3mo ago

This toaster-looking gadget boosts your phone’s battery in seconds

www.theverge.com

This is awesome! For only $450 you can get a machine that can automatically swap battery packs placed on bulky $120 phone cases.

You don't need to plug a cable in your phone anymore, your over engineered machine can swap battery packs for you

I never imagined that I would live this long to see the future

43 comments

Swapable batteries were common on cell phones in the 80's and 90's except no fancy machine was needed.
- Some fairly recent phones even had docks that would charge your phone and a swappable battery at the same time
  
  That's whole century.
  News from 2011 about the HTC Thunderbolt dock.
- and... get this: while you were swapping your battery you could drop in a swappable expansion on storage. Utter madness.
  
  Many phones let you upgrade storage without opening it. Madness, I know.
- I was using an LG G5 that had swappable batteries 3 years ago.
- IKR.
  Why did we start building batteries into phones?
  
  So they can sell you a new phone instead of a replacement battery.
- 90's, definitely.
  Which 80's models mobiles are you thinking of, exactly?

So... you're essentially carrying around a power bank on the back of your phone all the time? Seems like a gimmick at best.
Honestly, fast charging has turned this into such a non-issue that you'll be hard pressed to find a more convenient solution.
- Right?
  $450 and a toaster to use something like the external batteries I've used for a decade.
- I had one of those power bank cases, and it was absolutely awesome for extended battery life. It was always there with the phone, it was just a bulky case (which did not bother me), it tripled or quadrupled my battery life, and it was about $20.
  Sorely missing that it's not available for my current phone (Pixel 8a).
  
  Magsafe case and a battery pack?

2010s replaceable battery phones: look what they need to mimic fraction of our power.
- At least with an external battery pack you don't have to reboot your phone (which is a minor inconvenience, as a FP5 owner).
- 2010s?
  Laughs in Nokia

I thought the thing will lower your phone into the box so that the battery doesn’t take your whole room with it when it eventually explodes during charging…
- That's what my thought was, and that would be way cooler.

I'm getting Juicero vibes
- Right? This is so stupid
- I especially love the sound! This thing is hilarious, can't wait to read the disaster postmortem in a few years time.
  
  Years? If this part of ever actually gets released it'll last about 6 months before they stop production. It's massively expensive and completely pointless.

Coming Soon: A subscription model where you pay $10 a month for the ability to use your $450 battery swapper.

How does this make any sense when buying 2 of the cases is half the price while also faster and easier to swap? It would maybe make sense if it swapped out the actual phone battery. Maybe that’s their end goal, but how does it make sense at all to sell this as a real product?

The fuck? Use a battery pack...
This issue has been solved for years.

I don’t see the use case for phones, and maybe there is for other personal electronics, but something similar for EVs should become the norm.
Basically a range extender when you need it, but it can be removed to save on weight when your trips are within the built-in battery’s range. Such a system could easily be extended to trailers, including their own static or removable batteries, and where the additional axles could be powered so they can contribute regenerative braking.
- Having to haul a trailer of some sort would be really annoying for long road trips because of the speed limits towing entails. Not to mention the nightmare it is to find parking with a trailer, and even worse charging that accommodates room for a trailer.
  I've been road tripping around Europe a few times in my EV, and the car is always done charging before the kids are done on the toilet and we have restocked snacks/coffee/gotten an ice cream. Having a break for every ~2-3h of driving is also extremely nice I found, you arrive much less trashed. It's actually only annoying when you stop to eat lunch/dinner, because you have to move the car before you're done eating because it's finished charging.
  
  I’m in Australia, so my perspective may be skewed. The trailer would be optional, and I only mentioned it as the system as proposed could be just an extension of the self contained removable battery in a vehicle.
  Unless batteries can become tremendously lighter, I see a standardised, swappable EV battery a given as a means to further increase vehicle efficiency. Why lug around hundreds of km of range when the distance between typical charging points is a fraction of that.
- Most EVs can now do 200 plus miles on a full charge so I really don't think range extenders are that necessary (especially when combined with level 3 fast charging). Plus where would you put it? The batteries on an EVs are stored on the undercarriage and they pretty much take up the entirety of the undercarriage, if there was extra space left over you would just put a permanent battery in there.
  
  The batteries are what make EVs heavier compared to ICE vehicles, and the majority of trips don’t call for anything close to their peak range.
  Installing a fraction of the capacity as a static battery would reduce weight for shorter trips, also extending the typical range.
  Removable batteries could be installed in a standard cavity in the undercarriage, or in the regular cargo space, it just needs an electrical connection to the rest of the system.
  Fast charging is also a problem, as it disproportionately affects the performance and longevity of the batteries. Swapping batteries would permit charging them at a more leisurely and manageable rate.

I'm always shocked by how unimaginative this tech-centric community acts. OK, so this version is silly for YOU. Are you the whole world? Are you the future? Stuff like this is typically a bulky demo unit in need of further development. Fringe case devices are also that - fringe case solutions. This isn't for the person sitting at home with a dormant phone. This probably has an application in medical and scientific fields where mobility is critical, staying in one device is necessary, avoiding a tangled external battery pack is preferred, and automation prevent human error like not plugging in the dead pack fully kor at all). Could have larger applications for swapping vehicle batteries, as well.
So don't buy it.
- Well, their website pictures and targets only persons sitting at home with a dormant phone, and not some kind of other specialty use
  
  Marketing =/= Reality!
- Okay so you tell me what use case there is for an automated battery replacement system. As opposed to just doing it yourself which takes 20 seconds. Especially because when it inevitably breaks you'll have to do it manually anyway.
  All for the low low cost of a mid-range gaming laptop.

Aren't battery packs really bad for your phone tho? Keeping it at 100% constantly until it runs out
- The article says the app can be used to limit your charging to 80%.
  Still pretty batshit. Swapping external batteries yourself would be too hard?
  
  They would get lost for sure if they left the toaster. You must not have kids. Which i suppose would be a boon for this company to sell you refills.

I worked as a consultant at a product development firm. One of our clients had us making a kitchen appliance that would take a “pod” of some kind (like Keurig).
Their little ad video that they made before involving us had a little CG video showing the pod floating into the receiver and sliding down into the machine.
When we showed them the prototype, the first question we got is if the pod receiver thing was motorized.
Like…no. You push it down. Takes 1 second.
Anyway replacing a phone battery does not need to be automated.

Ok, its a battery charger. Why is it so big?
- Because it is a battery CHANGER.

43 comments