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Sony To Boost Smartphone Batteries Because People Aren't Replacing Phones (theguardian.com)
Not too long ago, people would replace their phone every 18 months. But that isn't the case with most people now. According to new estimates, more people are now changing their phones after at least three years. The problem with this is that by the end of two-three years, the battery on the phone reaches a stage where it gets really annoying. Sony has a solution, or so it says. From The Guardian:Sony is trying to fix that, but not by fixing the battery. That's because the lithium ion cells within smartphones don't exactly need fixing -- they will continue to work for years -- but their ability to hold their original amount of charge rapidly diminishes with repeated recharging cycles. Everyone who finds themselves with a chunky battery pack for their new smartphone or desperately searching for a charger by mid-afternoon knows battery capacity is a never-ending headache that only gets worse as a smartphone, and its battery ages. Rather than fixing the battery, Sony wants to do something about the recharging. Jun Makino, Sony mobile's senior product marketing manager, said; "We've started learning your charging cycles so that our new Xperia X smartphones only complete charging to 100% when they estimate you're about to start using them, so that the damage caused by maintaining a battery at 100% is negated. This is important, a battery that's usually kept at a charge between 20% and 80% of its capacity is much healthier -- it's going to the extremes that wears it out at a faster rate. This is important, a battery that's usually kept at a charge between 20% and 80% of its capacity is much healthier - it's going to the extremes that wears it out at a faster rate. The Japanese electronics firm has partnered with Californian adaptive charging company Qnovo to put technology into its Xperia smartphones. This includes the new top-end Xperia XZ and Xperia X Compact, which Sony reckons will double the life of the battery to around four years.
The phones should be setup to charge to 80% and stop there.
Then offer a special "overcharge" feature that charges it to 100%.
But label the 80% charge "100" and the 100% level as 120 (no percentages)
People would like the 'new' feature. Everyone would instinctively understand that charging past "100" would be bad.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
That also worked well, and didn't require some hopefully-accurate battery-watching algorithm.
I'm typing this on my 6 year old iPhone and the battery works just fi
So much so, they said it twice!
a battery that's usually kept at a charge between 20% and 80% of its capacity is much healthier
If longevity is a higher priority, then why don't they build batteries with a higher actual capacity but only let them charge to 80% (calling that the new 100%)? People would be willing to pay more for a 'premium long-life' battery.
Of course building phones that let you replace the battery is a better and simpler option.
"I'll go get the papers, get the papers."
Here's a thought - instead of soldering batteries onto the phones circuit board, build in a battery holder and a door so that users can replace them. I call this idea "removable batteries" and may patent it.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Oh, thank you for clarifying that. I didn't understand it after reading it twice. But after reading it a dozen times in a row, it made perfect sense. You could have left off the extra two sentences at the end tough. That was over doing it.
They need to do only a couple things to fix this. Firstly, they need to just design the phone so that it never charges above 80%. It would be easy to just report the battery as full when it's really not. As someone else suggested, you could have an overcharge mode warning the user of the problems.
The second thing is to make sure that the battery doesn't go below 20%. A lot of this has to do with operating system design, as well as the total battery capacity. A lot of phones, even new ones seem to be designed to not last more than the period between morning and night (7AM - 11PM) without absolutely needing to be charged. If the battery had sufficient capacity and the operating system and applications were power efficient enough, then there would be little chance of the battery dropping below that 20% mark. My current phone is very good, and can go a couple days without being changed. This means I'm in the 20%-80% zone very often. I've experienced very little battery degradation, even after 18 months using the phone. The battery is almost as good as the day I got it.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
This:
>This is important, a battery that's usually kept at a charge between 20% and 80% of its capacity is much healthier - it's going to the extremes that wears it out at a faster rate.
Is contradicted by the story a few weeks ago regarding the results of research showing it was the act of charging that degraded batteries not the level of charge of the battery.
So which is it? Given I'm not completely naive here (I spent a time developing Li-poly, NiMH and Li-Ion chargers and did a ton of testing) I saw nothing to support the 20-80 hypothesis. If anything can be improved it's probably avoiding unnecessary trickle charge current and minimizing the idle current of the phone to minimize the area under the charging current curve as phones are plugged in overnight.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
There is an even simpler solution which does not put a limit on the lifetime at all: make the battery replaceable and sell replacements. You know, like everyone used to do 5+ years ago.
Only a few years ago, most phone manufacturers (except Apple) wouldn't have dared to release a phone with a non-user-replaceable battery.
If only the dumb consumer sheeple that happily spent $600+ on a phone with a built-in battery (i.e. designed-in obsolescence) weren't in the majority, we wouldn't be having this problem at all.
A sustainable smartphone is bad for sony, because people do not buy a new one. So they push a software, which only charges up to 80%, so people need a new one sooner than they've planned.
btw. the claim with 100% is bullshit for modern batteries, my latest nexus phone had an explicit hint, there is no need to discharge and recharge the battery, but most healthy is just to charge when needed.
If they really want sustainable phones, they should have batteries, which can be changed, again. Then people can buy a whole new battery for like 20 USD and keep their phone for up to 10 years, if they do not need to play the latest pokemon game.