Until recently, smart devices referred to clunky accessories that looked like they had come out of a Soviet era design school. However, they have now crawled into every nook and cranny of our lives. Even tools that you had no issues with have been enhanced by embedded chips, sensors and smartphone apps. So you have contraptions such as the HAPIfork smart fork that nags you into eating slowly, the June bracelet that tracks your exposure to sun, and there’s even a smart ring coming up — simply called the Ring, it lets you “control anything you want, by wearing it on your finger”, it claims.
While the inherent value of some of these innovations can be debated, there is no denying they are challenging ground rules a how gadgets are designed and powered. There are three fundamentals that are getting reshaped by the tsunami of smart devices: battery and battery lives, shape of technology, and materials used in their making.
If there is one link shackling mobile electronics across the spectrum, it is the limited time for which you can use a gadget before having to charge it. This is especially true with anorexic gadgets that have sacrificed beefy batteries to achieve that diet form factor. So current innovations focus on squeezing the most out of the battery and ensuring we can recharge faster than before. Qualcomm offers the Quick Charge system that claims to “charge up to 75 per cent faster than conventional technology”. Similarly, a key selling point for the OnePlus One phone, as well as the Oppo smartphones — such as the Find 7 and 7a — is the Voltage Open Loop Multi-Step Constant-Current Charging (VOOC) system. The company says a five-minute charge is enough to support a two-hour call, while charging the phone for 30 minutes tops up to 75 per cent of the battery.
StoreDot, a start-up, has leveraged nanotechnology and crystals made of peptides that are two nanometres in diameter. Currently available only as a demo, it recently revealed a battery that charged in 30 seconds.
And on the battery-sipping front, Samsung has introduced the Ultra Power Saving Mode, which turns the screen monochrome and powers the phone for more than ten days in standby mode and more than 24 hours when the charge dips below 10 per cent.
Smart devices don’t have to be boxy to work. Technology is wrapping around new form factors. The upcoming Motorola Moto 360 smartwatch, for instance, has a circular screen.
Shape of things to come
Meanwhile, 4K TVs as well as smartphones with curved screens have popped up. The ultimate goal, however, is truly flexible screens and circuit boards that can be folded or rolled up.
At Consumer Electronics Show 2014, Samsung demoed the world’s first foldable AMOLED touchscreen. Made of a plastic substrate, products based on this technology should be out in 2015. LG, too, has unveiled two 18-inch OLED panels — one is rollable, the other transparent. The former can be rolled up to a radius of 3cm without impacting functionality. In May, Samsung’s arch rival, Apple filed a patent for devices based on flexible displays and bendable metal traces.
Smart devices are also becoming hardy. Whether it is fitness trackers meant to be worn 24X7 or the two new Android Wear watches — the Samsung Gear Live and LG G Watch — expect devices to be water-resistant and dust proof, and able to survive a few falls. Sony is already using waterproofing as a differentiator for its Xperia Z phones, such as the Z2 and the Z Ultra, while Samsung has made Galaxy S5 waterproof as well.
Stuff that matters
The relentless drive for smaller, thinner, lighter and bendable smart devices is leading to a revolution in materials used. Perhaps the most high profile research is in using graphene to replace conventional silicon.
Graphene is a single atom-thick layer of carbon that conducts electricity with almost zero resistance and heat — perfect for super-thin and high-performance devices that do not require heat sinks or cooling fans, and are frugal on the energy front.
At Penn University, a team is digging into multiferroic oxide materials that are magnetic on one side and ferroelectric on the other — paving the way for nanoscale components. And the BBC reported on University of California research into a new metal bilayer made of nickel and vanadium oxide “that needs only a small shift in temperature to dramatically alter its magnetism — a useful property in electronic engineering”, it states.
Meanwhile, a team at Iowa State University is working to create electronics that dissolve in water, leaving behind no trace. We hope that the reverse will also be true someday — imagine creating devices out of nothing but water.
