge overtime. about 2-4yrs later ur device is not gonna last any where near its original spec. So it is not gonna be 12hours. So 24hours for all mobile device minus battery aging after a few yrs should just about right for everyone even the heavy user.

I want to forget about charging my mobile phone/laptop when I am awake. unfortunately these kind of luxury doesnt exist in mainstream common standard.

 

[Lekko]

To get an idea of how much better battery life would be for real world use, just put your phone in airplane mode.

 

[mavikt]

[citation][nom]Tomfreak[/nom]an ideal battery length should be 24hours .Since we human will always go to bed every 18hours.[/citation]
Lol, going to bed will charge you, not the battery... Are you that kind of person who isn't concerned with power outages because you live in the city?

 

[tomaz99]

I don't think that will help at all in the grand scheme of things.

If we're all moving to Ultra HD resolution and a bright screen that can double as stadium flood lighting then this will just get noted as "that's neat".

Doubling battery life would involve implementing Commodore 64 graphics of 300x200 (and 16 colors !).

 

[becherovka]

It does depend on the phone my LG 2x would be close to the 65% on normal to light use. If i am playing games reading a kindle book or something this would change.
Even for better phones every bit helps.

 

[Mhawk13]

[citation][nom]CrArC[/nom]They are indeed on about standby time. The screen, and the CPU/GPU combination required to drive it (especially these newer super-res devices) drink battery life in comparison to a little radio. You wouldn't really notice the difference in battery life if comparing while the phone is being used.However, it's still important, and double-life is not an outlandish claim. I can already double the battery life of my phone by installing an app that manages radio use better (Wifi, 3G, etc) when I am not using the phone. And it really is doubleUnfortunately this comes at the cost of response time (as the various radios must fire up occasionally to check for messages/data and also fire up when try to use the phone), whereas the technology that this article describes would allow the radio to remain active and respond immediately with similar results on battery life.Having said that, we're only talking a few seconds for my phone to wake up the radio gear at present. It's not that big a trade-off for twice the battery life, tbh. Obviously the phone also drains at the normal rate when being used, but that's the thing - most of the time, your phone is not being used, so there are big savings to be made.[/citation]
What app is that? I turned off my smartphone's 3G because it drains too much battery life, this app would be really useful for me. Thanks.

 

[zodiacfml]

appears to me as a class-d amplifier...

 

[george87bg]

How could they call it a new technology, since that's the way cell phones' antenna work.

...GSM phones are designed to operate at multiple power levels so as to use only the power required to reach the network. In general, the closer you are to a wireless base station antenna, the lower the power output of the device and vice versa.

Let someone explain what's so different about the new technology.

 

[Guest]

I wish the battery makers could make as big advances as do the makers of other parts. I want the new HTC Droid DNA and can’t get it on AT&T’s 4GLTE for working with my graphics design clients (sending large files). It’s all too complicated with closed doors everywhere, even in Atlanta.