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Power Science

Batteries Becoming Limiting Step For Portable Toys 381

Posted by samzenpus from the not-included dept.
grqb writes "Reuters is reporting that strong growth for portable devices such as laptop computers, game and music players, PDAs and mobile phones is expected to pressure battery manufacturers to improve their products, which are quickly becoming the limiting step in portable technology development. The lithium-ion battery technology that is commonly used hasn't changed in several years. The race is on to find battery technologies that are lighter and have increased life, but major breakthroughs don't seem to be on the horizon other than the lithium polymer battery, which can squeeze roughly 10-20% more life than lithium-ion. Micro fuel cells that run off of methanol are touted to be the next major wave for portable power, although logistics and price still make these fuel cells long shots, which is why Nokia recently dropped development of this technology."
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Batteries Becoming Limiting Step For Portable Toys More

Batteries Becoming Limiting Step For Portable Toys

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  • Batteries? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @05:16PM (#12699275)
    I thought DRMs and other proprietory license BS is holding the market back.

    • Re:Batteries? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Gogo0 ( 877020 )
      You dont need as much battery life if you cant play your mp3s or videos on your portable devices.
      DRM improves battery life!

  • Obvious solution (Score:3, Informative)

    by nizo ( 81281 ) * on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @05:17PM (#12699279) Homepage Journal
    Bring on nuclear batteries [msn.com]. Or is the Duracell lobby to strong for them to ever be legal?

    • Re:Obvious solution (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MillionthMonkey ( 240664 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @06:04PM (#12699735)
      These offer long life at the expense of low power. They are good for pacemakers and things in inaccessible environments where the wattage requirements aren't high but the replacement cost is huge. They are not suitable for consumer electronics stuff.
      A radioactive source with sufficient power to run a laptop would require significant cooling, especially when the laptop was shut off. For an idea of what it would be like, think of the RTG devices [answers.com] that we attach to space probes in the outer solar system. (Or that are scattered across the former Soviet Union.) Those things usually generate several hundred watts.
    • Nuclear batteries never got out of the Beta particle stage.
    • More likely they will be killed by the environmental lobbies.

      THEY WANT WHAT??? NUCLEAR BATTERIES!!! SOMEONE BRING THE PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES!!!

      oh and slashdot lameness filter we are coming after you next. oh yes. you and your "don't use so many caps. It's like yelling" bah. in my day we yelled and screamed for hours straight to fight the man and his desire for nuclear stuff. because we know the truth, anything nuclear is just an atomic bomb waiting to blow us all away when we speak up against the oppressi
  • The Solution: Nuclear Batteries

    The market is practically screaming for a battery that doesn't run down in a short period of time. At the very least, nuclear radioisotope technology could be used to create batteries that have longer lives and recharge themselves. If the full potential of this technology were used, then our devices could be powered for YEARS without replacing the battery. Potentially, the battery could even outlast the device!

    I realize a lot of people have concerns over the safety of nuclear batteries. But before you run off half-cocked, consider a few points:

    1. They use the radiation for power. As a result, the batteries would be designed to capture as much of it as possible. In the case of Alpha and Beta radiation, that can easily reach 100% even if power isn't realized for all of the radiation.

    2. You're probably sitting on a highly unstable, very dangerous bomb right now. See that Lithium-Ion battery in your phone? It just happens to be a powerful explosive.
    • Problem with nuclear batterys , is that they need excelent shielding and a very good disposal system . All too often people just dump batterys in with the ordinary rubbish .
      If you pierce a Radiation based battery, your going to need to get in the Hazard units to lock down your house .
      Ok perhaps this is slight hyperbole , but the risk is still far greater than a small explosion from Lithium-ion based batterys.

    • Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Have Blue ( 616 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @05:35PM (#12699428) Homepage
      One of the problems with a nuclear battery is that the energy it produces is constant regardless of whether or not the device is operating. That means something has to be done with the energy when it's not being consumed, and that means it gets emitted as heat. That is a problem, to say the least, for anything meant to go inside a container (such as a pocket).
      • That means something has to be done with the energy when it's not being consumed, and that means it gets emitted as heat.

        As opposed to the 10+ watts of heat currently disappated by batteries today? Those suckers get hot! Nuclear batteries would be nothing new in this area. :-)
        • Read whats written!
          Yeah, they get hot... when discharging. And the discharge when the decive they power is in use. And only then.

          Your nukelear powered laptop would heat itself to meltdown even when not in use and tighly packed, simply because you cant turn of nuclear decay.

          (plus the emitted heat is at least twice the actuall power rating of the batterie because of efficiency issues)

          If you want to see what happens, just put a 80W lightbulb in you bed, apply blanket and wait some time.
      • Heh, so in the future, we'll have to worry about how long we can go without plugging in our devices to uncharge them, rather than to charge them. At least uncharging is something that can be done without being connected to a grid.


    • you don't have to blurt it out you insensitive bastard

    • Re:The Problem: Batteries don't last long enough. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nEoN nOoDlE ( 27594 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @05:50PM (#12699589)
      you just pinpointed why these batteries will never reach market... because they last too long. There's no profit in something that doesn't break and doesn't need to be renewed.

    • The market is practically screaming for a battery that doesn't run down in a short period of time.

      Isn't that the entire point of the article? We want batteries that will last longer! I certainly do!

      You're probably sitting on a highly unstable, very dangerous bomb right now.

      My butt does occasionally emit methane gas. (At least I believe it's mostly methane -- I may be wrong.) However, I do not generally consider it to be a highly unstable, dangerous bomb.

      See that Lithium-Ion battery in

    • But here's the catch...

      If manufacturer's create a battery that lasts for years...how is that good business?

      Right now, if you use items that suck up a lot of battery power, you have to buy more. That's more profit for the manufacturer.

      If they produce a product that you only have to buy ever 3 years, then either the manufacturer will lose profit as less batteries are being sold or the cost of these batteries will be so enormously high that it'll be out of consumer range prices.

      Imagine if the razo

      • If manufacturer's create a battery that lasts for years...how is that good business?


        It's good for business in that people will buy such a battery, and will be willing to pay a premium for it. By your logic, nobody would bother selling cars, since they last for a good ten years.


    • Except that if you burn this stuff, you will radiate a large area. Especially alpha ray emitting isotopes are very dangerous to human tissue when inhaled or ingested. Cheers. I'd prefer eating Li Ion cells instead.

      Have you ever considered the fact that an RTG-style battery causes quite an amount of heat constantly? Isnt't that a potential fire hazard?

    • 2. You're probably sitting on a highly unstable, very dangerous bomb right now. See that Lithium-Ion battery in your phone? It just happens to be a powerful explosive.

      Not to nit pick, but lithium ion batteries are made from inorganic metal complexes (that are not explosive), polymer/electrolyte blends (again not explosive), and graphite (I sure hope that isn't explosive). The "explosive" element comes from the heat generated from rapid discharge, much like car batteries which are made from lead and aq

    • Better call them something else, though, or you'll hear a lot more screaming from the market. And not in a good way.

  • They aren't becoming the limiting step (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SoCalChris ( 573049 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @05:17PM (#12699284) Journal
    They have been the limiting step ever since devices started using batteries.

  • Recharge time is where it's at. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by johndierks ( 784521 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @05:18PM (#12699288)
    I'd like the advancement in battery technology not to come in weight or longevity, but in recharge time.

    I wouldn't care if my laptop battery only lasts 3 hours if I can recharge it in 5 minutes.

  • On the other hand (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fembots ( 753724 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @05:18PM (#12699292) Homepage
    PDAs and mobile phones is expected to pressure battery manufacturers to improve their products

    Battery manufacturers are expected to pressure PDAs and mobile phones fanboys to stop producing inefficient and power-hungry products.

  • He said "Becoming" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yotto ( 590067 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @05:18PM (#12699299) Homepage
    Seriously, Batteries have been the limiting factor in toys since I was a kid, and that's a /long time/. Remote control cars were and still are a joke, and handhelds are just as bad. "Good" mp3 players measure their battery life in hours, not days and even my cell phone can't hold a charge for the entire weekend, and all it is is a battery with a phone attached.

    "Becoming?"
  • Solid State Rechargeable Organic Batteries Based on Polymer Composites are the only solution [ansinet.org]

    A few days back i remember reading on /. something about a panasonic organic battery now available. It lasts 10 times more than duracell

  • Err.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by MrAnnoyanceToYou ( 654053 ) <dylan@NOsPam.dylanbrams.com> on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @05:20PM (#12699310) Homepage Journal
    We're already having problems with enough PE being stored in batteries for them to explode occasionally... Is everyone certain that MORE energy being stuffed into chemically based batteries for toys that children play with is a good idea? I mean, there comes a point where selling something 'new' increases its danger level a bit higher than we're willing to go, right?

    • Re:Err.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Trailwalker ( 648636 )
      I mean, there comes a point where selling something 'new' increases its danger level a bit higher than we're willing to go, right?
      Doesn't stop sales of autos, propane grills, pesticides, and other "dangerous" items.

      Sales are reduced only when the item is declared dangerous on a TV "view_with_alarm" news segment.

  • Is it just me? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Hrodvitnir ( 101283 )
    It seems to me that most of the devices we have nowadays would have a pretty good power life with current batteries if they didn't have a plethora of "extras." When you combine a phone, PDA, and mp3 player together and then connect it to the internet, you're taking 4 different devices and trying to run them all on the same battery.

    IMO, consolidation of devices and extra features that most people can do without are what's causing the energy crunch in small electronics.

  • LiPolys (Score:5, Interesting)

    by caseih ( 160668 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @05:26PM (#12699366)
    I've been using Lithium Polymer batteries for quite some time on my electric remote control airplanes. They are amazingly light weight, pack a lot of energy and can handle enormous current loads. My airplanes draw up to 10 Amps of steady current from my 7.4V 1500 mAh batteries, although typical flights use much less, about 12 to 14 minutes per charge of constant flying.

    The downsides to LiPoly are the same as LiIon. They are expensive and don't have an operational lifetime that is very long. They wear out just sitting on the shelf. I anticipate having to replace my airplane batteries every year or so. LiPoly batteries also take a long time to completely charge. Filling an empty 1500 mAh battery takes almost one and a half hours at 1.5 A charging current. Also if a LiPoly is every discharged below a certain voltage, the cells are ruined.
    • if a LiPoly is every discharged below a certain voltage, the cells are ruined.
      So, is that 1500mAh capacity only if you ruin the battery?

      I had some rechargable alkaline AAs like this, only the pack didn't tell me that if I let the totally discharge I'd only get half a dozen cycles out of them. This did make their quoted capacity a bit of a lie.

      • The 1500 mAh is the amount of current you can draw from the battery before the low-voltage threshold is reached. Almost all R/C electronic speed controls have a cut-off to kill your prop motor before the voltage drops too low which keeps you from ruining your batteries and insures you have enough power to control the servos to get you down. Judging by the computer's readout on my charger, I typically drain about 1300 mAh of power on each cycle.

        NiMH batteries are also rated similarly. In other words, 18
    • "A lot of energy" is a relative term. They've got an energy density of what, about 160 watt/hours per kilogram? Compare that to more than 13,000 for gasoline.

      Batteries just suck. When is someone going to invent Heinlein's Shipstone?
      • Well, seeing as I can't fly gas airplanes at my local city park, LiPolys are as good as I can get right now. I don't see children's toys burning gasoline yet. Maybe safe fuel cells in the future...

        Compared to a few years ago, performance is pretty cool. In fact before the widespread adoption in RC of NiMH and LiPoly, electric-powered RC planes just didn't exist like they do now. Many RC fliers can get their electrics up over 1000' altitudes and some planes fly up over 50 mph.
    • All true.

      Latest versions can be drawn down at 20C. This means you can draw 30A from a 1500mAh cell.

      As to the lifetime, I rarely get more than 100 cycles out of them (due to the high current draw ); this means about $0.5 per flight. Not cheap, but there's no practical alternative for electric helis if you want a decent performance and flight time.

      And don't forget the fire hazard. If they're abused (crash), shorted (exposed wires) or improperly charged, the Li will burn fiercely. Not for the faint of heart
    • The problem is after LiPoly, there is no better battery chemistry. Future polymers and manufacturing improvements will give maybe 10% improvement per year at best. Lithium is the lightest, and one of the most reactive metals on the activity series. We've run out of periodic table to climb. Thats why methanol and fuel cells are the next big thing. We've gone from battery chemistry to chemistry, but the periodic table only goes so far. At some point electrochemical cells aren't sufficicient to fill port

  • Get a fat kid and a treadmill... (Score:3, Funny)

    by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @05:30PM (#12699395) Homepage Journal
    The race is on to find battery technologies that are lighter and have increased life

    Place said kit in motion on said device and harness generated energy.

    The added advantages of this apparatus are it's rapidly diminishing weight and exponentially increasing life with regular use.

  • Not the battery (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dmf415 ( 218827 ) *
    Or its the Power Consumption of the device that is the single limiting factor of portable devices.

  • Battery technology... (Score:2, Informative)

    by satguy ( 713646 )
    ...has swallowed large amounts of R&D money since batteries were first invented/discovered. Yes, improvements are most often incremental, and differing technologies offer different qualities (Li-On maintains voltage 'til almost complete discharge; GNB (now Exide) Absolite batteries work down to at least -60 C. with a normal 20-year service life), NiMH avoids NiCd's memory effect, but stop working at 0 C./32 F.).

    Demand for tiny, high-capacity stored power sources has never been greater than today, an

    • Demand for tiny, high-capacity stored power sources has never been greater than today, and the R&D budgets are ever rising, but forecasting when the next serendiptuous discovery of a new technology will occur is not easy...

      All the belly aching around here... Sheesh. We're working on it, ok? The DOE, DARPA, Office of Naval Research, Air Force, etc etc etc are handing out money for battery projects and I assure you that the next new battery technology will NOT be serendipitous, rather it will be the

  • like we didn't know this already?
  • Fuelcells combine stored hydrogen and atmospheric oxygen, harvesting the extra energy in moving electrons, and discarding H20 and other byproducts. They are typically replenished by adding more hydrogen carrier, like methanol. Is there a small (smaller than a playingcard deck) fuelcell that's rechargeable? Plug it into power, and it cracks water back into (storeable) hydrogen and atmospheric oxygen?
  • My Psion 5mx PDA gets more than 30 hours battery life (on store-bought alkaline batteries) and its 5 year-old technology. I'm sure that a few carefully designed chips and software would enable a high level of functionality and low level of power consumption.

    The same people that insist they need a 100 watt, multi-GHz processor are the same people that insist they need a hulking V8 SUV for their around-town driving.

    To the people that claim that games can't work without the utmost in computer power, I
    • What you're saying is "any game more advanced than tetris is bloatware, and who wants to watch movies on the move anyway, read a book."

      I can't decide if you're a troll or just a luddite.
      • What you're saying is "any game more advanced than tetris is bloatware, and who wants to watch movies on the move anyway, read a book."

        I can't decide if you're a troll or just a luddite.

        I did not intend to be either a troll or a luddite. I'm saying that 1) a very large number of CPU cycles are wasted 2) smarter game design means more fun while using less of the limited battery power.

        The bigger issue is vast gulf in the relative performance improvements for various technologies. The price-performa
    • I say the same thing about my favorite "true portable" laptops... model 100, 102, 200.

      I think what we need are two things:

      Standardization on batteries: either use off-the-shelf batteries, or highly standardize li-ion batteries. 3 or 4 AA batteries, or a couple of 9V should be enough for most things.

      Right-size the firmware to what actually needs to be done. Neither Linux nor Windows really belong in instant-on commodity embedded systems (yet).

      No moving parts. You'll get better reliability that way too.

      -
  • Captain Obvious to the rescue...

  • You're not going to see anything but small, incremental improvements from the battery companies. Nokia or Toshiba might produce a breakthrough, but Duracell and Energizer have absolutely no incentive to do it first. They have a great market right now, and to keep it, batteries will need to be replaced - often.

  • Didn't someone recently figure out how to use blood to power stuff? When are we going to see a PDA that has 2 little fangs on it that you can just stab into your (or someone else's) skin for a quick charge? The office has an endless supply of slow-moving cattle who could be preyed upon for PDA-juice...

    Oh yeah... that's a future I could get in to!

    • All we need is to plug some humans into the power collection systems that were used on the Matrix. One guy for your trunk, another for the basement etc.

      With the wages they get in China it would be very cost-effective.

  • Don't forget the most popular portable device of all - the automobile. Just a tenfold increase in battery life (without a corresponding increase in cost) would probably make electric cars a viable option, as well as increase the viability of a plug-in hybrid. In fact, the electric car would probably have a greater range between "refills" than the gasoline car.

    In a story I read just today on Forbes.com, three major U.S. auto manufacturers have already created cars powered by fuel cells [forbes.com]. Apparently the Ho

  • Why do I need a cellphone with two dozen non-phone related features that I don't need? Why can't I buy a lower-clocked PDA with longer battery life? Blaming battery manufacturers for power requirements is like suing McDonalds for making people fat. Doesn't make any sense.
    • Dunno bout you but I get 12 hours with my iPaq rx3100 with the light on and 7 with wifi on [in powersave mode]. 7 hours ain't that bad...

      Though I agree with the sentiment. No reason why my laptop idles at 530Mhz when 0Hz would work fine ;-) [though you have a constant amount of leak even at DC]

      Tom
    • Mod Up!!!!

      This is so so true. My current PDA is a Palm M130 (dragonball 33mhz). I have an iPod. I have a 4 year old model monochrome cell phone I bought off the Internet for $15. All of these devices do one thing really well and do it with a minimum of unneeded features. The iPod will go days between charges. The Palm weeks. My Gameboy Advance SP will go weeks. My cell phone lasts a couple days if I make few calls.

      The problem I've run into is that they're starting to run out of replacement batteries for t
  • Using nuclear waste we could be powering all these devices, and our cars.

    Would it be 100% efficient? No, but since its *waste* so what? We still come out ahead.

    Would put out of business the entire oil industry. And battery...
  • Can't believe no one appears to have bought this up, there is a new generation of Li batteries, the LiS battery, coming out.

    The LiS chemistry offers up to 3x the energy density of the current LiPoly and an extremely favorable charge rate.

    http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Article19790.htm [electronicsweekly.com] contains some basic information, google for some more.

  • erm (Score:2)

    by Thaelon ( 250687 )
    Why did I immediately think vibrators when I saw this?
  • Give your kid a book. I don't think I've ever had one of those go dead on me, though I had to do a quick repair job when the mountings on the case on The Dragonbone Chair started to get loose.

  • The limiting factor is modularity (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ArmorFiend ( 151674 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2005 @10:24PM (#12701546) Homepage Journal
    When I was growing up, all devices used one of four types of batteries. If you were going to take your portable music streaming device camping with you, you might go to one of roughly 100,000,000 battery retailers and buy some extras. This, with 1980s level technology!

    Then, they decided to make a different, wonky-sized battery for every device. So the game boy, Palm, cell, and iPod all need different wall warts to charge their different batteries, and making these 'portable' devices portable on the road is a major PITA.

    We should take a clue from the past and use standarized sized batteries. Whenever I can I buy devices that use standardized batteries, and I charge them, and whoa, it works. I don't have to pay for millions of chargers. If I need high performance batteries for my camera, I shell the $ for them, but if I'm going for a long bike trip, I put the good batteries in my bike light.

    Apperantly Joe-sixpack-2005 is not smart enough to read the 'batteries included' label that Joe-sixpack-1980 had no problems with.

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