Legion Portable Battery Comes With Embedded Microprocessor

Portable Battery Comes With LED Screen To Show The Status.

Limited battery life is just how it is and we have to figure out how to make sure to have enough power to make it throughout the day. We can do that by carrying charging cables and plugging our smartphone in whenever possible to keep the charge up. Or, as is the growing trend, carry a portable battery charger so that you can charge up your phone no matter where you are. That is the life that we live until a majority of smartphones have at least 2 days of charge under what I would consider normal usage. Until then, we look at how to keep our smartphones working. A new portable battery charger is coming in January which looks to alter what portable battery chargers look like. It is called Legion and is billed as The Battery Reinvented.

This week's KickStarter project is Legion - The Battery Reinvented. The fund raising campaign closed on August 29th with them raising 466% of the goal and you still can order one for delivery in January. For those that participated in the fund raising, they will be getting theirs in December. So, what makes this one so unique from all the other ones on the market?

The really big difference is that they are including a small microprocessor in the Legion case and an LED display which allows them to display far more than the idiot lights of the past. With that, they can display a lot more information for you. This is accomplished by pressing the power button to switch the display to another featured item. You will get a read out of Time To Discharge, percentage charge of portable battery and battery voltage to name a few of the 8 LED screens that you can see. This will give you what you need to know about the status of the battery instead of the green lights that we are used to seeing.

We all know that not all USB connections are the same with some putting out more watts than others. And with the LED display on the Legion, you are going to be able to determine the USB port that is going to charge up your Legion the fastest. We talked about the different USB ports wattage be in July for another KickStarter project.

There are 2 different models being offered by PLX Devices, so you get to make a choice. The Legion 5500 mAH for $79.99 and the Legion 11000 mAH for $99.99 with colors of Black and White. Coming in at 2.45 by 4.32 by 0.45 inches (5500) and 3.5 by 5.25 by 0.45 (11000), the size makes it portable. The weight for these is 4.4 ounces and 9.0 ounces.

Given the need to have an alternative source for charging up your smartphone because of limited battery life, these 2 new batteries with an LED display may give you far more confidence in charging up you device.

SolePower Charges Battery While You Walk

KickStarter Friday - Walking Power Can Recharge A Mobile Battery

This year, we have seen a large variety of portable battery chargers to handle those situations where you get a low battery indicator on your mobile device. And the number continues to rise. We have seen a number of portable solar panels to charge up a mobile battery, but that requires you to stay in a fix location while the sun hits the solar panel to charge up your mobile battery. What is needed is a method to charge up a mobile battery while you are being mobile. And if you do a lot of walking, then the coming SolePower is going to give you another option to charge up your mobile battery.

This weeks KickStarter project is SolePower: Power by Walking and it is closing in a few days. They have recently exceeded their goal of getting $50,000 in funding so they can move forward with creating their unique idea for charging up a mobile battery. The idea is a very simple one. We all walk to get where we are going and with that, there is energy expended in the process. They have taken an insole which is inserted into a boot and captures the energy as you step down on the insole. That is translated into electrical current and charges up the battery which you attach to it. Pretty simple idea.

The SolePower insoles will be designed to fit various shoe sizes and not cause issues with your feet as they have consulted with podiatrists. And it will be waterproof because they have designed this to be used by people in the outdoors for the initial market. As you hike, you are charging up the battery. This is supposed to be able to charge up a smart phone battery in a 2 to 5 mile walk and if it does it is going to be a versatile product with lots of uses.

There are still challenges to be handled. Where to run the wires from the SolePower insole to the outside of the shoe so that it does not irritate the foot is one of those challenges. Another is how to keep the price down so that it will be of interest to a large population. At the moment, they are indicating it will cost between $150 and $175. The current estimated delivery for those eligible contributors is December 2014 but there are estimates from others which seem to indicate they could complete the work to deliver by December 2013. This is a new and unique product from SolePower and one which fills a valuable need.

Battery Life For Google Glass Not Looking Good

It seems that all the hype about the coming Google Glass may be for not as early reports begin to come out. As is the problem for smart phone users, getting an all day battery charge should be the minimum for everyone. Smart phone users are still dreaming about getting more than 8 hours of use for their phones before having to replenish the battery. And while companies try and get us to accept a lower expectation for using our smart phones, the reality is battery technology continues to drag down technology. There is so many fantastic products coming out this year, but we are not seeing any which are going to be providing outstanding battery life. The reality for a smart phone should be 48 hours before having to charge it up.

The latest victim to fall to limited battery life is Google Glass. This is a fantastic product which is going to revolutionize how we record our lives. In the past, we had to hold a camera and with Google Glass, you wear the camera and get hands free recording. And it is so much more than just that. It is a computer on your head. But with all that this futurist product can do, it is still limited by the battery. And while Google has been saying you will be getting all day battery life, it appears that in real life, the battery does not last anywhere near that time. We really do need to get new battery technology.

The Google Glass Explorer Edition is now available to selected developers and individuals to test out this great tool. And the reports are beginning to come in. A complete review comes from Tim Stevens of Engadget where he is providing an in depth coverage of all the features and things he thinks need improving. But the one glaring item we saw was the comments regarding the battery life.

Battery size is unknown, but battery life is: it's poor.

It appears that average usage is about 5 hours on the current models. And that includes regular activities of reading emails, pictures and some video. Not a very warming endorsement for the fast battery drain here. And this is not the only one. Another report from Robert Soble has the battery dropping by 20% after a 6 minute video. The shooting of video is going to be one of the great features for Google Glass and must be greatly improved. These are probably real world examples of what can be expected when Google Glass comes to market next year.

It is rare to get the battery life as stated by manufacturers and this is no exception. Some are already talking about the need for an add on battery pack to extend the life of the batteries for Google Glass. That is not the solution, but rather a band aid. The real answer is for battery technology to finally catch up and exceed the needs for our technology and mobile devices.

Battery Issues Impact Both Electric Vehicles & Mobile Devices

We are faced with a need for new technology to address the ongoing limitations in battery life that we are seeing every day. If you are the owner of an all electric vehicle, the majority of them on the road today have a very limited range of driving before you must stop and charge them back up. Few cars exceed a range of 100 miles and if you exclude the Tesla, the average across all models drops a lot. You can only go so far before you have to stop and recharge. The same issue is impacting our mobile devices today where getting an all day charge on your smart phone seems to be very elusive at best. It seems that technology and desire has exceeded the capabilities of today's battery technology.

Future Battery Technology

The existing batteries which are being used does not meet the needs and without new discoveries, we will continue to be limited in battery life. Current solutions to extend all electric vehicles for decent ranges are extremely expensive as demonstrated by Tesla. For mobile devices, the current solution is battery extenders which attach to you device and add life to the battery. Neither of these are acceptable solution. There is continuing work being done by a wide variety of groups on the next big breakthrough. And it is a race because the winner will make a lot of money.

The future is being held in new discoveries, such as one using Graphene layers to improve batteries. This one is supposed to improve battery capacity and speed up charging times. Existing Lithium batteries are being researched for ways of improving that technology. Other research for smart phones holds promise to increase capacity 10 times greater than what we have today.

There are numerous researching activities going on at universities which will hopefully result in significant improvements in battery life for electric vehicles. While one might think that it will benefit only all electric vehicles for what has been discovered and brought to market, that would not be correct. That new technology would be passed on to mobile devices as well, benefiting us all. But how long it will be before all the various research which is being done will come to market is an unknown. And that is part of the problem as there is no known time frame when we can expect to see the hoped for significant battery life improvements.

With the coming technology shift to provide far better battery life, we are concerned about how long can we go before having to charge things up again. Given our appetites, it would appear that we will never have enough of a charge to meet our needs. Be it for the all electric vehicle or the ever popular mobile devices. We all want to keep using them and never have to worry about charging them up. That is not available for today, but is the hope for tomorrow.