A Self-charging Smartphone, what an idea sirjee

What sucks the most about a smartphone? Its battery, of course. The LCD display, GPS and poor power management by the apps contribute to major sucking up for smartphones battery. A sucky smartphone battery might be a thing of past if the UCLA researchers have their way. I really hope they do. UCLA’s new polarizer equipped  smartphone with LCD screen can harvest ambient light energy, sunlight  and the backlight of the phone to charge itself.

Researchers at UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have found a way to equip smartphones with photovoltaic polarizer’s which act as the harvester from various energy sources. Polarizing organic photovoltaic is a 3-in-1 device which acts as a polarizer, photovoltaic device and as a photovoltaic panel (for sunlight and ambient light).

Polarizing organic photovoltaic is to smartphones what drinking recycled piss is to humans.

There is no shortage of products which can be charged using solar energy. We have seen a tablet from India’s BEL, Umeox Apollo, Toshiba eReader and iSlate. What separates the UCLA concept from the rest is its ability to use the backlight of the phone along with sunlight and ambient light.

current LCD polarizers are inefficient, the researchers said. A device’s backlight can consume 80 to 90 percent of the device’s power. But as much as 75 percent of the light generated is lost through the polarizers. A polarizing organic photovoltaic LCD could recover much of that unused energy. (UCLA)

We have seen quite a few concepts like a flexible screen, phone being charged with just voice and an imaginary phone. Of all the concepts we have seen so far, a self-charging smartphone sounds the most exciting and the most useful.

Via Engadget