In a bid to enjoy life without chargers, power banks, and data cables, a group of researchers at Washington University designed a smartphone that operates without batteries. Instead of using AC/DC power, the phone runs on a limited supply received from light and ambient radio signals.
The specification of the first ‘no battery phone’ is published in the ‘Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies’ journal.
The prototype uses off-the-shelf commercial components to send and transmit speech and to connect with the nearby base station. Mr. Shyam Gollakota was among the researchers who invented the first battery-less phone of the world. According to Gollakota, it is the first cell phone that consumes minimal to almost zero power. To minimize the battery usage, the researchers devised a method for harnessing power from the surroundings. Accordingly, they made provisions for incorporating this feature in a smartphone.
In other words, the device captures tiny vibrations produced from the speaker or the microphone. An antenna present inside the device translates the sound vibrations into standard analog radio signals emitted by a base station.
The inventors performed Skype calls to demonstrate this technology.
After an extensive investigation, the group found that the new prototype contains useful components on a printed circuit board. Using these components, the prototype can send and receive texts, data, and audio calls just like a standard phone. We need to push buttons to make our choices.
Knowing that cellphone is probably the most used gadget in today’s world, it became essential for the techies to innovate this product to make life easier for tech-freaks. The researchers have made considerable growth in this direction already. If all goes well, this technology can be implemented in future models to achieve life-changing results.
