BATTERY TECHNOLOGY ISN’T going to improve anytime soon so manufacturers are looking at ways to charge batteries faster as a way of overcoming this.
The likes of Samsung have integrated fast charging into their smartphones, but Chinese company Huawei has taken it a step further by developing a prototype battery that can recharge in minutes.
The two prototypes included both a lower and higher capacity battery. The lower capacity battery, 600mAh it charged a dead battery from 0% by 68% in the space of two minutes.
The 3,000mAh version, which is closer to the type of batteries used in modern smartphones, was able to reach a charge of 48% in five minutes.
The caveat is it requires a special kind of battery and charger to work. The battery must be taken out of the phone instead of being charged directly through it.
Huawei says it uses heteroatoms – atoms that aren’t carbon or hydrogen – to increase charging speeds without compromising the battery’s lifespan. The company didn’t say if it had any plans to bring this to market.
Other companies have been working towards fast charging or power-saving modes as a way of making up for short battery life. The likes of Android have introduced features like ‘Doze’ which saves battery life when a phone is not being used.
In March, Samsung announced its premium smartphones, the S6 and S6 Edge, claimed it could give users up to four hours of battery in just ten minutes of charging. It moved away from the removable battery format it used in previous devices, using a built-in version to accommodate wireless charging instead.
Last year, an Israeli startup called StoreDot developed a charger that could cut it down to 30 minutes. At the time, it said it had plans to bring the product into mass production in late 2016.
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