If you’ve ever ran out of juice on your smartphone, you’d appreciate some form of quick-charging. Whether you’re on the go with your device needing a quick fix or simply forgetting to charge it the day before. Hence the existence of quick-charge, the wonderful piece of innovation that gets your smartphones recharged at a fast-pace; though it isn’t without some detrimental effects to the lifespan of your battery.
Huawei hopes to take it a step further by lacing these lithium ion batteries with graphite, around the anodes – shown in a video below, it’ll blow any derivative of fast-charging by a mile at no expense of your battery’s lifespan.
Let’s put this in perspective, Qualcomm claims that its Quick Charge 3.0 can get a smartphone from 0 to 80% in just 35 minutes – Huawei’s? It’ll get a 3,000 mAh battery from 0 to 48% in just 5 minutes. Imagine plugging your phone in and hitting the showers, coming back and getting at least half of your battery life back.
During the same Battery Symposium in Japan, they also showed a 600 mAh battery hit 68% after being dead in just 120 seconds, yes guys in 2 minutes. In its early stages, the charging block is comparable to the size of an actual brick, so it won’t be too pleasant to lug around but this shows some great promise, if they manage to minimise the size.
There’s no timeline as to when it’ll hit mass consumers, but since its their own brainchild, they might only reserve it for their own devices. Inlays into battery advancements have been slow, at least in terms of breakthroughs, but it’s nice to see all the research is being put to good use. At least now, we have more glimmers of hope for our constant thirst for power (literally).
