A French start-up won first prize in mobile innovation at the CTIA Wireless conference which took place in the end of March in Orlando Florida, for the invention of a photovoltaic film for mobile phones, ( although the technique can also be applied to LCD screens, digital tablets, technical textiles and outdoor displays).
Rewarded in the mobile innovation category “Green Telecom & Smart Energy Solutions, Apps & Hardware”, the start-up named Wysips (What You See Is Photovoltaic Surface), led by Ludovic Deblois, has developed a transparent photovoltaic film for cell phones and smart phones.
This innovation, inserted on the screen, can fully recharge the mobile in six hours of sun or in a day indoors, which could completely substitute the charger in countries with strong sunlight.
In any case, the film being only 0.1mm thick does not reduce screen visibility and does not alter the appearance and touch. Moreover, only an hour of sunlight is needed to get 30 minutes of call time. Thanks to the sun or just a flashlight, the film converts light into electricity and provides energy to the terminal.
In fact, it can be applied to multiple objects (and can then reach the thickness of 0.5 mm) but the media put forward by the company is the mobile phone: its thinness cannot disrupt the functioning of the touch-sensitive layer, and does not affect the brightness.
Wysips film will be available in the first quarter of 2012 and should cost only €1 for manufacturers. It remains to be seen how soon the greener manufactures integrate this into their products.
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3 réponses à “Recharge your mobile via a photovoltaic film on the screen”
It is great that engineers are working on this… smartphones consume a lot of energy and most of the people still leave their chargers plugged all the time.
Do you know if the conection between the screen and the power system of the phone will be as cheaper as the film? Won’t they need to develop also a different kind of battery?
I didn’t find something about a different battery, it’s seems there is just a microchip that converts and transmits energy to the battery. In this case it will not cost more than $10
Otherwise, in the same subject I saw a shell solar charger which cost 59€ that is quite more than $10 for a film.
It seems that this technology is not exclusively new because my cousin had an mp3 who just needed heat to be recharged which is a considerable saving in batteries. It was enough to put in the sun or in his pocket, which heated the device and reloading. And it’s perfect when you forgot your charger in holiday…
For me it could be one of the most innovative discovery of the year since it’s connected to all the actual debates like green energy and earth pollution. Maybe this kind of thing could allow to suppress the chargers which are big energy consuming. It’s nice to see that maybe tomorrow our mobile phone will be totally energy self-sufficients !
As it’s cheap to produce maybe we can esperate that companies will be interessed …