Having to set aside an hour or more to charge your smartphone is a minor annoyance, but one that could be going away. Startup StoreDot has shown off their rapid battery charging technology, which has the ability to charge a phone battery in 30 seconds. Though the company cautions that they likely won’t get this to market before 2016, it’s a breakthrough we’re happy to be seeing in 2014.
In the video below, we see a Samsung Galaxy S4 being used to demonstrate the technology. The device is plugged in at about 27% battery, and charges to full in a matter of seconds. No more airplane modes and missing emails for us; we can slip our phones into a charger while we make coffee, and find it ready to go in the time it takes to walk back to the charging dock.
Is it viable, though? StoreDot says they’ve built their technology to “withstand thousands of charge/discharge cycles, prolonging battery life expectancy considerably”, but note it isn’t the standard battery we’re used to, either in form or function:
In essence, what we have developed is a new generation of an electrode with new materials – we call it MFE – Multi Function Electrode. One side acts like a Supercapacitor (very fast charging), and the other is like a Lithium electrode (slow discharge). The electrolyte is modified as well with our nanodots in order to allow for the multifunction electrode to be effective. Although not quite there yet, we are aiming for the same capacity as a Li=ion battery (~2000mAh). Self-discharge is similar to Li-ion as well.
The company says they plan on reaching their goal of a larger battery in one year, with mass production scheduled (tentatively, of course) for 2016. Right now, StoreDot is noting they have one “large Asian smartphone manufacturer” on board. From the look of the video, we’re going to go ahead and make an educated guess as to who that might be.
Via: The Next Web
This is great technology, but 2000mAh is not the standard size in phones anymore, more like 2600. And by 2016 the standard will be well over 3000mAh.
So, it will take 60 seconds instead of 30.
It sounds like 2000mAh is maximum capacity for a similar size battery using this new technology for now. Faster charging but less capacity.
If it only takes 30 seconds to charge then a smaller battery isnt such a big deal
Until you need to be out all day away from a charger.
Finding an outlet for 30 secs isn’t as big if a deal to charge your phone as it is finding one for 2+ hours that’s currently needed, also the tech will improve you would hope and greater then 2000 will become available
A fast charge like that and you wouldn’t expect your batteries to last too long.
If you read the article you’ll see it’s not the battery you’re charging. It’s the capacitor you quickly charge that discharges slowly to charge the battery.
Ah. OK.
I would have liked to see the real battery indicator on the Samsung rather than this app’s.
why do I see people complaining about waiting more then a minute!!!?Hell, if you told me I would have a fully charged cell phone in 10minutes, I would be happy. Give them an inch, they take a mile…tisk tisk
My lg l3 fully charghes in 48 minutes, from 0% to 100% (without using it, of course!)
This is an April’s fools. The video was posted on the 31st (one day before April’s fools, and might have already been the 1st in Israel) and is in the comedy category. Also, charging a battery that size in such a small amount of time would require way too much current and would turn your phone into a torch.
Notice how they never show you the the system icon for the battery, up top in notifications.