Outsmarting Smartphone Batteries

What if you never had to charge your smartphone, which is probably the most used piece of equipment you have? No battery concerns, no cables, no searching for outlets at the coffee shop or airport -- what's not to like about this idea? And, no it's not a solar device.

University of Washington researchers have invented a cellphone that requires no batteries — a major leap forward in moving beyond chargers, cords and dying phones. Instead, the phone harvests the few microwatts of power it requires from either ambient radio signals or light.

The team also made Skype calls using its battery-free phone, demonstrating that the prototype made of commercial, off-the-shelf components can receive and transmit speech and communicate with a base station.

The team of UW computer scientists and electrical engineers eliminated a power-hungry step in most modern cellular transmissions — converting analog signals that convey sound into digital data that a phone can understand. This process consumes so much energy that it’s been impossible to design a phone that can rely on ambient power sources.

Instead, the battery-free cellphone takes advantage of tiny vibrations in a phone’s microphone or speaker that occur when a person is talking into a phone or listening to a call.

Link to the full article, details and video at Cleantech Concepts.

Tom Breunig is publisher at Cleantech Concepts, an online magazine and market research firm tracking cleantech R&D.