you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 31 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Sensationalized clickbait.

100 microwatts, aiming for 1W in 2025. That's a big difference and 1W is still not enough for a cell phone. Phone-scale batteries aren't even on the roadmap.

  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    1 Watt is plenty to power a phone on average. While idle a phone uses less than 1 Watt. The thing is, nuclear batteries are a misnomer, they're actual electrical generators. For this to work in a phone, you'd want to pair it with an actual battery, and the generator would charge the battery while the phone is idle and that would provide enough power on average for when you're actively using your phone.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    1W is enough for a cell phone, if you combined it with a capacitor for brief bursts at higher watts.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Now play a game for an hour...

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Not all phones need to play games and gaming phones don't need to use this type of technology. I would love a phone that I don't need to charge and most people could benefit from one. And for the select few that like to play intensive games on it then they can get ones that would need to be charged.

    Though I doubt this technology will be the answer to that want though.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    My phone uses 0.6W when idle and 1.2-2.5W while I'm using it. Peaks are 8W+. No way an internal reactor only can power a phone.

    Edit: 0.3W when screen is off.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    A nuclear battery is not actually a battery, it's a generator. Trying to run something purely off a generator is stupidly inefficient because you'd need the output potential for the max load at all times even when on average the load is much lower. You absolutely want to pair a generator with a battery. Even power plants have batteries to store excess power.

    If you think a little past the name misnomer it's obvious that this would work by pairing it with a smaller battery to handle spikes in usage. The end result is still the same though, you'd have a phone you'd never have to plug in.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    What makes you think I didn't think past the name? If my phone had a generator it would have a 8hr sot/day limit, it'd need a not so small 1000mAh+ battery to balance out night/day usage difference and still wouldn't last an hour while gaming. That's not an upgrade for me

  • source
  • parent