This happened to HyperMac (now HyperJuice) batteries back in 2011. I still have mine, ordered before Apple lawyers went after them. It's wonderful.
Edit: Adding link to Wired article: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/hypermac-is-back-with...
For this reason I really hope GBatteries have a license to use the connector, and that they build in some cable management similar to what's on the magsafe unit, so the cable can be coiled neatly.
My other feedback is that having a built-in AC adapter would be so very useful. Look at the HyperJuice plug [1]. It's got the AC prongs that just slide out -- no separate wall wart, and no micro-usb cable. People that have only Apple devices won't have many micro USB cables around. It would also prevent someone from plugging the USB cable into their laptop while it's being powered by the external battery. :\
1: http://www.hypershop.com/HyperJuice/Plug/
(note that this model HyperJuice will not charge a laptop)
"A battery management system (BMS) that increases battery capacity and cycle count"
I'm sure they can apply this to devices other than the 12% of laptops sold that are made by Apple.
It's a battery technology company. This is their first product.
I don't mean to be offensive, just curious why you are so confident this company or product is a industry game changer.
PG's line there is a reinforcing hint for those that missed the Boosted Boards example previously or weren't too optimistic in response to that RFS. Hopefully it helps more people think about how they could approach big problems in an initially accessible way.
Everything from cars to renewable energy to light aircraft is going to be battery-powered in the future. It will be very exciting to see what happens in this space, and I'm bummed that I'm largely unable to invest in this space myself. Best of luck to the YC-backed companies :)
(Case in point: Tesla Motors have announced that they're building the world's largest Li-ion battery factory, to the tune of $5 billion).
I know that battery-powered planes have been built, but it just seems so uneconomical to me. Do you have evidence that could persuade me otherwise?
Or perhaps am I misunderstanding? By light aircraft do you mean aircraft less than 100 pounds or something?
A few months ago I looked into building this exact product. If you're a DIY kinda person and you don't mind carrying around some extra bulk, it's somewhat easy to cobble something together. If you want a light/small brick w/ self-contained charging and output regulation that just works, it's much more difficult and potentially dangerous -- especially if you want it to charge fast enough that a 1h airport layover is meaningful. Add in more advanced battery management/conditioning schemes, and I'm just all kinds of impressed.
Though, this claim does irk me a little:
> With the same battery, we could charge to a full 100 percent and it won’t degrade
> Never experience loss in capacity again. A Li-ion battery powered by BatteryOS doesn’t degrade in capacity over time, and as a result has a 4x higher cycle life than when controlled by conventional methods.
I think I need a better definition of "capacity degradation" here - if you acknowledge that there's still a charge cycle limit, I'm curious to know what happens once it's reached. Either way, I'm very sceptical of anything which claims to completely eliminate the effects of entropy.
they even lie about capacity/charge time just like Chinese
Is Apple friendly towards people who replicate their connector interfaces?
Or are Macs the only popular device out there where people wish "I wish I could carry an extra battery!"?
I would be shocked if they didn't have plans to expand to other products/devices. My guess is that they are betting that Macbook owners are most likely to pay right now. I'm not certain, but I'm willing to bet that Macbooks have a majority chunk of the high end laptop market.
So if I were in their shoes, I'd probably start with macbooks in order to gain a foothold.
Kind of makes me wonder if Apple would cooperate at this stage and then consider buying the company later.
The exact opposite: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/10/hypermac/
Watch Shark Tank for a while and you'll realize that even if you have a product people want, it's not trivial to scale a physical product business unless you have significant capital. Even if you reinvest the money you make, you are constrained by how quickly you can turn the money over.
Other than, maybe, a portable power outlet.
That seems absurd to me, considering the power supplies that ship with the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air are 85-watt and 45-watt respectively. They are assuming that each only draws about 10% of the power that the official power supplies are rated at. Anyone have a Kill-A-Watt to see the actual draw of their device?
The 13" MBA has a 54Wh battery, and Apple claims it get 12 hours of "wireless web" use. The 13" MBP has a 72Wh battery and claims 9 hours of "wireless web" or "iTunes movie playback". In practice, people find the Apple claims fairly reasonable.
While that does not prove how precise or accurate their projections are, I don't think they are absurd. Software-based monitors of power consumption on MacBooks show variation between low single digits and low teens under light use, and shoot up dramatically if you are doing something intensive.
The power adapter needs to be able to handle 100%, but the sort of usage where you get 6-12 hours of use while on battery is very much near idle almost all the time.
I have a 15" MacBook Pro, which has a 95Wh battery. Apple claims 8 hours of battery life on it, and in my experience that's an understatement. It also ships with an 85W power adapter.
Actually it can't; there used to be a support article on Apple's site named HT2332 that details how Macbooks will underclock with the battery removed, because the adapter cannot supply enough power with the system at full load. Other manufacturer's laptops have also been doing this, so Apple is not alone.
FYI, the unit you're looking for is "watts", not "watts per hour".
In electric RC heli circles, batteries come along once in a while claiming to use previously unknown techniques to improve the performance of existing cells and a few gullible people buy them. They never deliver on the promises.
People who make (established) battery management circuits understand very well how to care for the cells, and claiming to beat the numbers published by the battery manufacturers by a wide margin is close to announcing an "Ambient Energy" device.
[Edited to poke fun at idea, not person/company.]
I was around when in order to fly an electric heli you needed to attach a power cord to a wall socket. I'm serious. Back when I started it was gas only (I made it up to 60 size). I remember seeing a demo at a local hobby shop where outback someone had prototyped an electric which was hovering with a 110v power cord plugged in by extension cord.
Also, the patent: https://www.google.com/patents/WO2013142964A1
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/t-series/t440s...
or via using the Ultrabay as secondary battery? [1]
[1] http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_use_Ultrabay_batteries#...
[EDIT] Also I'm not in any way affiliated with IBM/Lenovo. But the always-on USB-port feature is also a handy emergency travel phone charger if you can (or have to) prioritize phone usage over computer usage with no power outlets in reach. Since the Ultrabook is off and doesn't have to use any power itself you could theoretically stay connected for weeks given a charged battery pack.
It is really funny to see Mac fans excited about simple external battery. This stuff is around for decades!
Without even taking into account efficiency, “nine hours for 100 percent charge [of a 50 Whr battery] on a [5V USB] 1A power supply” obviously breaks the conservation of energy. The claim “4.5 hours for 80% charge” breaks it even more.
They should make perpetual motion devices, not external batteries.
Question on how the technology works: I don't really understand what a "battery OS" is. Do they have circuits that somehow manage the battery better or something?
basically the technique involves pulsing the current during (dis)charging, and optimising the length and timing of the pulsing in real-time, because the optimal settings change through the life of the battery.
and
>I don't really understand
in same post, what are the odds? :) Its a scam. They are tryting to sell 50Whr battery that can be charged in
>nine hours for 100 percent charge on a 1A power supply
from usb (5V), thats maths 101
>Do they have circuits that somehow manage the battery
They are selling product that stores more power than it consumes while being charged. Its snake oil at best, more likely a scam.
In fact they're already onto the second generation of the product, with minor bugs and issues with the first gen already ironed out. I get this GBattery has a new "BatteryOS" management feature but right now that's vaporware and unproven, and unavailable for purchase - thus I don't really understand the excitement vs what you could already buy today.
EDIT: I found the article, and apparently the company was sued for using actual recycled connectors, not just using the design.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/21/apple_sues_hyperma...
They STILL got shut down by Apple because the Mag Safe also used circuitry inside the brick that they "hacked" to make their brick work like.. Basically DRM and DMCA for power bricks shut them down.
(Or at least be doing enough intelligent things already that they wouldn't get much additional improvement?)
>nine hours for 100 percent charge on a 1A power supply over USB
to charge fully into 50Whr battery. Its Perpetuum mobile. Musk would love one of those.
Just a thought.
I'm a little sad that folks can't get past the proof-of-concept product.
The game-changer is BatteryOS, not BatteryBox. Who cares about BatteryBox itself?
Think bigger, people, come on.
Do yourself a favour and hold on to your money until there are actual units that have been tested rigorously (as in, in an independent lab unaffiliated with the company) to see if the promises are delivered on.
Going one step further, possibility for some ML to learn your use case and charge your MacBook accordingly. Regardless, the battery is irrelevant, the OS is key.
Plugging this into my MacBook Air would make me feel like getting a $20 prostitute. And paying her $200 afterwards nonetheless.
on a second thought, why not make the color of the box, say like mbp body color, or other light grayish colors, when it's intended for apple products. the green color does not seem a right fit for an accessory of apple products.
>and a total of 9 hours for 100% charge
yikes! But i guess it's okay since it's a 'standby' battery.
However, having worked on BMS systems for lithium batteries this sounds very fishy. Maybe they've hit on something spectacular, but it seriously looks like snake oil based on the info they've provided thus far.
Yes, I do want it, mostly so that I can set it next to my Macbook Air (mid-2012) for a full day's worth of power, as is the use case shown so prominently on the web site.
Take away the MagSafe 2 and I don't want it.
Would love to chat about using Gbatteries in such a network.
Is this something that any power adapter does? Is there something in the way they have it connected that does this?
