Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
I think they are.

If Nokia were able to embed small energy generation devices into their upcoming tablets that had enough power to keep the battery charged always or even "almost always" then they would be an almost irresistible choice over the competition not counting the software side of it.


These energy generating technologies do exist now but up until now their one main disadvantage is that they all produced too little current. Too little to charge a battery and compensate for any leakage their circuits might incur.

But now that has all changed because of a new thin film battery/capacitor product and accompanying low leakage circuits which accepts any current level as long as the Voltage is correct.

The product is called Thinergy
made by http://www.infinitepowersolutions.com/

see engineering tv video link on this page http://www.infinitepowersolutions.com/product
video will disappear if you click anywhere on the page. I don't know why.

The four ways that Immediately come to my mind that Nokia could generate energy in a Nokia tablet would be.

1) www.litroenergy.com
A multi layered sandwich strip of thin film solar panels with their glowpaint in between.

2) www.M2Epower.com

3) Nokias recently announced ambient EM waves collection project.
http://www.symbian-freak.com/news/00...be_charged.htm

4) Piezoelectric power from when we press down on the keypad buttons providing.
example http://www.artificialmuscle.com/products

All of these with the exception of litroenergy probably (because they can just keep adding more layers) fall below the necessary current necessary to charge a tablets battery so why not have all four of these methods embedded into a tablet and each have its own thinergy cell to save up the charge and then send it to a central customized large thinergy made by the same company and then have this zap the Nokia battery at regular intervals.

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

I was JUST talking to a friend about this. In recent years, I've switched all of my watches to automatic watches... where my motion of walking, talking with my hands, et al charge my watch with no need to buy a battery.

My camping equipment has a flashlight and phone charger that use solar and mechanical movement (crank on one, movement on the other) to charge up things as well.

Why not?

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

I found the Thinenergy video on its site entertaining and not excessively technical.

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

5) motion-generated power, as in self-winding watches (only with a kinetic-to-electric conversion). I am surprised that this hasn't been explored (unless I've missed it).

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

That was the intent behind listing m2epower.com
That is how it generates power.
We have 4 ways to do it.
1) Glowpaint sprayed on solar panels - litroenergy
2) Getting energy from when we press down on the keys, i.e. - piezoelectric
3) motion to energy - m2epower
4) nokias ambient EM wave collection

There are actually a couple more ways but I didn't feel like going to find out all the details about them.

Regarding glopaint.com, when the new "glows for 20 years paint" is finished being tested by the government and has recieved approval for widespread use I think Nokia should start painting their keyboard characters with it. That would save the light being used on the keyboard.
Always glowing keybaord characters.
I don't see why they don't use regular glopaint when painting their keyboard characters right now.

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

Thanks-- I didn't click that link.

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

The right term is "power harvesting".
Unfortunately rf-collection is very inefficient.
Buttons - just forget it since You'd have to make Your keys harder than usuall and let's face it - browsing the web equals very low keyboard usage.
The most efficient way theese days is thermal harvesting - it can power a watch for example - but it requires carrying device "on skin" with top not covered - to achieve maximum temperature difference.
The easiest solution is solar panel on the back.
Unfortunately it's quite rare in production devices - I don't know why (I use solar powered FM radio and it works ok).

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

Depends on the environment and collector area. Might be OK for a separate charger, but I'd be surprised if it can be put in a handset and provide sufficient amounts of power.

Thermal harvesting has it's issues. If you want a lot of power, it will feel cold, really cold. Second, the body adapts, so after the initial surge, your body will try to preserve temperature and thus less power. There are of course parts less susceptible, but those generally arent places you want to have your gadgets :) Also, you might not want a radio source right on your skin most of the the time.

Solar (unless directly exposed to the sun) PV gives very little power, especially if you consider these devices spend their time mostly indoors or in pockets. A tiny fm radio might get away with a few mW, but we need more (and we need it constantly).

Considering we're talking mostly about devices you have on/with you, Gerbick/Texrats kinetic energy recovery suggestion does make sense to me (with the presumption that your not a mega-couch-potato) - IF the uneven kinetic energy input can be converted to electrical energy in an efficient way (watches are again at an advantage as they need really tiny amounts of energy).

But the OP is correct - the issue is not not getting power from the environment, it's that it's too little/too unreliable to effectively use for charging batteries with current technology.

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

There are several terms for it.

Yes we already know it is inefficient, have you been listening/reading? thinenergy allows the inefficient collection to be used.

Who says you have to make the keys harder. Did you even go to the link i posted?
Try this
http://www.artificialmuscle.com/appl...eneration.html

The most efficient solid state thermal generator right now is planned for replacing your cars alternator and the research is being funded by the governement. Right now the technology is being used in reverse as heated and cooled seats in modern cars.
http://www.amerigon.com/

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

to sum up - keep dreaming ;)

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

No matter how awesome this thinergy tech is, it's not super-unity. So unless you have a source capable of generating more power than a running device uses, it doesn't help; the only believable (to me) energy sources discussed so far are mechanical (for some minority of users who are active enough with their tablets in a pocket) and PV with a direct sky (if not sun) exposure (for a partially overlapping minority that use them outside or at windows a major portion of the time). The other stuff is just too niche (thermal -- requires wrist-strap or similar, which I like but few do), or too weak after collection inefficiencies.

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

ok, but what about nokia's recent
experiments and advances into harvesting
trickle energy off of the wireless signal?

-I guess this technology is moot if our
tablet becomes a gsm phone though...

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

Not enough for something like the N810, at least not now. You could potentially run less powerful devices, like a dumbphone, especially using e-ink displays and such, but it'll be a while if ever before we can get high-end smartphone or tablet power densities.

Huh? Seems equally relevant, just a slightly different power profile due to the extra radio...

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

keep in mind that i was stating to use all four methods with each one having it's own thinergy cell. Diversity is good.

You can't always be next to a
witricity http://www.witricity.com/index.html
or
powercast http://www.powercastco.com/

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

Wouldn't that add quite a bit of bulk + cost (not just the cells, but the actual collector stuff for all methods) ? Also, it would probably make even more sense to combine the multiple methods filling ONE cell you would have more current and smaller variations in the charge profile.

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

I think that all the mentioned technologies, on their own generate very little (milliwatt range) and combined are still in the milliwatt range. It is possible to reprogram the IC in the battery to use lower power input, but then you wouldn't be able to use the AC adapter that comes with the N8X0. I have already done some experimentation using several of the technologies mentioned and the sheer size to get a decent output makes it not practical now, but with miniaturisation and constant improvement, who knows, a year, three at most?

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

All I want is a source generating enough power for the tablet to have infinite standby time. That would make it practical to use as a fridge computer, and I'd buy an N800 for this purpose right away.

I don't mind charging the device when I've been using it, but charging it every couple of days whether or not I've used it ... that just sucks.

Solar, even indoors in a kitchen, should be capable of generating enough power for this.

Regards,
Roger

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

But... if it's for a Fridgeputer... why don't you just stick a solar panel beneath it ? There is plenty of energy, it's just the form factor and use-case limits you (or, in the case of a fridge, doesn't).

Although sticking a solar panel on a device that uses hundreds (if not kilo)watts of power does sound weird in itself for some reason :)

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

If it's for a fridgeputer, why not just plug it in to AC power 100% of the time?

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

It's more than a dream. What's forgotten so far in this discussion is there have also been significant advances in power consumption REDUCTION for electronics very recently. TI has developed IC architecture, for example, requiring about a third of current amperage. Combine power needs reduction with advances in power generation/recovery and the opportunities are tremendous.

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

Well this company disagrees with you.
http://www.motioncharge.com/

In fact here is their statement from their website.

Motion Charge Company has developed two revolutionary technologies called "MotionCharge" and "KeyCharge" that address power problems in portable electronic devices. These technologies, which are currently patent pending, enable a portable device such as a portable computer or cell phone to automatically recharge it's battery from (1) routine motion of the user, such as walking (in the case of MotionCharge), and (b) from motion derived from a users utilization of the keyboard (in the case of KeyCharge).

In this manner, the battery in a portable electronic device is continually recharged by routine activities of the user, effectively significantly increasing battery capacity. For example, the very act of utilizing a computer or walking around with a cell phone recharges the battery.

These technologies are inexpensive to produce and would be very easy to integrate into existing devices as well as future models. In addition, MotionCharge can be provided to the user as an external accessory.

If you company is interested in learning more about the above-described technologies, please contact us. For a more detailed background of the challenges addressed by our technologies, please see The Challenge and The Solution, Click here.

I looked up their patents at uspto.gov and found this patent
# 7,105,939
Sep 12, 2006
was granted

Re: Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
 

For a fridgeputer, you want something like a magnetic N800. You might use it on the fridge to bring up a calendar or to add an item to a shopping list, but you also want to be able to lift it off to show people stuff or to use it on the kitchen table. You don't want to have to unplug it every time you use it.

So a solar solution that provides infinite standby (and maybe even a bit of a recharge) is fine. Then, once every couple of weeks if necessary you plug it in (but still on the fridge).

Probably want something a little larger than an N800 for this use case though.

Regards,
Roger