Battery Trends that will Charge up 2017

2016 was a blasting year for smartphone batteries. It was since 9/11 that for the first time a phablet by Samsung was deemed more dangerous than bearded men with peculiar accents. The battery on Note 7 from Samsung exploded while charging, and when the problematic series was called in for replacement, the replaced devices exploded too. But what could 2017 have in store for batteries in smartphones? Here are some (positive) expectations from 2017:

Graphene to charge up the battery game

Graphene batteries developed by Chinese manufacturer Dongxu Optoelectronics will be capable of regaining their entire charge in merely 15 minutes. 2017 could woo manufacturers to pick up this idea and pitch it into commercial space, and use similar battery packs which could be used to charge smartphones and mini laptops such as the Macbook Air.

Anode-free battery developed by MIT, half the size

Next Generation Li-ion batteries to last twice as long

SolidEnergy Systems, an MIT spin-out have introduced an anode-free lithium-ion battery which is leaner and can last twice as long, compared to a contemporary Li-ion battery pack. Most devices including smartphones, wearable and laptops are powered by lithium batteries and this new technology could be a breakthrough.

Lithium-sulfur supercharged batteries

Simultaneously, researchers at Cambridge University have developed a prototype of batteries inspired by the lining of cells inside human intestines. These batteries, if harnessed commercially will be capable of holding five times charge as the present generation of lithium batteries.

New Qualcomm Chip with faster Fast Charging

Qaulcomm's Quick Charge v4 on Snapdragon 835

The newly release Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip comes with Quick Charge 4.0 which will make charging 20% faster. Smartphones using the new Snapdragon flagship chip will be able to gain 5 hours of battery juice in merely 5 minutes of charging. The technology will use USB Type-C interface and in 2017, we may see greater number of manufacturers adopting the Type-C technology.

Wireless Charging will gain impetus

Although wireless charging has been around for nearly 5 years now, it is likely to penetrate the affordable smartphone segment, just like fingerprint and FullHD screens. This is even more likely since Apple is speculated to release its next iPhone enable with smart charging. It will be interesting to see if Apple will be able to polarize the market with its method of reviving technologies.

Wireless charging