The problem of Battery draining & the most effective solution

Simple & most effective solution every tech giant is researching for extending the battery life of your appliances

What’s the most common problem of humans in the 21st century? No, it’s not global warming, food shortage, privacy, or racism. It’s the short battery life of the battery-powered appliances they are using.

I am not saying that any of the earlier mentioned problems are not important but it is weird that they are less common. If you probe hard, you will find that majority of the public will cite the short battery life of their phones, laptops, trimmers, mowers, tablets, watches, cars, scooters as their problem.

The same can be verified when you start looking into the research that is happening in the domains. The problem of short battery life is researched in almost every battery-powered device irrespective of the domain.

There are multiple approaches taken by the researchers to solve this single problem. Some are coming up with larger energy-storing batteries, some working on optimizing the performance by manipulating the charging and discharging cycles, and some others are working on making software or hardware that are more energy efficient.

While researching the topic, I just got curious and tried to see what different solutions are being researched by the industry leaders for this universal problem. It was an interesting finding. The most common solution that is being practiced is the simplest one. It is “Control the usage”. Let me explain it to you with some details on how different tech giants are researching.

Why do batteries die so fast?

The answer is very simple. There are only two reasons for it, which are:

1. The battery is faulty and that’s why it just don’t last till the time it is supposed to.
2. The usage is high and thus the battery gets consumed

Reason 1, is less popular and demands battery replacement. There is a lot of research happening to control the damage that happens to batteries during usage.

Reason 2, “high usage”, affects the majority of the public.

If you remember your times from 2000–2010 when we were using feature phones, the batteries used to last more. Now you have a phone having a battery size thrice of that feature phone and even then you need to charge it once if not twice a day. The simple reason is “high usage”. The solution researched is “control the usage”.

Control the usage

We are living in the twenty-first century and the devices are smart. They are loaded with autonomous functions, communication capabilities, location detection, etc. The control of usage is being applied in various ways. The most common are:

Using energy-efficient components

This header doesn’t require an introduction and is self-explanatory. The better energy-efficient component a manufacturer uses, the higher the battery lasts on a daily usage level.

Designing optimized softwares

Your device is doing a lot of tasks and every task consumes power. Researchers are trying to personalize devices according to the user. The device learns from the usage pattern about certain things such as:

1. What functions are used by the user? Timings of using those functions
2. How much energy is used for each task?
3. How much time the battery is supposed to last? (by learning the charging & discharging parameters)
4. What is the current charge level of the battery? What’s the current health status of the battery?

Based on the above parameter, the software limits, restricts, or allows certain functions of the device to work. It helps in saving the battery life of the device.

E.g. My phone learns that I use Microsoft teams more than Linkedin and thus keeps the team’s app connected to the server. At the same time, it doesn’t connect to the Linkedin server all the time and only connects when I open that app. Thus the battery usage is automatically limited.

For Products such as smart mowers, trimmers, displays that run on battery. There are not a lot of things that the device can learn from humans. Thus, the industries are coming up with simple solutions such as periodic connectivity. The device now connects with other devices only after certain time lags. Thus, there is no continuous power consumption.

Designing special battery saving modes

There are certain manufacturers that are working on designing multiple modes for a device. These modes are primarily oriented toward allowing or restricting certain functionalities of the device and thus control the power usage.
The mode that allows are functions is the high power usage mode. Whenever the user switches to power saving mode, the device stops certain apps, functions, and activities which are not selected by the user.

The selection of functionalities that need to be restricted is done after multiple types of research, user feedback, and expert opinions. Others simply let the user decide which function they wish to stop.

Designing Dumb Products

Interestingly this segment has again started picking pace. New manufacturers are coming up which make devices that aren’t smart. These devices are goal-oriented and perform only the functions that they are specifically designed for. Thus, there are no major power consumptions arising from multiple tasks and the device lasts longer on a single charge.

E.g. Phones that don’t come with a camera, email, or other such functionality but with a battery life of 20–30 days (even in their compact form)

Trimmers that don’t share data with your phone but can trim the entire lawn on one charge.