Regardless of which manufacturer you prefer or which device specs and design you are most inclined towards, all smartphones maintain one common issue and that is the issue of battery life. As a result, the larger tech world has been on somewhat of a sustained mission to find the next-generation solution to battery life. To some companies, the answer is simply to put a more powerful battery into a device while for others, the solution is much more efficiency based.
A UK based company, Intelligent Energy Holdings, believes that they might be able to provide a solution to the mobile age-old problem in the form of fuel-cell technology. This is an industry that Intelligent Energy Holdings has already progressed within as they are a company who first introduced the hydrogen-driven technology into a number of London’s famous black cabs. And it seems, their next goal is to transition the technology into much smaller form factors, like mobile phones.
According to reports, Intelligent Energy Holdings has stated that an “emerging smartphone maker” is willing to provide backing for the technology by investing as much as $7.6 million for them to come up with a fuel cell which is small enough to be housed and used in mobile phones. Furthermore, and according to Intelligent Energy’s Chief Executive , Henri Winand, this is a technology which could see its introduction to the market in smartphone form in as little as two years. Further adding that this technology could offer smartphone owners as much as a seven-day level of usage and in theory, only require a smartphone to be charged once a week.
While this obviously is a feature that many will be hoping comes to fruition so they can benefit from extensive levels of usage in-between charges in their daily lives, it does seem that this is not the sole driving force behind the project. Instead, the use of a seven-day battery is being driven by the need to create a solution for consumers in regions where consistent access to power outlets is more of an issue. Either way, with Intelligent Energy Holdings being a company who has a proven track record in this particular technology and a company who currently holds in excess of 1000 patents, it will be interesting to see how this unfolds in the future.