That could is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that headline.
Also, we can barely get OEMs to support phones for 5 years now...
I'd say, 10 years is more than enough, the device is practically unusable after that, even if it's still working.
the device is practically unusable after that, even if it’s still working.
Not if you can change the battery...
I am having to retire my 7 year old S5, which still works perfectly, because 3G networks are being switched off in a couple of months.
Remember when light bulbs used to last decades? A phone battery that lasts that long is incompatible with capitalism.
When they were really dim and far too red like 80 years ago? Or when they switched to LED and actually lasted a decade, like now?
Batteries that last a decade will open up the opportunity for expensive tech like we never imagined.
Or when they switched to LED and actually lasted a decade, like now?
LEDs with Edison screws on them don't last that long. Maybe Siemens or some other brand name manufacturer, but the cheap Chinese ones last only a few months.
It's the heat buildup that's the problem. Disassemble them, slap a CPU heatsink on it and yes, they will last forever.
Seems like a manufacturer problem. I've have the same LED bulbs in my house for 5 years plus with no replacements. Various makes too .Some of them came with me from my old house. No idea how old they are. With incandescent bulbs, I used to have to replace at least 1 a year. I used to keep a stock in the back of a cupboard.
The problem with led bulbs is that they are build to operate at their limits. It's still within spec, but just barely which is why they break so quickly. If you would reduce the current by half they would last for decades.
But of course Big-Light doesn't want that, so after the initial well-build led bulbs became standard they switched to cheaper designs with less internal led modules for the same brightness.
As I said, the simplest solution - better cooling.
The original Edison bulb still works iirc
The battery is not the main point of failure in contemporary phones, especially not one that makes you buy new unit. This new radioactive battery doesn't change much
Sensationalized clickbait.
100 microwatts, aiming for 1W in 2025. That's a big difference and 1W is still not enough for a cell phone. Phone-scale batteries aren't even on the roadmap.
1 Watt is plenty to power a phone on average. While idle a phone uses less than 1 Watt. The thing is, nuclear batteries are a misnomer, they're actual electrical generators. For this to work in a phone, you'd want to pair it with an actual battery, and the generator would charge the battery while the phone is idle and that would provide enough power on average for when you're actively using your phone.
1W is enough for a cell phone, if you combined it with a capacitor for brief bursts at higher watts.
Now play a game for an hour...
Not all phones need to play games and gaming phones don't need to use this type of technology. I would love a phone that I don't need to charge and most people could benefit from one. And for the select few that like to play intensive games on it then they can get ones that would need to be charged.
Though I doubt this technology will be the answer to that want though.
Yeah especially with just 0.001% of the estimated workload (~10W when gaming, but even when standby 0.5W, 100uW are still just 0.02% of that...). Needs a lot more research...
You throttle the cpu with long heavy workloads, just like phones already do due to the significant thermal constraints of the form factor.
My phone uses 0.6W when idle and 1.2-2.5W while I'm using it. Peaks are 8W+. No way an internal reactor only can power a phone.
Edit: 0.3W when screen is off.
A nuclear battery is not actually a battery, it's a generator. Trying to run something purely off a generator is stupidly inefficient because you'd need the output potential for the max load at all times even when on average the load is much lower. You absolutely want to pair a generator with a battery. Even power plants have batteries to store excess power.
If you think a little past the name misnomer it's obvious that this would work by pairing it with a smaller battery to handle spikes in usage. The end result is still the same though, you'd have a phone you'd never have to plug in.
You could do it with a parallelized output from a bunch of them.
Or with a diesel generator in a wheelbarrow
Looking forward to a mini reactor being directly next to my balls
"Just getting a little cancer, Stan."
BUFFALO SOLLDYA
It's not that radioactive and Nikel 63 decays to copper, so there is no radioactive waste being produced when the battery is depleted.
Oh, good. So whenever some fool tosses a phone out of a car to get crushed on the roadway, shoots one because TikTok, or otherwise mangles a phone, we now have a potential for radioactive material to be spread around?
No, read the article. It's Nikel 63 and the decay is copper. It's contained in a metal seal.
I don't need 50 years but 50 days (before recharging) would be cool
Fallout universe timeline, here we come!
It's a variation of the same scam: https://youtu.be/5M5MF6KE-jY?si=7odXF_9q2SkumX7X
https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr-25829
Betavolt seems to be just using those flashy 3D renders of a battery that likely doesn't exist. It wouldn't surprise me if their datasheets mirror what was claimed by NDB.
Some of the first pacemakers used radioactive batteries. We left that concept pretty fast. And that is considering you have to cut your patient open to change a pacemaker battery. This will not happen in commercial cellphones
100 microwatts? What does a phone use, like 1W? So they are 4 orders of magnitude off? So phones need to become 10,000 times more efficient or the battery that much bigger?
Edit: Also what is the language of the article? "63 nuclear isotopes", it sounds like they mean "63 [different/individual atoms of] nuclear isotopes" but do they mean "nickel-63" by this? It is very confusing. Nickel-63 also has a half-life of 100 years, so if the battery is supped to last for 50 years, it has to be producing twice as much energy on day one that is discarded?
Betavolt is planning to boost its tech to produce a 1-watt battery by 2025. And while it still has some way to go, the company seems confident stating development is way ahead of European and American scientific research institutions and enterprises.
RemindMe! 1 year repeat
This is physically implausible. Also self proclaimed advances without 3rd party proof are less than worthless.
Yeah, I thought I was expressing my doubt with the "repeat" part of my Remindme joke, but I guess it wasn't appreciated.
Perfect, my phone will outlast me
Depending on how radioactive the battery in your pocket is, that’s not hard.
This again? It's utter bullcrap I'm afraid.
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https://piped.video/watch?v=5M5MF6KE-jY
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50 Ci? That's a helluva lot of activity.
And that's for a battery that only produces 100 microwatts. A battery that produces 10000 times more power will be a lot spicier.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
