The Battery That Powers My Day
As a college student my life revolves around my iPhone, iPad, and headphones. This meant the last activity of my day was always fumbling around in the dark for multiple different chargers. And more often than not I would wake up with all of my electronics dead. That is until I bought the STM Qi Wireless Battery Pack, a portable battery pack that is capable of wireless charging.
Why Am I So Obsessed?
I am completely obsessed with my STM Wireless Battery Pack because it makes the mundane experience of keeping my devices charged and usable friction-less.
The Only Thing I Charge Now is the STM Power-bank
Because wireless charging can sometimes be thought of as a universal port, the STM battery pack is the only bottleneck to charging my devices. And late at night, when all I want to do is go to sleep, I just have to charge one thing to be ready for the next day.
It also removes the need for the jungle of wires in my backpack
My day consists of going from classrooms to various study spots, which meant carrying different chargers for all of my devices.
My bag would look a jungle, but now I just the power-bank and the adapter to plug it into the wall.
Other than a cleaner backpack, I also reduced the cost of replacing lost chargers. I actually did the math by going back through my Amazon history, and I spent $15 on different wall chargers and wires in the two months before I bought the power-bank.
The device, not only served to make my life easier, but will pay for itself within two semester of college.
What is So Different About It ?
I could have talked about the hundred different wireless chargers available in the market right now, but they all have one big problem : that while a device is being charged it cannot be used.
This is the general trade-off between wired chargers and wireless chargers, wired chargers are not as portable, but the device can be charged and used concurrently. Wireless chargers trade this concurrency to add portability and ease of use.
The truly innovative part of the STM Wireless Charger is the brilliant design decision to add suction cups to the side of the device. I just attach the wireless charger to my device via the suction cups and use it like normal, no worrying about not moving it, no wires, no outlets, and no hassle.
How Can We Make it Better ?
The STM Wireless charger is an amazing piece of technology, but I do have a few thoughts on making it even better:
- Add a battery level percentage indicator.
This is pretty intuitive, but somehow not included on the power-bank, I never know for sure when the actually power bank is going to be out of charge so adding in this indicator will fix this problem.
2. Instead of having a micro-USB port to charge the power-bank, just add plugs so that it could directly plug into an outlet.
This is a simple way to improve the friction-less aspect of the power bank by making the device completely self-contained and removing the need for any other moving parts.
3. Add Quick Charge 2.0 Technology.
This is a feature that I borrowed from from my wireless headphones actually, and it is amazing.
Quick Charge 2.0 is a technology by Qualcomm that lets devices take in more voltage safely for a period of time, which means much faster charging.
This would be an amazing feature to have in the power bank because it reduces the overhead required in the using the power-bank. For something that I am so dependent on, even those few minutes will lead to a greatly enhanced experience.
Now For Some Big Idea Feature Enhancements :
- Molybdenum Di-sulfide Rectenna
This is a next-generation battery technology, where devices have a receiver called a rectenna that is able to induce charge from WiFi.
The reason that all devices do not have this technology is most other devices have other use cases as higher priority, thus they do not want to spend the time and money to integrate this cutting edge technology in to the current suite of features.
But the only use case for the STM Power-bank is how to make charging easier and more consistent. Adding this technology to the Power-bank means that it will be charging whenever there is WiFi and in this day and age, that means everywhere.
2. Solid State Battery Technology
Lithium-Ion cores, which are the industry standard right now, are hitting an efficiency wall. To make them more powerful would risk the the danger of batteries blowing up or self-combusting.
That is why next generation batteries are going to start becoming solid state, moving away from Lithium-Ion cores to Silicon or Sodium based cores. This will allow much higher charge throughput and lower latency charging.
Because the STM power-bank is meant for smaller devices such as smartphones, adding solid state cores is feasible in the current moment. But more importantly, they it will mean being ahead of the curve in terms of battery technology.
This opens up use cases for bigger and better things in the future. For example, the biggest use case for solid state battery technology research is for electric cars. We can imagine that a few years for now, STM could be creating power-banks for the cars of the future.
Combining this with the rectenna technology mentioned above, I picture a battery pack that has self induced charging through WiFi and has a core powerful enough to charge cars.
Final Words :
The simple act of adding suction cups turned the STM Wireless Battery Pack from just another battery pack, to a product that is essential to my day being productive. Charge is something that every electronic that I use has in common, and this product is able to offer a unified and complete experience in this aspect.
Looking ahead, battery technology has grown at a relatively slow rate. But companies like Tesla are starting to pick up the slack, coming out with battery cells packing more power per square inch as well as charge faster. Additionally researchers are able to find more autonomous ways of inducing charge in a battery, such as the rectenna I talked about in the previous section.
I think that portable batteries like the STM can pick up on this trend because their use case is generally simpler than say Tesla’s car battery. If they are able to implement these next generation technologies, it will lead to a cutting edge power source that is cheaper, smaller, while providing a better experience.
