French business Wysips is focusing on a whole new system which could cause mobile phone touch screens to accomplish double duty as pv power panels to recharge cell phones.
The thought is fairly interesting [1] since it consists of laying an extremely thin transparent pv film layer together with the cellphone screen. The film may get energy not only from the sun, but any nearby source of light.
Probable recharge times will be about six hours from sunlight and some moments longer from leaching power from in house lights. Wysips is at work for the 2nd new release of the technology, which seems to offer half an hour of talk-time after just 1 hour under the sun.
The major problem with a solar battery charger is the fact that the sun moves continually, and my practical experience continues to be that you need to move the solar charger every couple of minutes to let it in the sunshine.
Actually most solar chargers for cellphones will be beneficial to individuals who spend lots of time out in the open, and should not readily make use of a car or wall charger for devices. Backpackers, fishermen, etc, may possibly like this.
Otherwise, you are probably happier choosing something different. The very best solar cellular phone chargers available take a long time to charge – a 1 hour charge offers you just enough to make a 5-10 minutes telephone call. It will take something similar to 8-10 hours to obtain a full charge.
Another big problem with these chargers would be that the unit could only be charged approximately 500 times. This might equate to about 12 months in the event you used it everyday. You will never go green using this type of thing, since you’d need to change it out every 12-18 months.
With more people today getting cellphones and ipads etc…., the drain on electric power grids is increasing. So, incorporating the capacity for the cell phone to independently recharge from the light indicates they could help pull their own weight, so you wouldn’t ought to take along another battery charger or move it around.
Another interesting truth is the opportunity to make use of this system to charge the mobile phone while using the indoor light… this can be a real benefit. The device could be continuously charging as light falls on display, meaning it will be topping off it’s power as the cellular phone just sits inactive.
This progression is much more appealing than previous attempts to generate solar battery chargers for mobile phones, for instance Samsung’s Blue Earth mobile [2], which included a solar charger on its back. A few months ago Apple was awarded a patent [3] for a process to charge small units using solar powered energy, an indicator that this company considers solar powered energy worth exploring.
The solar efficiency from Wysips’ charger is now only 9 %, in comparison to the most effective solar panels used elsewhere. That is much better than the 0 % smartphones offer now. The additional electricity gained from the solar charger for instance Wysips’ could allow cell phone designers to formulate slimmer batteries for their devices, or make it easy for faster, stronger devices with adequate battery lives.
Footnotes:
[1] Wysips Official Site explains in greater detail how the new solar charger works
[2] Official Samsung web page where it’s published the info about the Blue Earth Phone
[3] Techcrunch writes about the Apple’s patent on photovoltaic powered devices.
About me: Sofia Sheppard writes for the 12 volt solar battery chargers blog, her non profits hobby weblog she uses to publish the latest technology news about solar chargers for small devices.