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."

Comments

Ha!

[RobinEggs]

Hahaha...whew, that's a good one.

Now tell me we're gonna have flying cars 'within the next 15-30 years'.

Re:Ha!

[VernonNemitz]

Actually, as long as chips keep getting smaller and need less power, something like this is almost inevitable. However, at some point it will be possible to dispense with batteries altogether, and just build solar cells into the keyboard. If you have enough light to see it, then you will have enough light to run it. Someday, even your smartphone or tablet (or combined unit) will be built that way.

Re:Ha!

[geekoid]

Or generate tiny amount of electricity from the key press.

Re:Ha!

[Arrepiadd]

You mean one day in the future we'll be able to have one of these?

Boy, can't wait...

Re:Ha!

[Daetrin]

Sarcasm aside, i picked one of those up when Amazon had a sale, and i've been rather amazed. It was an impulse purchase without any prior research done. I figured with both Logitech and Amazon's names attached it couldn't be a complete scam, but i though i'd probably have to be careful to make sure to put it under bright light every so often to keep it charged up or something, or that the signal strength might be a little weak to compensate. Or something anyways, never having to replace the keyboard batteries again just seemed too good to be true, as trivial as that seems.

In actuality the signal strength is fine, better than my wireless mouse certainly, and not once when i've thought to check has it been below full charge despite being kept in our regular living room lighting conditions, which can be pretty dim at times. One of the coolest bonuses is a button you can press to launch a light meter app on your computer, which will tell you the lux level the solar panels are currently being exposed to. It's been great fun to move the keyboard around and vary the lighting conditions to see how the value changes. It really brings home something everyone familiar with SF or photography is intellectually aware of, that the sun delivers a couple more magnitudes of light than we actually need to see comfortably with.

They keyboard is also incredibly light and thin. My only complaints relate solely to the the way some of the keys and their functions are placed/handled, but that's pretty obviously an issue with design choices and nothing to do with the basic hardware. And despite those quibbles it's still leaps and bounds above my previous Microsoft keyboard. (Silly me, when i bought it online as the only wireless keyboard option for my PC package i was putting together i figured "it's just a keyboard, how badly can Microsoft screw it up?")

Of course some people might not like the fact that it's not ergonomically shaped, but i prefer the old fashioned rectangular slabs :)

I wonder if they could make a solar powered mouse to match? You'd have to use curved solar panels that didn't feel too weird while you were actually using the mouse...

Re:Ha!

[erick99]

I have a 12 year old bathroom scale still running off of the original lithium battery that was factory installed. I am amazed at how long it has lasted. Lithium is, admittedly, a different beast than alkalines. But 12 years is pretty good for any battery.

Re:Ha!

[mwvdlee]

Couldn't the bluetooth chip be powered by utilizing the kinetic energy of a human pressing a button. Many people would actually prefer a bit of physical resistance in the buttons of a keyboard.

A better idea.

[Cosgrach]

Why not put wires on the key board (perhaps even a USB connection), and the battery is not even needed. Wow.

Re:doubt it

[MindlessAutomata]

Couple the keyboard with a battery charger (powered by its own batteries)

Re:It's a trap: Next step: Proprietary battery

[chispito]

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?

Sounds good to me.

[anubi]

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.

Re:Sounds good to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Schrodingers Keyboard. If you don't press a key for 10 years the keyboard is both alive and dead.