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The Power of Not Charging
Next to my desk at work I have a fine collection of photos of power sockets from homes and offices around the world - the result of rummaging around under desks, peering behind cabinets and following cables to their source. In user studies I'm always intrigued to see how people tackle the problem of keeping their mobile phone charged - after all a phone without power is largely useless as a tool for solving life's little emergencies, and above everything else this is the reason that people consider the phone a mobile essential.
It is possible that technologies such as bistable displays will means that devices will have functionality without power, but for now our daily/weekly rituals include remembering to charge, and once charged - remembering to take the object when next leaving home. But does it need to be this way?
In the near term usage patterns will change when the two or so hours it currently takes to charge your laptop/phone/iPod is shortened to 10 or 20 seconds. That's a sufficiently short time to be able to pause a conversation and top up power if it were applied to a communication device, for example using fuel cell or capacitive charging.
The challenge of keeping electrical devices powered up can be tackled from a number of different directions. It's possible to make a mobile phone which has sufficient power to last as long as the device itself. The obvious (but wrong) starting point is a massive battery/fuel cell pack - it would make the product impractical to carry and the consumer market impossibly small. The opposite approach has potential - shortening the lifetime of a mobile phone to last as long as today's battery life. This is not as far fetched as it may first seem considering use cases around mobile phones bought from vending machines, a method for storing personal data off the device, combined with a system for recycling and re-circulating 'used' products to new users. As with most tasks (except entertainment and bodily functions) delegation is another solution - simply delegate the act of remembering to charge a device to someone or something else. Asimo needs something to do whilst you're sleeping right?
Usage patterns are currently constrained (or in some ways anchored) by the need to leave a device in a fixed location for a length of time. As that length of time is drastically shortened, or indeed eliminated our current notions of how we charge objects will all seem rather quaint.
Writing from Shibuya, back of | January 12, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
A couple years ago I went to the Haj pilgrimage in Mecca and I was shocked and surprised the amount of people who were charging their cellphones in the this holy area. Pretty much every socket had a charger (mostly if not all Nokia) and someone sleeping beside it.
Actually that bring something to mind. The power for charging is a cell phone is a fraction of the real power coming out of the socket. Yet why can you only charge one phone with it?
Charging a cellphone becomes very territorial and a power struggle at times when you only have one charger. Who gets access to it first like at a family setting, or even business. Does lowest charge count, the hierarchy of the group, or time available?
Why isn't their a charger with more than one head, would that change social settings if more people can charge their phones at once with one socket?
Posted by: nibaq at January 12, 2006 4:12 PM
Charging is indeed a hassle, especially when you're traveling to a foreign place. I once went to a South Asian country with my phone and unfortunately I did not have an extra battery at that time. I had to buy additional accessories just to have my phone powered.
Posted by: dan at January 12, 2006 6:12 PM
I've been wondering about the number of sockets in homes in different parts of the world, and the extent to which additional sockets can be added (bearing that extension cables are not always a practical solution).
Its easier to buy another object that requires charging than to add more space to plug in.
Nibaq - a problem in need of a solution.
Posted by: Jan at January 12, 2006 7:22 PM