So far I was talking about possible alternative power source for Smartphone having the objective of solving the major problem they face which is the battery power. Ultimate perfect solution would be self sustaining Smartphone which you never have to recharge.
My previous ideas were solar panels and motion charging. Applying existing technology it’s going nowhere near the ultimate objective, yet they are good leads to work toward that.
Quick Catch-up
Today, I’m going to talk about another narrow shot same as previous motion to electricity conversion. This is already existing application in spy bots. The concept is to generate electricity using variable magnetic fields.
How to Generate Electricity with a Magnetic Field?
Back in 1831 Michael Faraday invented the Dynamo. It’s a device that generates electricity using constantly moving conductor in a Magnetic field. The very first dynamo was having a copper plate rotating in between two powerful magnets.
Today whole human civilization is powered with this invention. In hydro power stations, diesel generator and most of the electricity generating device, the base technology is dynamo.
To generate electricity with a magnetic field and conductor, there are two ways. Either you can move the conductor in the static magnetic field like Faraday’s original design or you can keep a static conductor in a variable magnetic field.
How to Apply this to Smartphone?
We are always surrounded by lots of magnetic fields. Some of them are static and more of them are variable. Air conditioner, Computer monitor, fluorescent lamp and many other devices generates magnetic fields, mainly variable magnetic fields.
Though they are not variable magnetic fields, when you are using your Smartphone it’s moving. Best part here is you will never find a environment without magnetic field, why earth is a huge magnet.
In order to generate electricity using those variable magnetic fields all what engineers should do is embed specially designed copper coil in to Smartphone. Then it will generate electricity and store them in battery.
In a ideal environment where you can find strong variable magnetic field, such as near a monitor Smartphone would be able to generate significant amount of electricity. Though the magnetic field is static, still it Smartphone can generate electricity when it’s moving relative to that. In the worst case, it will generate small amount of electricity when you are moving with the Smartphone in earth’s magnetic field.
Wrapping Up
This seems a great idea, yet same with Solar panel and motion charging this also generates way lesser electricity which is nowhere near sufficient to achieve the objective of “Self Sustaining Smartphone”. The answer is still in future technologies. No matter what this is a good ground to start innovating.
As I mention before, if we can think of hybrid power sources, battery, solar panel, motion charger and magnetic field charger in one Smartphone that might show some significant improvement to battery life. The main problem would be this will add extra weight to the device which is a greater minus point.
In next few years most of the Smartphone manufactures will focus more on battery power rather than hardware muscle improvement. I believe we will be able to witness amazing technological outcome in near future.
Tags: #Smartphone