Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration in Germany have developed a way to pack dense batteries into flexible devices such as wristbands of wearable devices. The technology has the potential to provide the necessary power to medical wearables that will be required by next generation of power hungry multi-sensor devices.
The investigators have built a wristband prototype that has a capacity of 300 milliampere hours and 1.1 watt hours, while losing less than three percent of their charge in a year.
Using this, considerably more power can be provided over longer times to smartwatches and wearables, which are mostly limited these days by one or more factors such as lifetime, quality of screen, sensing abilities, and wireless capabilities.
Moreover, since the battery serves as the strap, there’s more space within devices such as smartwatches that can be allotted to additional electronics, making them ever more powerful.