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Bluetooth Keyboards With a 10-Year Charge Promised
angry tapir writes "Broadcom is working on a Bluetooth chipset that will give wireless keyboards a battery life of up to 10 years. If they had a battery life of as long as 10 years, that Bluetooth-based accessories could potentially never need new batteries, the chip maker said. A set of two AA batteries would be enough to power a keyboard using the BCM20730 Bluetooth chip to connect with a computer for its entire lifetime, Broadcom said."
Hahaha...whew, that's a good one.
Now tell me we're gonna have flying cars 'within the next 15-30 years'.
...to increase battery life of course....and when they fail in 3 years instead of the promised 10, you get to go out and buy a whole new keyboard. (It lasts 10 years so why allow the user to change the battery).
We're seeing this with point and shoot cameras now. As recently as 2-3 years ago models that ran on AA batteries existed and some of them had decent battery life (a couple of hundred shots with flash). Now every new camera model is tied to a different proprietary lithium battery. This is for the good of the consumer of course, not so the camera manufacturer can gouge on batteries and make it more cost effective for the customer to replace the camera every 2-3 years. Makes me want to spit.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Can't wait.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
I just built a kernel specifically without the bluetooth modules in an attempt to save power on my laptop. Damn you progress.
what kind of batteries will not self discharge in less than 10 years even without a load ?....
Why not put wires on the key board (perhaps even a USB connection), and the battery is not even needed. Wow.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
Just as long as you don't leave the capslock LED on.
Someone had to do it.
We're seeing this with point and shoot cameras now. As recently as 2-3 years ago models that ran on AA batteries existed and some of them had decent battery life (a couple of hundred shots with flash). Now every new camera model is tied to a different proprietary lithium battery.
Yes, but the batteries are smaller, denser, and last longer. What is the problem, exactly?
Several problems:
- Forget to charge your battery? You're out of luck! You won't be able to get a standard replacement alkaline battery for a couple of bucks at the corner store
- Looked after your camera for many years and want to sell it or show your children a vintage camera? You're out of luck! Your battery is too old to hold charge and they don't make batteries for that model camera any more
- Have a lot of different cameras, and want to share a couple of sets of batteries between them? You're out of luck. Each camera you own uses a different battery. You need at least one per camera
- You're a camera enthusiast and want to buy spare battteries? You'll have to decide which camera you need a spare battery for. You can't afford $30 x number of spares x cameras
I've seen a lot of silly justifications ranging from the technology keeps improving so why would you want to use the old camera to who owns lots of cameras. But I promise you for me and many others these things matter. We talk about recycling and reuse, have shopping bags too flimsy to hold our goods that we are now charged for, conserve water, and use less than optimal lighting solutions to conserve energy, but the moment a company stands to make a profit by making something throw away or selling you a whole bunch of junk when one item would suffice, well the environment goes out the window. It's moronic to be this wasteful.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
"I've got an IBM Model M that's at least from the mid 80's and works fine..."
Since they plan a ten-year battery life, they probably do not provide means of replacing the battery. In short, once you go to this type of keyboard, you are tied to never-ending replacements on a ten-year cycle. This isn't a feature, it's planned obsolescence.
Hang on to that Model M.
With specialty lithium batteries that cost near as much as they keyboard :P Alkaline
The shelf life of an alkaline battery is only about 7 years.
The article mentioned nothing about Lithium batteries, but did explicitly mention "A set of two AA batteries", which presumably means commercial off the shelf batteries.
Keyboards are easy.
Nothing is happening on the keyboard unless keys are pressed. Pressing any key can also fire up the radio to send a pulse. There does not need to be constant communication, and the radio does not need to be running all the time, as long as the receiving end bluetooth stack is set to not time out. All you need is a fast power-up chipset.
This wouldn't work with a mouse (at least not a laser mouse).
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Note the lack of not-a-wire coming out of it.
Also, given that it's a Model M, I'm guessing you can also note the not-a-sound you are hearing right now from the deafness of using that keyboard for that long.
Lithium AAs can have a shelf life of a decade or more.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
tinfoil hat time!
This bluetooth chip would draw a whopping .057mAh at 1.5v, or .0285mAh at 3v. (Assuming a 2500mAh AA cell type, with 10 years of power draw.)
You can easily generate this using biologically inplanted power sources, or from a standard solar powered calculator's photocell, or even from a thin film thermocoupler.
This would allow for ubiquitous bluetooth devices in a lot of surfaces, including things you would never consider to have need of a network stack.
Hell, you could power this stack on an AM crystal radio!
The bluetooth spec is extensible.
You don't have to have constant communications, you only have to answer polls, but only as often as the other side sends them.
With just a small profile change you could minimize that to once an hour if you wanted.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Actually, it would be better for FPS than any other use. You have 2 options, either each keypress creates lots of electricity (makes keyboards harder to use), or make lots of keypresses (FPS is *definitely* a contender there).
About ten years ago, I bought a Memorex wireless keyboard at Pic-n-save aka "Big Lots".
I think I paid about $10.
Much to my amazement, its still running on a pair of "Everready lithium" batteries I put in when I first got it.
I put those batteries in everything that I have a tendency to ignore maintenance on, like remotes. I have never seen one of those lithium cells leak yet.
Its been one of those things with me that alkaline cells, regardless of who made them, leak. Even if they aren't dead yet.
I rarely use the keyboard, but when I do, it works. It only transmits ten feet or so, but its enough. It feeds an old P166 I have loaded with DOS and WIN95 to run my old DOS stuff.
What impressed me so was that the keyboard had no on-off switch. For ten years, the keyboard has been sitting there waiting for me to press a key.
My hat's off to the engineer who designed the thing.
I would not mind paying more for this keyboard's electronics in a sturdier mechanical design, but for ten bucks, I thought I got a really nice little gadget.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Somehow, that makes me think of the old watch my dad had. World War II. Radium dial. Phosphorescent. Stayed lit all the time.
A lot of people got sick making those watches. They would rub the brushes against their lips to make a fine point to paint with. The watches were later deemed to be dangerous and were no longer made.
But, could we design a special "solar cell" that would take that radiation and convert it to electricity?
How about miniature "radiation cell" array surrounding a low-level alpha source. Maybe it could provide a couple of uA, for hundreds of years. Enough to keep a super-cap charged.
Its your suggestion, AC. I think its a good one. It just needs a bit of engineering to bring it to reality.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
IBM Model M, a keyboard that you can use to kill a man, then use to type his obituary.
Those watches are still made every day. The light is generated by radioactive decay. Its rather well understood, its not really that dangerous unless of course you're eating large quantities of a toxic metal because you think eating paint is a good idea.
In order for there to be enough useful energy there to harvest, it starts to become dangerous without shielding, then it gets complex and makes small scale production a ways off.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I don't work for them -- I'm just a happy customer. Don't hang on to your Model M - get a new one in black with USB:
Unicomp Customizer
Unicomp SpaceSaver
I still use a wireless mouse, but ran an active USB cable to my comfey chair so I could put one of these beauties on my lap. Buckling springs FTW!
Yes, not even Amazon has any sub-100 dollar bluetooth mice. And the certainly have no sub-100 dollar bluetooth keyboards either!
And don't even get me started on Apple and their price gouging 100$+ mice, keyboards and trackpads! Granted, I can't find any 100$+ keyboards, mice or trackpads on Apple's store, but I'm sure they're there! It's not like you'd just pull that 100$+ number out of your ass, right?