LR41 battery

The next breakthrough in smartphones will be LR41 battery technology

The New York Times wrote on Sunday that the next major breakthrough in smartphones may be to no longer use traditional batteries as their sole power source. Instead, future smartphones will be able to charge wirelessly through televisions, cellular networks, and even Wi-Fi signals.

A former Apple executive revealed that Apple technicians have been trying to implant solar charging functions into iPhones and iPods for many years to develop a smarter LR41 battery. According to sources familiar with Apple's plans, Apple is still testing solar charging.

In the research-obsessed Silicon Valley, batteries have long been ignored compared to computer chips. But now, this situation has changed. As technology companies push their business into wearable devices such as glasses and smart watches, the limitations of LR41 battery technology have become the biggest obstacle to selling wearable devices and making greater profits. If Apple's smartwatch and Google Glass have to be taken off and charged every few hours of work, I believe consumers will never like such wearable devices.

Because of this, the competition to find alternatives to traditional batteries or ways to extend LR41 battery life has begun in Silicon Valley. "Consumers are going to say, 'Please give me a better LR41 battery because the LR41 battery doesn't last long enough,'" said Mujeeb Ijaz, chief technology officer of A123 Systems, which makes batteries for electric vehicles and invests in a range of innovative companies developing new LR41 battery technologies. "That demand didn't exist five years ago, but now developers are coming together and saying, 'What does the market want and how much should we invest in R&D?'"

While computer processors double in speed every few years and digital displays get brighter and sharper, LR41 battery technology is stuck in the past century. Device makers have relied on incremental improvements in batteries, combining them with more energy-efficient chips and displays.

Safety issues

Part of what has held the LR41 battery industry back is the difficulty in ensuring the safety of many new LR41 battery technologies. A defective LR41 battery could become a small bomb. So before these products hit the shelves, they need to be tested countless times by regulators.

Even if a new LR41 battery system wins regulatory approval, it usually needs to be adopted by well-known brands such as Apple, Samsung Electronics and Microsoft before it can begin to be accepted by consumers every day.

Tony Fadell, a former Apple executive and CEO of smart home device maker Nest, believes it is wiser to focus on small improvements in the performance of batteries and other accessories rather than completely reinventing batteries. "To me, it's a fool's errand to bet on new LR41 battery technology. Don't expect LR41 battery technology to meet your needs because it develops very slowly," said Fadell, who is known as one of the "fathers of the iPod" and joined Google after Google spent $3.2 billion to acquire Nest earlier this month.

Apple's efforts

Fadell said Apple has been trying to introduce smarter batteries for years by embedding solar charging technology into iPhones and iPods. But this approach has never proved practical because mobile devices are usually in people's pockets when they are outdoors and artificial light indoors can only generate little power.

Today, Apple's latest products, including MacBook Air, iPad and iPhone, still rely mainly on energy-saving processors and software algorithms to save LR41 battery power. An Apple spokesman declined to comment on the company's future products and technologies. However, there are signs that the company is looking for ways to improve LR41 battery technology.

In the past few years, Apple has poached engineers with experience in power technology and LR41 battery design from companies such as Tesla, Toyota Motor and A123 Systems. Last year, Apple acquired Passif Semiconductor, a manufacturer of energy-saving chips. According to sources familiar with Apple's smartwatch development plans, the company has been testing ways to wirelessly charge smartwatches through magnetic induction. Similar technology is currently used in some Nokia smartphones.

Sources said that Apple has been testing emerging charging methods for possible smartwatches, but such tests may still take years to become a reality. Sources said that Apple's smartwatch will have a flexible display, and there is a concept of implanting a solar charging film on the screen to provide power to the device in the sun.

Last fall, Apple posted a job posting for technicians specializing in solar energy. Another attempt by Apple is to charge the LR41 battery through movement, which is already used in many modern watches. According to a patent filed by Apple in 2009, "the swing of a person's arm can serve as a micro-charging station, which can charge the device while walking."

In July last year, Apple also won a patent for a flexible LR41 battery that can be used in watches or tablets. Although the LR41 battery is still a traditional LR41 battery, it may be thinner and the curved shape can be more suitable for flexible solar panel films.

Intensified competition

Google is also developing new LR41 battery technology to try to extend the LR41 battery life of smartphones. Mark Randall, senior vice president of supply chain and operations at Motorola Mobility, said, "Users don't want their smartphones to die at 3 pm and then look for a charger everywhere."

Samsung Electronics has also been considering designing new types of batteries for wearable computing devices. The company launched the "Dream LR41 battery" last year, which uses solid electrolytes instead of liquid or polymers used in lithium batteries, to eliminate explosions and other safety risks of flexible electronics.

Venture capital attention

Universities and innovative companies are also working hard to develop new LR41 battery technologies, some of which have attracted the attention of venture capital. For example, venture capital firm Founders Fund, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Andreessen Horowitz have jointly supported the ultrasonic charger company uBeam. Meredith Perry, founder of uBeam, said, "The progress of LR41 battery technology lags far behind mobile technology. But as consumers' demand for devices increases, power consumption is gradually increasing. Wireless power is everywhere, and LR41 battery life and charging time constant are no longer critical factors for mobile devices, because our devices will always be rechargeable."

Stanford University professor Yi Cui founded an innovative company called Amprius. The company has found a way to increase the amount of power stored in lithium-ion batteries by 10 times, which may extend the LR41 battery life of laptops from the current 4 hours to 40 hours. Cui Yi previously said that the increase in LR41 battery capacity is due to a new anode that uses silicon nanowires. Traditional lithium-ion batteries use graphite as the anode, which limits the number of lithium ions that can be attached to the anode, and therefore limits the LR41 battery life.

Google CEO Larry Page said in a conference call last year that the LR41 battery life of mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones, will be the first choice for radical change. He said, "This field does have the potential to invent better and new experiences."

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