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3 good things could come out of Pokemon Go and similar games/apps/trends: 1. smartphones will finally have decent batteries (e.g. lasting at least 1 day for th

by dewiz 10y ago

3 good things could come out of Pokemon Go and similar games/apps/trends: 1. smartphones will finally have decent batteries (e.g. lasting at least 1 day for the avg PokemonGo player, aka days/weeks for the rest of the world) 2. through healthy competition, carriers hopefully stop charging ridiculous amount of money for data 3. convergence of home wifi and carriers, i.e. you can use and share your home wifi within miles from your home </tooOptimistic>

jsmthrowaway 10y ago
> 1. smartphones will finally have decent batteries (e.g. lasting at least 1 day for the avg PokemonGo player, aka days/weeks for the rest of the world) This is blocked upon a breakthrough in battery technology, not any (in)action on the part of handset manufacturers as you are lightly implying. Drones are more my wheelhouse but phones and automobiles are similar; we've reached roughly the top end of energy density with current known technology and chemistry. The fact that your phone can talk for several hours while operating multiple radios is already quite impressive given battery size, so I'm not sure why you classify phone batteries as anything but "decent." Pokémon Go isn't going to revolutionize our understanding of chemistry and physics, unfortunately. If you want a phone the size of an old brick you can have longer battery life, with the risk that a battery of that size will react very violently to being punctured or abused and swells frequently. Even current ones do. (You should see my drone's LiPos after I pull them out of a particularly demanding run [i.e., sport mode]; they're often hot to the touch and swelling, and this is somewhat expected depending on circumstances. Battery health is something you have to take seriously with drone batteries because they're surprisingly sensitive and don't have a long useful life. "Invent a better battery" is a meme among drone folks.)
- xanderstrike 10y ago
  The answer is literally bigger batteries. I'd rather have a phone that lasts all day than one that's a millimeter thinner than it was last year. I carried around a 14oz 1" deep Cassiopeia Pocket PC in my pocket for years, a smartphone half that size would last days... so where is it?
  - jsmthrowaway 10y ago
    Keep in mind that the larger you make lithium-ion batteries, the scarier they get.
    - onetwotree 10y ago
      > the more fun they get FTFY
  - vortico 10y ago
    The answer is just to buy another battery and swap it once the last one dies. You can find your phone's battery on eBay for usually $3-20. If your battery is difficult or impossible to replace, USB battery packs are $10-30.
- dewiz 10y ago
  sure we need a breakthrough, but we also need high demand to increase investments on research. Games and apps like PG help with that

by dewiz 10y ago

jsmthrowaway 10y ago

> 1. smartphones will finally have decent batteries (e.g. lasting at least 1 day for the avg PokemonGo player, aka days/weeks for the rest of the world) This is blocked upon a breakthrough in battery technology, not any (in)action on the part of handset manufacturers as you are lightly implying. Drones are more my wheelhouse but phones and automobiles are similar; we've reached roughly the top end of energy density with current known technology and chemistry. The fact that your phone can talk for several hours while operating multiple radios is already quite impressive given battery size, so I'm not sure why you classify phone batteries as anything but "decent." Pokémon Go isn't going to revolutionize our understanding of chemistry and physics, unfortunately. If you want a phone the size of an old brick you can have longer battery life, with the risk that a battery of that size will react very violently to being punctured or abused and swells frequently. Even current ones do. (You should see my drone's LiPos after I pull them out of a particularly demanding run [i.e., sport mode]; they're often hot to the touch and swelling, and this is somewhat expected depending on circumstances. Battery health is something you have to take seriously with drone batteries because they're surprisingly sensitive and don't have a long useful life. "Invent a better battery" is a meme among drone folks.)

xanderstrike 10y ago
The answer is literally bigger batteries. I'd rather have a phone that lasts all day than one that's a millimeter thinner than it was last year. I carried around a 14oz 1" deep Cassiopeia Pocket PC in my pocket for years, a smartphone half that size would last days... so where is it?
- jsmthrowaway 10y ago
  Keep in mind that the larger you make lithium-ion batteries, the scarier they get.
  - onetwotree 10y ago
    > the more fun they get FTFY
- vortico 10y ago
  The answer is just to buy another battery and swap it once the last one dies. You can find your phone's battery on eBay for usually $3-20. If your battery is difficult or impossible to replace, USB battery packs are $10-30.
dewiz 10y ago
sure we need a breakthrough, but we also need high demand to increase investments on research. Games and apps like PG help with that