- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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That could is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that headline.
Also, we can barely get OEMs to support phones for 5 years now…
I’d say, 10 years is more than enough, the device is practically unusable after that, even if it’s still working.
the device is practically unusable after that, even if it’s still working.
Not if you can change the battery…
I am having to retire my 7 year old S5, which still works perfectly, because 3G networks are being switched off in a couple of months.
It won’t work with modern apps in about 3 or 4 years, or even if it does, it’ll be so slow, it would practically be unusable.
I have an Asus Zenfone 3 Max from 2016. It has 8 cores @ 900MHz and 3GB of RAM. I only use it for BT auido streaming (play music on a modified audio system from the 90’s), that’s it. It can play YT videos at Full HD, but searching and screen flipping is so slow, it’s practically unusable. Everything is generally slow on it, even browsing. It takes like 10+ seconds to load a more complex page (with media). Sorry, but that’s unusable to me.
It won’t work with modern apps in about 3 or 4 years, or even if it does, it’ll be so slow, it would practically be unusable.
Maybe on Android… my iPhone is 5 years old and works better now (faster, more features, more apps) than it did when it was brand new. It has a 6 core CPU with two of the cores running at 2.65Ghz (the other four cores are 1.8Ghz) - plenty fast enough and fully supported by all the latest software. Really the only thing I’m missing out on is 5G. And wireless charging doesn’t have fancy magnets to hold it in place - oh well.
Upgrading to the latest model would give me the same number of CPU cores and about 20% higher clock speed and slightly more RAM - both barely noticeable. I would get a better camera - but I’m OK with this one for a bit longer.
I replaced the battery a few months ago, which was free - under warranty even after five years because Apple’s extended warranty can be paid monthly and lasts until you stop paying (and gets cheaper, as your phone ages). The warranty even covers accidental damage (screen repairs, etc).
That iPhone has at least double the CPU power my Zenfone has. Plus more cache, I presume. If I had double the CPU power I currently have on that thing, I would probably still use it.
Upgrading to the latest model would give me the same number of CPU cores and about 20% higher clock speed and slightly more RAM - both barely noticeable. I would get a better camera - but I’m OK with this one for a bit longer.
See, that’s the difference (one of them) between bying an iPhone and an Android phone. Android phones are usually a lot more powerful. I currently use a Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro. 8 cores, 2.0GHz per core, 8GB of RAM, 128GB storage, 4 cameras on the back. And all that for 300€. No iPhone has those specs at that price. Sure, support is shorter, but why people throw that kind of money on something like a phone is beyond me. Still, it’s everyone’s personal choice, and I guess Apple can put in a battery in their devices that will last, oh, 20 years, if they really wanted to, but for most regular Android phones, 10 years is more than enough.
If this was an economically scalable proven thing today, phones wouldn’t be sold with batteries in 5 years.
It is doable, but it’s not practical. Technology moves so fast nowadays, a 10 year old i7 is easilly surpassed by a modern day i3.
Don’t get me wrong, I use old tech all the time, but it’s becoming increasingly impractical to do so.
Yeah so you’ll just move your battery from your i17 to your i18.
I was talking about desktop CPUs, but the same principle applies to any sort of SoC or CPU. What is “the best” today is surpassed within a month or two.
This is also why I usually buy second hand computer equpment. There’s no point, it’s extremely expensive the day it hits the market, and in a year, it’s like 1/3 of the price. This is especially true for GPUs.
Not all phones are smartphones. Theres still plenty of use cases for call/sms only phones.
And they don’t support anything higher than 3G, which will go in history in a few years… and then the only thing you can use them for is a paper weight.
Bollocks. Nokia 800 tough, 2660 flip, 2720 flip, 225 4g, 6300 4g, 8000 4g - just from one manufacturer, and there’s plenty of others.
They’re called burner phones. No real OS on them, no upgrade path, nothing. You wanna make phone calls and send SMS, that’s fine, but let’s face it, most people nowadays don’t use phones just for that.
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.
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.
1W is enough for a cell phone, if you combined it with a capacitor for brief bursts at higher watts.
Now play a game for an hour…
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.
You throttle the cpu with long heavy workloads, just like phones already do due to the significant thermal constraints of the form factor.
You could do it with a parallelized output from a bunch of them.
Or with a diesel generator in a wheelbarrow
Some of the first pacemakers used radioactive batteries. We left that concept pretty fast. And that is considering you have to cut your patient open to change a pacemaker battery. This will not happen in commercial cellphones
I think so as well.
But, it would be nice if it could be applied to vehicles.
100 microwatts? What does a phone use, like 1W? So they are 4 orders of magnitude off? So phones need to become 10,000 times more efficient or the battery that much bigger?
Edit: Also what is the language of the article? “63 nuclear isotopes”, it sounds like they mean “63 [different/individual atoms of] nuclear isotopes” but do they mean “nickel-63” by this? It is very confusing. Nickel-63 also has a half-life of 100 years, so if the battery is supped to last for 50 years, it has to be producing twice as much energy on day one that is discarded?
Betavolt is planning to boost its tech to produce a 1-watt battery by 2025. And while it still has some way to go, the company seems confident stating development is way ahead of European and American scientific research institutions and enterprises.
RemindMe! 1 year repeat
This is physically implausible. Also self proclaimed advances without 3rd party proof are less than worthless.
Yeah, I thought I was expressing my doubt with the “repeat” part of my Remindme joke, but I guess it wasn’t appreciated.
Yeah, like to get four orders of magnitude more they must get some real problems. 1. They have to find some isotope that decays very differently, faster/higher energy decays, which should mean more dangerous materials and inconsistent output over time. 2. It might be true that their 100 microwatt battery is fairly resistant to impact and cannot be manipulated to produce some explosion. But if you have a battery with 10,000 times the energy, like the energy equivalent to several modern EV car batteries in your phone? I would really start to doubt it.
It’s a variation of the same scam: https://youtu.be/5M5MF6KE-jY?si=7odXF_9q2SkumX7X
https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr-25829
Betavolt seems to be just using those flashy 3D renders of a battery that likely doesn’t exist. It wouldn’t surprise me if their datasheets mirror what was claimed by NDB.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/5M5MF6KE-jY?si=7odXF_9q2SkumX7X
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Remember when light bulbs used to last decades? A phone battery that lasts that long is incompatible with capitalism.
When they were really dim and far too red like 80 years ago? Or when they switched to LED and actually lasted a decade, like now?
Batteries that last a decade will open up the opportunity for expensive tech like we never imagined.
Or when they switched to LED and actually lasted a decade, like now?
LEDs with Edison screws on them don’t last that long. Maybe Siemens or some other brand name manufacturer, but the cheap Chinese ones last only a few months.
It’s the heat buildup that’s the problem. Disassemble them, slap a CPU heatsink on it and yes, they will last forever.
I’m at 5 years with 12 that are on about 16 hours a day…
The battery is not the main point of failure in contemporary phones, especially not one that makes you buy new unit. This new radioactive battery doesn’t change much
Fallout universe timeline, here we come!
50 Ci? That’s a helluva lot of activity.
And that’s for a battery that only produces 100 microwatts. A battery that produces 10000 times more power will be a lot spicier.
Perfect, my phone will outlast me
Depending on how radioactive the battery in your pocket is, that’s not hard.
This again? It’s utter bullcrap I’m afraid.
Others pointed this out as well. It seems it is a scam, but it might become a viable solution in the not so distant future (10 years or so from now).
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/watch?v=5M5MF6KE-jY
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
These tech articles on some new advancement are basically the same phenomenon of bullshit as articles ending in a question mark. The answer is always “nah”
So the reinventing of the Nokia is here. Capitalism probably won’t allow it unfortunately, the enshittening depends on degradation of everything
True, true.
Stil, it’s a nice idea… we can dream.
I just pitty all those artists that envisioned the 21st century with flying cars and stuff like that… we still run almost everything on petrol.
