French corporation Wysips is focusing on a whole new technique which could cause smartphone touch screens to perform double duty as pv power panels to recharge cell phones.

The thought is pretty interesting [1] because it entails laying an extra thin transparent photo-voltaic film layer along with the cellphone display. The film may trap energy not just from the sun, but any nearby source of light.

Believed recharge times will be about six hours from sunlight and some moments longer from leaching electricity from indoors lights. Wysips is at work for the 2nd development of the technology, which seems to offer thirty minutes of talk-time after just one hour in the sunshine.

The major problem with a solar battery charger is the fact that the sun moves continually, and my practical experience continues to be that you need to move the battery charger every couple of minutes to help keep it in the sunshine.

Actually most solar chargers for cell phones will be best for folks who spend lots of time outdoors, and should not readily work with a car or wall charger for his or her devices. Backpackers, fishermen, etc, could possibly like this.

Otherwise, you are probably best choosing another thing. The most effective solar cellphone chargers in the marketplace take a long time to charge – a single hour charge provides you with just enough to make a 5-10 minutes mobile call. It requires something similar to 8-10 hours to obtain a full charge.

Another big disadvantage of these chargers would be that the unit could only be charged around 500 times. This might equate to about 12 months in the event you used it everyday. You will never go green with this particular thing, since you’d ought to change it every 12-18 months.

With more men and women getting cell phones and ipads etc…., the drain on electrical power grids is increasing. So, including the capacity for the cellular phone to independently re-charge from the light suggests they might help pull their own weight, and you also wouldn’t need to take with you a different battery charger or move it around.

Another interesting truth is the opportunity to utilize this system to charge the mobile phone while using indoor light… this can be a real bonus. The telephone will be continually charging as light falls on display screen, meaning it will be topping off it’s power as the mobile phone just sits inactive.

This evolution is a bit more appealing than previous attempts to make solar battery chargers for mobile phones, including Samsung’s Blue Earth mobile [2], which included a solar charger on its back. A few months ago Apple was awarded a patent [3] for a process to charge small units using solar energy, an indication how the company considers solar powered energy worth exploring.

The solar efficiency from Wysips’ charger happens to be only 9 %, when compared to the most effective solar panels used elsewhere. That is a lot better than the 0 % mobile phones offer now. The additional green energy gained coming from a solar charger for example Wysips’ could allow cellphone designers to formulate slimmer batteries for their devices, or facilitate faster, better devices with adequate battery lives.

Footnotes:

[1] Wysips Official Website explains in greater detail how the new solar charger works

[2] Official Samsung web site where it’s published the info about the Blue Earth Phone

[3] Techcrunch writes on the Apple’s patent on solar powered devices.

About the author: Sofia Susan Sheppard writes for the 12v solar battery chargers blog, her non profits hobby weblog she uses to publish the latest technology announcements about solar rechargers for small devices.