Getting enough battery life for your smartphone is a problem that can be attacked in several different directions. Obviously one angle is to simply make bigger batteries. Of course, that becomes a law of diminishing returns because no one wants to carry around a battery the size of a brick in order to get good battery life.
The most focused on technology is to simply make more efficient batteries. The holy grail of smartphone batteries would be able to handle a charge for extremely long periods of time. Until that mythical beast of innovation is slain, other methods offer alternative options.
Another way to improve battery usage is to develop improved methods to wirelessly charge your smartphone's battery. For now, wireless charging tech only extends to a few inches, but wireless charging won't be truly useful until we can charge from larger distances and multiple devices. By creating a network of wireless charging terminals we could simply be wireless charging our devices in perpetuity. That is being worked on by companies like Energous, but we are likely a few years from that becoming viable.
One of the best methods to tackle the problem is to simply offer the user the ability to charge their device much faster. While fast charging has come a long way, the latest development might really boost fast charging as an option. The Chinese company Oppo claims they have developed something called SuperVOOC that can recharge an empty 2,500 mAh battery to full in only 15 minutes. In comparison, Qualcomm's latest fast charging can only get a battery of the same size up to 80% and it takes twice as long.
It's easy to get excited when you hear about new tech like this, but Oppo hasn't offered a firm timeline as to when this tech will become commercially available. It almost makes you wonder if many of these various battery improvement techs will suddenly hit all at once and we will solve the world energy crisis in one fell swoop!
Source: BGR
