Why can't somebody invent a battery for cell phones that doesn't need to be recharged so often?

Have Your Say Jun. 15, 2012 - 06:20AM JST ( 33 )

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33 Comments

2

sakuralaJun. 15, 2012 - 09:33AM JST

Here is a better question...Do people really need to use their phones so much that it requires more than a once a day charge in the morning or evening? I am sure it is needed for some, but there are a lot of us that just use phones non-stop as a relief of boredom or to accompany us while we walk (sometimes into walls or fountains).
2

REMzzzJun. 15, 2012 - 10:56AM JST

For some of us, smartphones have replaced work computers, so it's definitely a valid question. Sure they can invent it, but the real question is, will it explode and catch fire in my pocket?
2

y3chomeJun. 15, 2012 - 11:15AM JST

... i think if they could.. they would? pretty dumb question.
0

Thomas AndersonJun. 15, 2012 - 11:19AM JST

I think the only way is to reduce the power consumption... which is already happening... but we want more power.
0

timeonJun. 15, 2012 - 12:42PM JST

it's actually a great question, and science and/or technology doesn't have the answer yet. research into dry batteries is very difficult but important, and while most of the parts of any electronic equipment get smaller and smaller, the battery lags behind. there are many reasons for that, I won't start a chemistry lesson, but to put it simple the efficiency of the process is not good enough, those chemicals have a certain lifetime, and the reversibility is not ideal (for rechargeable batteries). Plus the materials must satisfy a plethora of stability and safety conditions.
0

zichiJun. 15, 2012 - 01:06PM JST

There are shoes which recharge the mobile device batteries while walking.
1

zichiJun. 15, 2012 - 01:21PM JST

Researchers have developed a transistor capable of slashing the power consumption of semiconductors by more than 90 percent, possibly paving the way for sharply prolonging battery life in smartphones and reducing wasted energy in digital home electronics while in standby mode, Hokkaido University announced.
0

GurukunJun. 15, 2012 - 01:45PM JST

A nuclear powered battery! Kind of like a small nuclear power plant inside the battery.
3

GurukunJun. 15, 2012 - 01:48PM JST

There are shoes which recharge the mobile device batteries while walking.

zichi-re-charge by walking?... I guess those won't do well in America.....
0

REMzzzJun. 15, 2012 - 02:29PM JST

@Gurukun,

They've already used plutonium cells inside heart pacemakers... a thermal power source
1

zichiJun. 15, 2012 - 03:09PM JST

Gurukun, for those Americans who can't detach themselves from their cars, there's a small windmill device they can wear on their heads, and just stick the head out of the window when the phone needs a charge. Works with bikes too.
0

Dennis BauerJun. 15, 2012 - 03:44PM JST

Wear a solar cap!
0

GurukunJun. 15, 2012 - 03:57PM JST

zichi-LOL!!!!!!
2

SquidBertJun. 15, 2012 - 05:52PM JST

Why can't somebody invent a battery for cell phones that doesn't need to be recharged so often?

Actually they can , and they did. The energy density of batteries has improved greatly over the last 10 years.

It's just that at the same time the average Joe want more performance (which require more power) and thinner lighter devices (which means smaller batteries).
0

SquidBertJun. 15, 2012 - 05:55PM JST

Gurukun,

A nuclear powered battery! Kind of like a small nuclear power plant inside the battery.

Actually, you are not as crazy as people give you credit for. :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optoelectric_nuclear_battery
0

lostrune2Jun. 15, 2012 - 06:37PM JST

Hahaha, people at CNET has been asking the same question right after WWDC!

"Dear Apple: Please spend your billions on radical battery tech - The future of mobile isn't being held back by software or hardware -- it's the battery that is our greatest limitation."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-33617_3-57450603-276/dear-apple-please-spend-your-billions-on-radical-battery-tech/

You have more than $100 billion sitting in your coffers. I know you're returning some of that money to shareholders, but you will still have tens of billions of dollars leftover for R&D.

The truth is that battery technology has not improved much in the last few decades. Hell, we're still using AA batteries, a technology that was adopted in 1947. Think about that for a minute.

Battery power is limiting our ability to develop new technology. Without more efficient batteries, we can't have phones that run as fast as our laptops. Instead, we're forced to play with our settings and watch our battery bar constantly. We're supposed to be living in the future, damnit!
0

zichiJun. 15, 2012 - 07:01PM JST

I'm very impressed with my iPad battery. I can use my iPad all day, more than 10 hours with the battery running out, even when watching quite a few video's.
2

Johannes WeberJun. 15, 2012 - 07:05PM JST

Actually, the central problem in battery development is the balance of charging speed and capacity. Either can be done very well, yet, but a rapidly charging battery with decent storage is still rather new. They use a crystal lattice of Lithium-Iron-Phospate, have been developed at MIT and - guess it - they are neither ready for market nor will they be very cheap.

As Zichi pointed out, for mobile phones, the key lies in using their mobility. Small photovoltaic chargers for mobiles are accessible everywhere. Japanese USB kettles can be used. Cars can be used as well. And charging by walking should work as well.

Furthermore, the central issues in power consumption of smart phones are probably the display and the transmission source strengths. Looking at a shiny iPhone I see a lot of wasted power. With a display based on intelligent application of the Piezo-electric effect (like in Kindle), there could be a lot of power saved, since these displays need only electricity to change the configuration. Furthermore, transmission source strengths can be reduced by putting up more mobile network antennas (as a denser network of recipients allows weaker senders).

Actually, the idea of nuclear batteries is extremely old. Voyager 2 had a big chunk of Plutonium on board as a so-called isotope battery (which made use of the decay heat for power generation, if I'm not mistaken). However, due to the thermal neutron radiation (and lots of funny other things), this is obviously not suited for hand-held devices carried in the proximity of one's family jewels. And no - they can't be made small with their requirements of radiation shielding. And the pure horror of dumb people opening their nuclear batteries or breaking them by dropping their phones... I don't even want to think about it.
0

timeonJun. 15, 2012 - 07:40PM JST

Zichi, I think the question of this topic is storage, and not generation. a rechargeable battery is a storage device, regardless of how that electricity is generated. in this sense, solar, nuclear, etc. are generators, not batteries. the the storage capacity (lifetime for one charge) and the rechargeability (lifetime of the battery overall) is the issue. charging speed is also an issue as Johannes pointed out, but not as big as the two above.
2

tideofironJun. 15, 2012 - 08:03PM JST

Here's the real problem: Everything is awesome and no one is happy. You have a cell phone that can connect to the Internet and find any information you want, send e-mail to anyone in the world, connect to a freakin' satellite and give you accurate coordinates of your location anywhere on Earth and here you are complaining about the batteries dying out. Entitled much?
0

zichiJun. 15, 2012 - 08:18PM JST

timeon

since when do you need more than a 5 hour charge in a cell phone unless you up a mountain or something. With many opportunities to recharge. Small devices small batteries. There was a time when a cell phone lasted a couple of hours.

My wife's cell phone, and she is a heavy user, only needs overnight charging even with shooting photo's and video.
0

zichiJun. 15, 2012 - 08:29PM JST

I think probably people don't change their cell phone battery frequently enough?

With my wife's AU cell phone service, we pay a few hundred yen a month extra and one entitlement is a new battery every year. I charged the old one and put it in her bag but she has never used it.
0

FadamorJun. 15, 2012 - 10:18PM JST

People want more milli-Ampere Hours in an ever shrinking package. At a certain point you run into a standoff. You can make a battery run longer between charges, but it will have to be larger (and heavier).
-2

choiwaruoyajiJun. 16, 2012 - 11:22AM JST

I want my cell phone battery to have a life of 3 to 4 days.

For semi-retired old people (as some of the posters here seem to be) then of course they have all day to find opportunities to charge up the battery.

However, for busy people with jobs then it is so easy to forget to hook up the phone when you get home after a long hard day at work... then you possibly face a train ride in the morning without the phone... get to work and your desk phone is already ringing... have to run to meet clients... no time to charge up the cell phone again...

We are at a time when cell phone hardware and applications consume more power than the battery can supply.

We've been hearing for years about improvements in battery life. XYZ group of scientists have found a promising new technology... it never comes to anything...
-1

SimondBJun. 16, 2012 - 12:56PM JST

I've been with the organisation I work with for 4 years now and they have just given me my fourth new phone (I think it is more to do with group plans then employer genurosity). This for me means just after i have learnt the basics I have to start again. The latest one we got begining of last month is a smart phone which came with a bible sized instruction book for those of us not smart enough to use it. The immediate complaint from most people was that the battery ran out so quickly. One popular theory is with new phones the more that you recharge them the longer the battery subsequently will run in the future. Anyone know if this is true?

But I found in chapter 118 verse 67 that I had a built in GPS system that would tell me exactly where I was at any given time. Funny thing is, I seem to know where I am most of the time and turned it of. Since then there has been a noticible increase in the time needed between charges. Are there I wonder, more things on the phone I can turn off to extend battery life?
0

tsukkiJun. 16, 2012 - 01:49PM JST

Engineers are working on it. Be patient.
0

IncenseAndPeppermintsJun. 16, 2012 - 03:04PM JST

There is such a battery. Its called a BIGGER one. But engineers decided the people wanted smaller, lighter phones and no option for people like MYSELF who are not such sissies they actually have the strength to carry around a phone 2 to 3 times heavier than the today's average.

Actually, the state of today's rechargeable batteries is pretty damned amazing. Anyone who has this problem should go get a standard battery pack for cell phones available at any 7-11 and fill it with some decent rechargeable size 3 batteries available at any electronics store. The only complaint being that the battery packs are rather clunky (would like one that folds from the plug).

You can also turn off needless bells and whistles of the phone, such as beeps when you press a button, lights flashing like a Pachinko Parlor when the phone rings etc., and get longer use on one charge.
-4

Thomas AndersonJun. 16, 2012 - 03:31PM JST

Actually, the state of today's rechargeable batteries is pretty damned amazing.

Actually I don't believe that the battery technology has changed much in... a long time.
0

IncenseAndPeppermintsJun. 16, 2012 - 05:20PM JST

Actually I don't believe that the battery technology has changed much in... a long time.

Overall, it hasn't. But its not a testament to the laziness of industry. Its a testament to the difficulty of the task. What they have done, despite the difficulty, is damned amazing, even if people are impatient for miracles.

NiMh technology has blown me away. I have an RC hydrofoil that came with a big NiCd battery that used to last maybe ten minutes. That battery was shot so I retrofitted the hydrofoil to take 5 size 3 NiMh batteries. Thirty minutes of use and it showed no sign of quitting. I quit, because I was getting bored!

Something you have to consider is that its not only very very difficult to make useful rechargeable battery technology, it is also very hard to make it safe for the average human to use. People are pretty dumb about these things, and if they weren't, there would be a lot more available.
0

iceshoecreamJun. 16, 2012 - 10:30PM JST

There were batteries made to last at least 3 days, when phones were just that, cellphones (not smartphones). Then again it all depends how much you use it. I have a Casio smartphone and the battery lasts me exactly that, 3 days.
0

svidetic@gmail.comJun. 17, 2012 - 05:54AM JST

because no one understand to develop thermo-voltaic. a phone who recharge it with body or sun heat.
1

CarcharodonJun. 17, 2012 - 10:15AM JST

Anyone who has this problem should go get a standard battery pack for cell phones available at any 7-11 and fill it with some decent rechargeable size 3 batteries available at any electronics store. The only complaint being that the battery packs are rather clunky (would like one that folds from the plug).

I have a li-ion battery pack cost 4000yen, has 2A output and has enough juice it to charge a smart phone twice or tablet once. it's the size of a deck of cards.. I seldom need it has I have USB cables for charging everywhere, at my work desk, at my home PC, in the bedroom, in the kitchen, in the car. I plug stuff in to charge out of habit constantly. In fact other than on airplanes the last time I truly ran out of battery was the day of the 3.11 quake/tsunami.

Fuel cell batteries are in the R&D world, they are just too expensive at the moment.
0

NinohJul. 02, 2012 - 12:15PM JST

Don't count on zero energy, when and if they do, whole society will change.