It’s no secret that Smartphones, while indispensable inside the modern life, have a trouble with battery longevity. I’ve found that in most cases, my Android and iPhone will exhaust power at the same time they’ve fallen into sleep mode while unplugged from the wall for approximately a day. This can be a bit frustrating, particularly when I need the phone to work without energy for a set period of time, such as on a road trip when I forgot to pack a car charger and won’t have accessibility to a power source for several days.
Wysips, small startup company in France would like to find a solution to prolong Smartphone battery while dodging the chance of making them any more cumbersome [1]. Expanding the size of the battery pack would certainly sure help, but a Mobile phone should be able to fit without difficulty inside a pocket or inner compartment without taking up excessive space. For this reason, the idea wouldn’t be viable.
Wysips would like to compete with top Western Touch screen phone innovators like HTC by entering their unique and innovative phones into the market. Wysips capitalizes on the life of the battery of their third generation model phones, which works on the solar cell at the top half of the cell phone’s screen to increase battery life. The good part of the whole thing could be that the solar cell is almost completely transparent, generating energy while letting the phone’s user stare directly through it.
What’s important is that the tech utilized to make the nearly-transparent pv strips is similar to the lenticular surface screen technology used to make the Nintendo 3DS plus some of Samsung’s brand new “Naked Eye 3D” panels. Fundamentally, the top side of the screen is overlaid with tiny strips of solar panels that draw in the sun’s energy to give extra energy to the smartphone.
While the solar cells can’t keep the cellphone completely functional, they are able to greatly extend the battery life of the Smartphone itself, which can be something that everyone has been begging for. The cell at the top is only marginally noticeable, showing slightly darker than the lower part of the screen. Wysips doesn’t have any fully-functional prototypes demoing at trade shows, but they got some elementary, case-free demonstrations of the technology.
The solar panels don’t obstruct touchscreen performance at all, that is a must. The solar cell film is truly a part of the screen, so moving a finger on the screen generates a perfect response.
Wysips states that future models can look even better [2], as the solar cell panels will be nearly totally transparent when the technology is ready to be displayed in all its glory.
A hands-on demo of the mobile phone has the slightly-annoying screen glitch where black bars quickly appear across the screen when the cellphone is tilted at particular angles, which is actually relatively common in different kinds of lenticular display screens on cellular phones or otherwise. Wysips says the bug will probably be worked out when a retail version is prepared.
Wysips is in talks with a variety of mobile carriers and phone makers, but the company has not done any news in regards to what company might carry their cell phone first, or which mobile phone developer might attempt to purchase the rights to the patent [3]. Nevertheless, the technology has really taken off, and it’s got tech fans and the general public alike very enthusiastic.
The firm anticipates that they’ll be creating extra few prototypes before things really get moving along in sales. There are no official estimates on when the cell phone will be retail-ready, but I’m really very excited to hear more details.
The author: Hettie T. Monaghan is a cell phones expert and writes iphone solar charger reviews for the 12voltsolarpanels.net website. It’s a non profits site she uses to talk about the latest technology reports about solar chargers for small units and mobiles.
Footnotes:
[1] Wysips Official Site explains in greater detail how the solar smart dataphone charger works
[2] Official Samsung site where it’s published their last tentative (called Blue Earth Phone) as an example of companies investing in this new technology.
[3] Patentlyapple.com writes about the Apple’s patent on solar powered devices.
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