Forget Wearable Tech. People Really Want Better Batteries | Hacker News Reader

Forget Wearable Tech. People Really Want Better Batteries

npr.org

81 pointsfrostmatthew105 comments

I would welcome some additional thickness in my iphone for a better battery life. The end goal should not be a paperthin phone; it should be a phone that has a long charge time and fits reasonably into your pocket / hand. Phones are pretty important to people and it's silly something so important is so needy of recharging.

It's not technology so much that is the problem, it is design principles and priorities.

I agree but there are issues with having bigger batteries as well: they add a lot of weight and could result in more wrist/arm pain for those using their phones for extended time. You certainly don't want your phone to be as heavy as a brick.

>* they add a lot of weight and could result in more wrist/arm pain for those using their phones for extended time.*

Seriously? I think we somehow survived the nineties, early '00s without such issues.

>* You certainly don't want your phone to be as heavy as a brick.*

It's been at least 5-10 years that we've been very far away from that situation...

> Seriously? I think we somehow survived the nineties, early '00s without such issues.

Smartphones were not mainstream in the early '00s. All the "normal" phones were very light and very portable.

For about 100 years or so the handset was a lot heavier than todays smartphones and nobody thought anything of it. My grandmom had one of those old black bakelite jobs, it must have weighed at least 2 pounds and could be used as a means of self defense.

Even if weight were a problem, a hands free headset trivially solves it.

I thought that, but it only solves the voice/audio portion - doesn't solve anything about holding the device to interact with the screen.

Good point. I got to thinking about a remote screen attachment, sort of the touchscreen version of a headset, then realized you just do that now by using an external battery pack and a smartphone with a decently long cable between them.

But no one was tapping on the screen and looking at it to interact with it …

I would personally argue that I’m unsure about the connection between weight and comfortableness and the tolerances. Would 200g be ok? I really don’t know.

However … making phone calls is not the main use case for smartphones. You just cannot design them with that in mind as something to optimise for. That’s non-sensical, weird, and a total non-sequitur. Your comparison makes zero sense in that regard. It just doesn’t even apply, so it’s not a valid argument in any way, shape or form.

> making phone calls is not the main use case for smartphones

Try marketing a smart phone that can't make phone calls and see how it goes.

> You just cannot design them with that in mind as something to optimise for.

Every smartphone has been primarly a phone, secondary a camera and thirdly something that runs apps.

It's essentially a computer with a telephony interface but that telephony bit is absolutely essential and not an afterthought.

Are you serious?! How is it even possible to hold that opinion? I mean, really?! I’m so confused right now.

http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2013/02/how-do-users-re...

It’s not the phone part you have to design around, it’s obviously all the other stuff, especially – really, really, especially – if your argument basically boils down to “Oh, but it’s fine for making phone calls!” I mean, yeah, you can easily argue making the situation better for phone calls in your design since they still play some role, but the argument you made just doesn’t fly at all. It makes no sense.

It makes no sense to you. But the world is a lot larger. If there is an interruption in data services most people wouldn't even notice. But when you can't make or receive calls that's major and in extreme cases will lead to loss of life. Apps are nice-to-have, phone calls are a must.

That argument of yours is so confusing and non-sensical, mostly in that you don’t link it back to the original point you made.

Basically, there is just no connection between what you just said and the original point you made. It’s utterly irrelevant, unconnected.

> Try marketing a smart phone that can't make phone calls and see how it goes.

I think that's called a (mini) tablet.

How many people that have mini tablets also have a phone? How many people that have a phone also have mini tablets?

> Try marketing a smart phone that can't make phone calls and see how it goes.

http://www.apple.com/ipod-touch/

Well, either this, or instant recharging (think: super capacitors).

You're out of juice? Find a wall outlet, connect your phone for a minute and you're completely recharged.

Fast charge plus an actual, real standard for connecting my devices to charge would be great. Seriously, the world has come a long way - there's now only a few options... iphone 30pin, iphone lightning, micro-usb and "wierdo".

But what I really really want is a standard way to plug in my devices (including laptops!) and be done with it. We've had the same interface to wall current since forever - and it just works. I want the same for my devices. These things should be commodities and exist everywhere, for every device, basically for free. Right now I keep usb wall warts all over my house, and a box of cables in a central location, so guests can just charge as needed. It sure would be nice to just have each of those wall warts be something else... with a retractable "the one cable". It would reduce a small but persistent issue go away.

> Right now I keep usb wall warts all over my house

That's my current strategy, but now that USB 3 is finalized I think my next place (which I'll be buying) will have integrated USB power in the outlet plates.

Doesn't solve the cable problem, but gets rid of a lot of wall warts!

The Lumia 920 I bought over two years ago has wireless charging (via the Qi standard) that I consider so convenient and revolutionary, I was stumped when Nokia released subsequent models without this killer feature. If I need to charge it, I just set it on a pad. I want this so badly in portable devices, including laptops, for everyone in my household. Whenever Apple creates yet another "new and improved" charging port that requires a proprietary "smart" cable, I cry a little.

>Whenever Apple creates yet another "new and improved" charging port that requires a proprietary "smart" cable, I cry a little.

How many times have they done that?

> How many times have they done that?

iDevice 30-pin, iDevice Lightning, MagSafe 1, MagSafe 2. To make matters worse, MagSafe stuff is patent restricted, so there's not much competition for chargers...

So … exactly once for each type of device? In something like a decade?

Complain that it’s not what everybody else is using, do not complain that it’s frequently changing. Because it isn’t. That’s just empirically untrue and a very weird statement to make. It’s non-sensical.

You can also hardly complain about the original Magsafe since that one is actually different from other power cables for a reason. These complaints are just so fucking weird and disconnected from all reality to me. Like you don‘t really understand the world or something.

Relatively speaking, it is frequently changing. I can plug a depression-era radio into an electrical outlet and it will work. Delivering power via a cable, even with AC/DC conversion in the middle, is a solved problem. I can think of five Apple devices currently in use in my house that can't share the same cable. None of them are more than seven years old. That's nonsensical. The fact that none of them can use the same connector as other non-Apple devices merely adds to the annoyance.

As for MagSafe, it's only a partial success. All of my MacBooks have outlasted their original MagSafe power supplies. They aren't robust, can't be easily repaired, and are expensive to replace. I'm happy they're easy to use and help to prevent damage to the laptop, but Apple should have fixed the other problems by now.

Both my MacBook Pros have outlasted the MagSafe power supplies. As nice as they are--and even with careful usage--the cord has split at the base twice leaving the inner wires exposed.

I only discovered the issue when I felt a mild tingling sensation on my leg. Apple has let this issue slide for some time; there's over 2,000 1 star reviews on the Apple Store site [1]. This stands in stark contrast to the superb build quality of the MacBook Pro itself.

[1] http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC461LL/A/apple-60w-magsaf...

To be completist add:

* the original iPod which used a Firewire port

* the original iPod shuffle which you plugged in like a USB flash drive

* 2nd gen iPod Shuffle which used a special 3.5 mm minijack docking station for charging

* 3rd-4th gen iPod Shuffle which used a 3.5 mm minijack to USB cable

Update: If you do include MagSafe, you might as well include the 3/32" sub-mini and Barrel plug variations for the really old Powerbooks and iBooks http://support.apple.com/kb/TA32393

I thought Micro-USB is now the de-facto standard (for mobile phones/tablets at least). All the manufacturers except for Apple (that's playing special) are using them.

Micro-USB has a 1.1 amp maximum current as specified. That's half the charge rate of a current lightning connector. The upcoming type C connector will do 3 amps, so thats an easy 15 watt charge rate which would probably start hitting thermal limits of the batteries. If you make more circuitry you can run them up to 100 watts (um, maybe 60 watts) by negotiating higher voltages.

And it's reversible!

Sadly, adoption will probably be slowed somewhat since there are governments that mandate the nasty old micro usb connector for mobile phones.

The EU seems satisfied with adapters (that's how Apple complies, for example), so I don't imagine it will be a big impediment even if the regulations aren't updated for the new standard.

That's the case in the EU, where all smartphones sold must use Micro-USB by law. In America and elsewhere I believe every manufacturer still has its own proprietary "solutions."

America is now microvusb except Apple.

I would happily buy a phone twice as thick as my current one in order to fit twice as much battery in it.

If phone manufacturers weren't in a constant race to cut the last .1 oz off of their phones while still being barely-sufficient to get through a day, this wouldn't even be an issue. I'd be happy to double my phone's weight for 3 days of life.

My last two phones I've bought deliberately bigger and bulkier in part because they had bigger battery capacities as a result (EVO 4G and Lumia 1320).

I'd rather have a phone that can survive if I miss a night of charge.

For most manufacturers and models battery life has actually increased marginally with each model (one notable exception being LG's G2 vs G3). See for example: http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/mobile-phones/1402071/best-ba...

Also related: easily removable batteries, and preferably in standardised sizes. The fastest way to get from empty to full is not to wait for it charge, but to swap in an already-charged battery.

I think thinness is overrated too, as a device thinner than ~10mm starts getting rather difficult to pick up from a flat surface and hold comfortably (I have big hands.)

I read the (short) article and didn't see anything about people wanting removable batteries.

For myself, I'd rather have a long-lasting integrated battery than a removable battery. For example, my current laptop (recent macbook pro) with its integrated battery lets me work the entire flight from SFO/LAX to AMS/CDG (10 hours). Whereas my previous laptop would make me change the battery just to go from BOS to SFO (6 hours) and even then I was running out of charge on the second battery.

Does anyone know why the integrated batteries aren't more form-fitting? If you could have the battery fill all of the empty spaces you could probably get even better charge. Are 'pourable' batteries possible?

> Does anyone know why the integrated batteries aren't more form-fitting? If you could have the battery fill all of the empty spaces you could probably get even better charge.

Yeah, LiPo batteries are quite flexible, but the problem is that you have to balance multiple different-sized subcells when trying to fit battery in every cubic inch of space in your laptop.

I massively disagree with the importance of swappable batteries. While I suppose there are people who are pretty happy hauling around a bunch of batteries with them, I haven't considered such a thing since camcorders were cool. A big part of keeping technology mainstream is to not require a utility belt.

(n.b. I don't mind if they're user-removable for replacement once they've totally died, but this also seems to have become rather rare for what I assume are manufacturing reasons)

I took advantage of this when my phone's original battery began to swell. With a new phone I suppose I would have to send it in and pay hundreds of dollars to get it fixed. Instead I bought 4 replacement batteries off of Amazon for $6.00 each and fixed it myself.

I used to always carry spare batteries until a change of work forced me to switch to an iPhone, and there's an upside to plugging in an external battery to charge instead - no need to reboot your phone and interrupt whatever you're doing.

edit: a phone you could "sleep" the RAM to capacitors for 30 seconds and swap batteries in without restarting would be awesome. Kind of like the old Palm devices when you swapped AA's.

There are probably som Android phones with removable batteries. Perhaps not in standardized sizes though.

Hats sounds good but then you have an extra battery to juggle, and if you make it useful by traveling with you, then the backup just self discharges.

I agree. I know everyone are talking phones, but this battery swapping thing is a good idea and seems actually to be a route Tesla is testing.

I am often disappointed by the battery life of my phone, but I think that what we need isn't bigger batteries, but better software. Supposedly, when working on Lollipop, Google engineers left a Nexus phone running on Airplane mode, and it lasted a month on a charge. I'm not sure if it actually happened, but it's believable. Goes to show the point that if we can manage power usage well, multi-day run times are perfectly practical without mammoth batteries.

I'm not sure what's going on with it in the iOS world, but Google seems to be working on this with the power management changes in Lollipop. They still have a long way to go, since the first thing I noticed on upgrading to it was random massive battery drain for no apparent reason. It seems to have gone away since I uninstalled Foursquare, but that was a random guess, and I'm still not sure if it was the main reason. Anyways, point is that the OS-level changes to make it easier to sip power are good, but app compliance is still spotty.

I think that what we really need in Android is a good, OS-level way of monitoring which apps are actually causing idle wakelocks, GPS usage, and other non-obvious power drains. If the users can see that App X is what's killing their battery, they will presumably uninstall it and yell at the App developers instead of at Google, or maybe decide that the app does actually need to do that, and it's worth it, but at least they know it's the app's fault, and not Android's. Possibly some sort of option to notify the user if an app's idle power usage is over some threshold and ask them if they're really okay with that.

The thing I never understood -- back in the days of pagers, a pager could last for a month or more on a AA battery. A pager has to be constantly listening for a signal, then wake up and take action. So couldn't a phone be designed the same way? Have the main processor at idle, and offload event listening/processing to another low power processor chip. Then, wake up the main CPU when more advanced processing is required.

Umm... smart phones do this? It's a big reason phones can last so long with serious power requirements. A big reason for the phone/mobile specific chipsets was to enable these features.

But what I'm still confused on -- if a pager can sit an listen to a signal for 2 - 4 weeks on a AA battery, why can't a phone (smart or otherwise) do the same thing? Or in other words, what specifically is there about listening for a "You have an incoming call" radio signal, that causes more power drain than listening for a "You have a page with this message contents" signal? For simplicity sake, lets assume even a dumb phone, with no internet -- just calls -- they never did have a fraction of the standby time of a pager.

>> "if a pager can sit an listen to a signal for 2 - 4 weeks on a AA battery, why can't a phone (smart or otherwise) do the same thing?"

They do. For example the iPhone 6 Plus lasts 16 days on standby. Remember they also have to listen for other messages (push notifications, local notifications, alarms, calendar events etc.).

Regarding your dumb phone statement they had about the same standby time as the iPhone 6 Plus I mentioned but they had much smaller batteries and the battery technology (I guess) was much less developed.

[1] https://www.apple.com/uk/iphone-6/specs/

Late to see this. But the answer to your question is because even though they are superficially accomplishing the same end result, they are not nearly doing the same thing. Your smartphone is running a full blown modern operating system, with all the processors and memory and store requirements.

The pager is likely running a very lean embedded processor and doesn't have nearly the same energy requirements.

I haven't followed much what's been happening in mobile CPUs lately, but I remember reading at least a couple of years ago that they were already making multi-core CPUs set up to run a single core at low-speed, sometimes a specifically-designed low-power core, for routine sync tasks, and only fire up more CPUs and up-clock the running ones when required. I'm sure they're either doing it already, or have stopped for good reason.

Another thing that I believe Android has built into Lollipop is trying to coalesce app syncs - instead of letting each app sync whenever it feels like it, group them all together to run at once, so you only fire up the CPU and radios once.

I also wonder now how those pagers worked. Seems kinda impractical to listen continuously at those power levels. I wonder if the device polled the tower periodically, or only listened at some interval?

> Supposedly, when working on Lollipop, Google engineers left a Nexus phone running on Airplane mode, and it lasted a month on a charge.

I find it quite believable. My own phone keeps working for around 20 days without recharging (and that is without Airplane mode - it has constant connection to the cellular network and occasional wifi or 3G connection).

The company that wins the jackpot on this isn't going to be the one with the most advanced batteries. It's going to be the company that figures out how to cut platform bloat down to a reasonable size, reducing energy consumption by an order of magnitude.

They're also going to have to figure out ways to keep third-party apps from undoing their hard work.

> It's going to be the company that figures out how to cut platform bloat down to a reasonable size, reducing energy consumption by an order of magnitude.

I'd say there is evidence for your argument; there is one company trying to play that game on the smartwatch industry: Pebble. Their watches can run for a much longer time than the competition because they took your approach: lean and basic. And they've been doing well, holding on against very strong contenders (Google, Asus, Samsung, LG).

My Android Wear watch (LG watch) typically runs for 1-2 days with a battery charge. I can get my Pebble running for even 17 days. It is very far from perfect, but for me is the minimum acceptable.

That only gets you so far. You can extend your standby time enormously that way, but people want to actually use their devices. I don't see a way to attain an order of magnitude improvement on the energy consumption of web browsing just by cutting bloat. Ultimately you still have to emit lots of photons to communicate with the user and the network.

My wife just discovered that if she puts her phone in airplane mode when playing solitaire it doesn't overheat and her battery lasts longer. This app should be the poster boy for being lightweight and efficient, but is instead used to showcase an advertising network. Who is the actual user here? Everything that doesn't improve the experience of playing solitaire is bloat in this case. There are countless more examples.

Apple's pretty good at that - the last time I looked at the ifixit teardowns their batteries were 30-40% smaller than the competition, and battery life was comparable. But they use that advantage not to increase usable battery life but to decrease device size.

I doubt "order of magnitude" is going to happen barring some revolutionary display technology.

You can get to order of magnitude with a combination of getting the software right and using the best battery available. After all, it's not like the company on this path is going to use crappy batteries, they'll use the best available like everyone else.

It's really interesting how much improved batteries could improve all sorts of tech. Phones and wearables are pretty much the least interesting of them, too.

Imagine for a moment that batteries are 1000x better than now. A ton of problems are magically solved. Renewable energy is suddenly trivial. Run the world on solar and wind, done! Electric cars are now the only reasonable kind. Trucks and trains too. Even airplanes. Many satellites could be replaced with long-duration drones. Those that remain can be built lighter and cheaper. Supersonic airliners might even come back, since fuel costs would drop through the floor.

Oh, and your smartphone could run for three years on a charge. Woohoo.

Compare with something like fusion power, which only solves a tiny fraction of the above. Without storage, fusion isn't that interesting. With good storage, it's not necessary!

Yup, Generation is the 'easiest' part of the equation and has been since we had reliable nuclear power the issue is distribution via batteries.

If you look at the energy density of gasoline vs a battery for the same weight it, Petrol (Gasoline) 44MJ/Kg, Li-Ion batteries (the best ones, 0.875MJ/Kg).

Obviously there are conversion efficiencies to take into account (ICE's have a lower conversion efficiencies than Electric Drive).

1000x wouldn't be required, 10x would revolutionize many fields and 100x would be incredible.

True. I'm one of those people who religiously plug my phone every night, yet, I often ran out of power when I really needed it (eg: browsing / tethering on a long train trip).

I recently got a One plus one, and I really couldn't tell you all the good geeky spec, I actually don't care about all it's little flaws, but I loves the amazing battery life. I will not buy another phone with lesser battery life. There is no other geeky spec that can trump that.

What percentage of people don't/can't charge their phone every night? And of those who don't/can't, what percentage of them aren't satisfied with the myriad external battery cases and on-the-go-chargers available for smart phones. I challenge the assumption that the majority of people are asking for better batteries. I think it's like people asking Ford for a faster horse.

I'm not sure it's a perfect analogy. People might ask Ford to go faster, people are asking technology to let them work longer before it dies. I think the sentiment is pretty clear: this doesn't mean we need better Li-ion batteries per se, but either we need hugely longer-lasting sources of power, or we need hugely more efficient displays/radios/processors.

For me it's not the end of the world, just an annoyance. Why am I carrying around a spare battery and charging cable just so my phone can be 2mm thinner?

But you can literally buy cases today that add additional thickness and provide extra battery capacity. Have you bought one, and if not, why? Perhaps you like your thin phone after all?

The battery cases waste way too much space with all the extra layers of plastic, redundant charging circuits and ports. External batteries are still more space-efficient (and yes I do carry them, every day).

I would absolutely buy something like the Motorola Maxx if work didn't require me to use iOS.

So what you want is more thickness, but not too much more thickness. Just the right amount of added thickness for extra battery life. I think it's probably time the industry moved onto more important problems.

> what percentage of them aren't satisfied with the myriad external battery cases and on-the-go-chargers available for smart phones.

Well, from the article, I'd say the answer is around 33%. Specifically, this was in the article:

> Meanwhile, consumers indicated that the new smartphone feature they were most excited about — picked by 33 percent of respondents — was "improved battery life."

Also...

> I challenge the assumption that the majority of people are asking for better batteries.

I don't think anyone said it's a majority. And this article isn't about an assumption, it's about a survey.

Surveys don't provide perfect information. People may say they want better battery life because that's the only thing they can think about their phones that could get better. 10 years ago if you asked people what they wanted in cell phones they would have said "smaller, thinner flip phones please". Very few people would have asked for a smart phone that was was easy to use and with no physical keyboard. In other words, asking customers what they want is often a terrible way to figure out what to build next.

Also, the type of person willing to respond to a survey like this is likely already an outlier and more prone to running into the limits of what their battery will allow them to do.

If people truly wanted better battery life they would buy huge cases with big batteries built into them. I know very few people who own one of them.

"Forget self-driving cars. People really want anti-gravity."

I mean, of course they want better batteries, but it's not like there is a lack of investment in better energy storage.

And while people might want anti-gravity they are only actually willing to pay for the car that has the cooler look.

So I must choose? Wearable tech or better batteries but you can't have both! Of course people want better batteries but I don't see how that leads to the conclusion of the headline.

other alternative, just make slower hardware, and optimize the software running on it.

optimizing and reducing the amount of functionalities might also save a very big amount of battery.

Honestly, what I'd buy, is a

* 4 inch e-ink screen device

* that can close like a laptop, with a physical keyboard,

* with a CPU that sacrifice features and speed for less power consumption

* no camera,

* only wifi, or with 3G disabled by default, no phone function

* browser with a very limited set of feature: limited to css 2, js deactivated by default: it's amazing the amount of firefox modules that can be disabled: http://sourceforge.net/projects/lightfirefox/

* no video acceleration, no graphics acceleration, and no fading/smooth window transitions, 10hz refresh rate is more than enough to read text

I wonder which of those things save the most battery, but I guess all of this would easily double battery life. Also I guess that device would cost much less and be very attractive for students, and be enough to just code if you'd have an online compiler. If you want calls, just buy a candybar phone, like the the latest nokia 100 or 200 series.

I'd buy it even if it cost $300. I wonder how expensive e-ink screen are, but I would not be surprised it's mostly a patent issue.

Take everything away from the computer that makes the average person excited about using the computer?

You mean like a nintendo DS or a Sony PSP.

A computer doesn't need to have bells and whistles to be functional.

May I suggest you to use typewriter? It runs without batteries, and is about as useful, you can write on it.

っ http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/2005-04-1...

what is that ?

I'd love to have that with modern hardware.

That's a Psion Series 5. Even better was the 7: http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/7004/Psion-Series-7/

These are what evolved into the Symbian phones.

> browser with a very limited set of feature: limited to css 2, js deactivated by default

I think I speak for every web developer in the world when I say that I hate you, and I'm extremely happy that almost no one else wants to buy your dream product. :)

> web developer

you can be a "web developer" without using js. the problem with js is that it can be abused. there can be very well made js, but I'm sure there's plenty of js that is just a waste of CPU cycle.

You may find it easier to redesign your dream phone than the entire web.

Or . . . you could just disconnect from the web completely.

Though I still mostly disagree about the utility of a noscript-friendly web going forward into the future, that's at least something I'd consider a worthy debate. CSS2-only, on the other hand... No. Just no. That's completely indefensible, especially given that you're aiming for mobile-friendliness. In addition to all the other things CSS3 fixes, it's where media queries come from. CSS2-only would set everyone back to having to duplicate effort to add m.blah.com sites. Which would be awful. You might as well be advocating for the return of WAP as far as I'm concerned.

Agreed. I want SSH and that's about it. I'd love this device so much.

If Apple announced the next iPhone and it had a battery that lasted twice as long as the current one I think a lot of people would be happy. I've noticed I get about 1.5 days now with my iPhone 6 and not having to worry if I forget to charge it at night is great. If it could get me to the end of the next day it would be perfect. It seems that every year phone manufacturers make battery improvements but these are offset by the new sensors and screens. If they skipped everything except battery for one generation, doubled it, and then went back to features would they be able to continue adding features at the previous rate while maintaining the new battery life?

But what if you forget to charge it at the end of the second day? Maybe what you need isn't a better battery but something that reminds you to charge your phone at night?

The point is more - "I can't get to a charger tonight but I don't need to worry as it'll last until tomorrow night." Charging each night isn't an inconvenience for most people and they would probably continue doing that (nobody waits until 0% to charge) but it provides extra breathing room on the occasions it's just not possible for you to charge.

NB. People may want better battery life, but they'll still pay for better features or performance. Of better batteries would give both, but we've had intense R&D for decades, and it's a difficult problem. (and if we had them, do you think it will go into battery life or features/performance...?)

also, 4K looks incredible - but where do you get 4K shows?

BTW I'm sick of refreshing HN 3 times to make sure my vote was counted. I'm not voting anymore.

This is one of the main reasons I still don't have a smartphone. Battery life on an old Nokia is well in excess of 5 days, it works whenever I need it when on the road even when there are no wall sockets for miles around.

If you use your smartphone for what you use your dumbphone for it will last just as long if not longer. I have a spare Android phone I use as my on-call phone where I have data turned off and it lasts 2 weeks no problem.

edit: I used to use my dumbphone as most people use their smartphones today. It was a Sony Ericsson so it had multitasking Java J2ME support[0], a high-quality camera, GPS so I was continually shooting, tweeting, on IRC, Google Maps, Facebook etc. I had to swap batteries halfway through the day same as I do now. Not much has changed.

[0] https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2612/4022002606_b6c5935cf4_o....

Is it worth noting that if wearables caught on, this would offload some of the work from phone batteries, effectively extending battery life? A big if, to be sure.

I think wearable watches has to be designed differently. Think a watch bracelet with the battery around the arm, also add solar cells to recharge that battery.

Remember those non-automatic mechanical watches? 2-5 days on a single charge was normal. Wireless charge + 2 days battery life is perfectly ok for most cases.

OTOH, even mechanical watches can auto-recharge now, why not autorecharge smart watches?

I am very happy with smartphones. Mostly because having one means I don't have to wear a watch.

I'd be very happy if my watch could take over the majority of my phone's functions--calling, texting.

Mostly because then I wouldn't have to carry a phone in my pocket.

Just attach a chain to your smartphone and call it a "smartpocketwatch."

The dream technology: Wearable/mobile electronics that pull energy from your body.

"Oh, my battery is low. I better eat some chocolate."

Wireless charger in your pocket would be close to "from your body" request. Of course this leads to heavy pocket syndrome.

Is there some sort of Parkinson's Law that phones will consume as much power as is available to them?

I got an LG G3 recently and the battery life is excellent. It'll happily last two days.

That's not what I would call great, but that's a start. I believe hardware manufacturers still don't take energy saving as serious as they should.

An LG G3 with the auto brightness feature enabled, maybe.

With brightness bumped up to a more user friendly level, my battery lasts <<1 day. I like this phone, but consider the battery life to be laughably bad.

I don't use auto brightness. I have it set to 50% pretty much all the time.

Just like people wanted a faster horse?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com