Longer Battery Life on the Way for Smartphones

Let’s face it – we’re disappointed with how long the batteries in our smartphones last. Sure, they’re better than they were a couple of years ago, but is an 8 hour usage life really much good? – No.

We need more life from our phone batteries, but how might that be achieved? While there are new longer lasting batteries in the works, what about the phone itself? If ways can be found to stop the phone itself draining the battery so fast, this will do much to increase battery life.

Your phone needs to create radio signals using electricity, and in order to do this it uses a series of power amplifiers. These amplifiers are notoriously inefficient and to a large degree are responsible for short battery life. Thus, a new design for these amplifiers is one of the best potential solutions to the problem – and it just so happens that one is in the works.

Cell bases have a similar issue when it comes to switching back and forth between standby mode – a lot of power is wasted because distortion is cut back when a base station does not switch between different voltages. Therefore, high power is maintained even when on standby.

The company that is trying to fix this issue is also working on a gearbox with ultra-fast switching, which will allow cell bases to change their power output without causing as much distortion. These amplifiers, large and small, are still just in the prototype stage – but they could be ready to go before the end of this year. This means that cell phone battery life may be about to get another big boost.

For now we need to charge our smart phones every night, and may need to give them a little extra juice during the day depending on usage – but longer battery life may not be as far off as you think.