It's interesting to see how the world of smartphone have evolve, new features are being developed everyday to make it smarter and it just didn't stop there, researchers from the University of Washington have developed a mobile phone that can operate without battery.
The mobile phone is said to consume almost zero power that requires 3.5 microwatts of power during use, and runs by using radio signal with it on board solar cells to transmit signal to it base station though the help of an Anntena.
“We’ve built what we believe is the first functioning cellphone that consumes almost zero power,” said Shyam Gollakota, an associate professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the UW and coauthor.
The battery-free phone was put to test by using Skype call, it was able to receive and makes calls and also placed on hold by pressing a button to switch between speaking mode and listen mode.
Unlike the regular smartphone, this might be a downside but it's still a prototype.
The researchers have also plan to improve the device by adding encryption to make calls secured and e-ink display to enable video-streaming.
“You could imagine in the future that all cell towers or Wi-Fi routers could come with our base station technology embedded in it,” said co-author Vamsi Talla,a former UW electrical engineering doctoral student.
“And if every house has a Wi-Fi router in it, you could get battery-free cellphone coverage everywhere." he added.
The mobile phone is made on a circuit board, with capacitive touch buttons and other electrical components.
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