The Rise of the External Battery Pack

Battery packs have become extremely prevalent. Anyone who keeps up with stuff like Kinja Deals will know they're mainstay staples of discounted electronics. Maybe a year or two ago it was a relative novelty - a portal source of electricity when an outlet or a car charger aren't available. I have one (had - spilled juice on it, goddammit) and it's saved me a few times.

While they aren't inherently evil or negative, they do represent an imbalance in the tech industry: the power of components has increased exponentially to the capacity of batteries. This isn't a new observation; hell, news stories about a new discovery that could increase capacity 10, 100-fold come out on a regular basis, yet none of this has trickled down into actual production units. It parallels our current situation vis a vis the Earth and her resources, and our apocalyptic future to come if nothing changes.

I really have no end point to make; just an observation on this weird market created around a peripheral based off a deficiency in our tech that we can't seem to solve "in-house".

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I'm in the Navy and I love external battery packs. I don't mind leaving one of those out to charge in berthing because if it gets nabbed I'm only out 40 or 50 bucks. Then I can charge my phone or tablet safely in my locker without risk of those getting stolen.

I have buddies who carry them aroumd, especially on foreign ports where outlets are different and stuff.

i bought one hoping it could charge my laptop but no dice, and i think i'm out of the return window so i have this huge brick of a charge device that doesn't do what i want it to do. b'oh.

I don't use mine in day-to-day life, but in special cases like traveling or spending long periods in places without electricity it becomes really handy.

They used to be so weak they were a gimmick but now I have one that was under $100 and it has enough juice to jumpstart a car.

I have a few, and I'm using them fairly frequently. My workplace has a weird thing about wallcharging personal devices so I use portable chargers there.

I agree with you about how odd it is that this tech isn't translating into the devices themselves. I hesitate to get all conspiracy about it but that's how it seems to me! Especially with Apple, who I don't trust.

I think my batteries are pretty amazing actually. With my phone, I'll use the GPS for an hour-long ride while listening to music off it via FM transmitter, listen to music on it the entire work day (through its own speakers, or my bluetooth speaker), use the GPS and music again on the way home, and still be at 40-50%. Do people just not charge their phones every day? I don't understand why they would need an external battery unless they're traveling or something.

I haven't found the need for one yet. My phone has two batteries I can swap out (screw you iPhone and Galaxy 6!) and my tablet lasts long enough I'm never without a USB port before it's dead. At least my tablet did until Nvidia recalled it because it's a fire hazard and I can't use it until they send me an entirely new one and it's been almost four weeks now and I'm pissed. I'd better get a free game or some shit for the length of time I haven't been able to use something I paid almost $300 for.

Rumor has it, battery technology has been held back by the oil industry who doesn't want cheap, efficient, refillable sources of power lying around, but I could be paranoid or reading the wrong literature.

It's definitely one of those things that is better to have and not need than to need and not have. I have a 1.7 mile walk to class everyday so it's perfect for when I forget to charge my phone the night before and I'm burning through the battery listening to a podcast on the way to class.

Still waiting for some Nano cell batteries. Remember those times you had the recharge you're phone once a week, ha the good days.

I think its kind of ridiculous to think that people need to buy a separate piece of tech to power their other tech. I'm not that attached to my phone that i need such a thing and hopefully never will be.

My laptop can take 1000 charge before dropping below 80% original capacity. In the past my previous laptops would be lucky to reach 300 charge cycles before dropping to 80% original capacity. Every aspect of technology has gotten more advanced. More power dense batteries, safer batteries, batteries that can have more charge cycles, batteries that can hold a charge longer while not in use, faster chips, more power efficient chips, smaller chips, lower power displays, wide viewing angle displays, thinner displays, more power efficient cellular radios, better antenna design, smaller antennas.

What it all comes down to is a balance of these technologies. How thin do people want their phone? How heavy? How much battery life, or, how often do you need to charge? If most people are happy charging once per day rather than every other day, batteries can be a half the size. Batteries are the heaviest and largest components of phones, which means a battery that is half the size directly means much smaller and lighter phones.

As for external battery packs, what has really given rise to these is the standardization on USB as the charging port for low power items. My phone, wireless headphones, vita, dualshock 4, mouse, wireless keyboard runs out of power, all of these things have a USB charger. If I'm on the go and need to charge one of them all I need is a battery pack and a usb cable. At the most I'll need a USB cable with a weird connector for things like the iPhone, but those exceptions are few. This means a battery pack needs at minimum one USB port to support a very wide range of devices. Before USB you would use DC coaxial power connectors, and there were a ton of versions of those. It was an exercise in frustration finding the right one, seemingly every device called for a different size.

Back when I used to be a reporter, which was also back when BlackBerries used to be the height of the smartphone market, I always bought spare batteries and an external battery charger. I'd charge up like three or four batteries and keep them in my shirt pocket in case I was out somewhere not near a charger and I needed to get info back to the newsroom quickly.

They made portable battery packs back then, but they were janky as hell. I tried at least one out, but it would hardly bump the charge on the phone.

It's nice they've improved on that tech, especially as phones are requiring more out of their batteries.

@ch3burashka said:

This is because what tends to happen is that scientists find something new and unexpected either in wholly theoretical terms or under laboratory conditions, and look to test for something that might potentially one day have an application in battery technology, but it could be nothing useful, and they need a lot of experimentation and analysis to work it all out. This filters through the news media and comes out the other end as hyperbolic nonsense like ONE PHONE CHARGE WILL LAST A LIFETIME IN 2020, with enthusiastic predictions from "futurists" and "analysts" and exasperated cautions from actual scientists. It's the same reason you get headlines announcing that a cure for cancer is right around the corner a few times a year, every year.

Imagine if Tesla made one! I would want one!

@ibarguengoytia: Tesla is making one. You'll just need a very big pocket to store it. ;)

Tesla Powerwall

Well yeah, but that's to power your entire house, not just your phone or gadgets. So, while technically that can power your phone, you still need to connect it to a house first and then the phone to your house.