Manufacturers of mobile devices have eradicated, perhaps, all the most annoying problems of modern gadgets with the exception of one – we are talking, of course, about the insufficient capacity of lithium-ion batteries. Even among the latest and greatest smartphone models, there are rarely those that do not need to be plugged into a power outlet every day. Sometimes, at the moments when the battery indicator starts to blush mercilessly, crying for help, many users think that it would be nice to put their mobile assistant under the sun, in return having received enough energy to get to the nearest outlet. In reality, the implementation of such functionality has long been not something fantastic and sooner or later you will still be able to 'feed' your smartphone using a solar battery.
Today, it is quite common (especially in developed Western countries) to find photovoltaic solar panels on the roofs of residential buildings and offices, and recently, such panels are increasingly appearing on small everyday accessories such as backpacks and external acoustics.
Even such giants of the mobile market as Apple and Samsung began to actively view the Sun as the solution to all the troubles of our smartphone batteries. A reasonable question arises: if the technology of 'solar' power supply is available, if active research is underway to find more and more convenient ways to charge mobile devices, and the idea of using solar panels in smartphones is becoming more and more relevant every day – why are we still not seeing the influx of solar-powered phones?
The history of solar-powered smartphones
Samsung was the first manufacturer to introduce a solar-powered smartphone back in 2009. Solar Guru or Guru E1107 was intended specifically for the Indian market to somehow solve the problem of regular power outages. The device was able to provide 5 to 10 minutes of talk time after one hour of charging from the Sun.
A few months later, Samsung introduced yet another solar-powered device. A smartphone called Blue Earth was positioned as an environmentally friendly product and was released for a much larger number of markets, including the UK, but soon after that it was withdrawn from the market – data on the number of devices sold could not be found anywhere, apparently , Blue Earth was a failed attempt to “test” the technology on the inhabitants of Europe.
A year later, in 2010, Puma collaborated with Sagem to release the Puma Phone. The smartphone had a solar battery, which was supposed to maintain the battery life at a decent level, despite the constantly active power-hungry GPS module and a pedometer. However, the solar panel was there for additional recharging of the device, and was not the main source of energy supply.
Since then, a number of manufacturers have tried to create solar-powered phones, but all of them have faced problems in one way or another, as described in a blog by Nokia about the ongoing testing of solar-powered mobile devices:
“When the prototype of a smartphone with the most efficient solar battery (taking into account its size) was ready, at best such a panel could collect enough energy to keep the device in standby mode, it was extremely insufficient for a conversation. The developers have come to the conclusion that we must go a certain way before this charging method becomes fast, convenient and familiar to everyone. ” An obvious, but practically insoluble problem, which Nokia experts noted, is the small size of the back cover of the phone, which limits the charging efficiency. Imagine how big phones would be today if the key factor in the design of mobile devices was the size of the back cover, capable of efficient and fast solar charging.
A few years ago, Kyocera and Sunpartner Technologies formed an alliance that has been showcasing its prototype smartphone with photovoltaic panels at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for the past two years. The latest version of their smartphone required 3 minutes in direct sunlight to provide 1 minute of talk time. It is worth noting that Sunpartner has a partnership agreement with Alcatel, but nothing has been heard from this union for a long time.
One minute of conversation after 3 minutes of exposure to the sun may not be a terrific breakthrough, but it is better than 15 minutes of text communication after the full two hours of charging from the sun, which last year's model promised. The main advantage of this technology is that when using it, solar panels are placed in the screen, being just below the touch layer, without affecting the design of the device. Sunpartner claims that the quality of the displayed image will not degrade, thereby creating an “eternal source of energy”.
While there is no official information about the timing of the appearance of the brainchild of Kyocera and Sunpartner in store windows, but there are rumors in the press that this will happen before the end of 2017. While the companies are not ready to present a fully functional sample of the device at the moment, this does not mean that other vendors are not working on using solar panels in their smartphones. For example, on the website of patents Apple a whole section is devoted to this topic, which states that the appearance of a solar battery in iPhone is only a matter of time.
What do we have today
A Kyocera phone has the potential to create huge potential for solar-powered gadgets. If Sunpartner allows other vendors to use photovoltaic materials, the technology is likely to become highly sought after by handheld device manufacturers, which will not be limited to Alcatel and Kyocera. From a scientific point of view, it is relatively simple to implement a solar battery directly on the screen without degrading the image: it is necessary to embed the main component of this battery in the smartphone display – a special film that absorbs ultraviolet rays invisible to the human eye (therefore, the film itself is not visible). As soon as the photons of this light hit the film, they make electrons move, which generate an electric current. The problem lies in the complexity and high cost of manufacturing the materials required for the manufacture of such batteries, and – to a greater extent – the low productivity of these photovoltaic panels (at least at this stage of technological progress).
Plans for the near future
There is no doubt that solar charging technology for mobile devices has tremendous potential, especially if more manufacturers now take on the development of innovative materials for solar panels. But now, for a number of environmental, political and economic reasons, it is still too early to say that your next smartphone will be equipped with a solar battery and even more so that it will use it as its main power source.
But we can certainly say where the testing ground will be for the first sales and testing of such a device: with almost 100% probability, it will become an area with power supply problems, a low standard of living of the population and a large number of sunny days a year. World-renowned companies are already beginning to test the waters for testing solar-powered gadgets. For example, many cell towers in India were equipped with large solar panels instead of polluting diesel generators – naturally, a similar move with cell phones could also significantly affect the environmental situation in some countries, which creates a greater incentive for scientists to develop and research solar technologies. charging mobile devices.
