Smarter Batteries

Modern toys are amazing, they make sounds, move, dance, sing, and drive parents crazy. There is a rather large gulf between what a toddler will find endlessly entertaining and what that child’s guardian is able to withstand after more than half an hour of electronic cacophony. Unfortunately for guardians, there is currently* no easy way to disarm these battery-powered demons without physically taking the device away from the little ones leading to further chaos. Enter SanityCells, smart batteries for the modern parent. SanityCells are smart lithium-ion battery packs in the shape of 2 AA batteries next to each other, or in series. Using their onboard microcontrollers these batteries give users full control as to when a battery-powered device is able to be turned on.

Use is simple, when the battery is installed, users take a photo of the battery being put in, this allows the app to recognize the required polarity of the batteries as well as the battery identification number. Now once the cover is put back on users will be good to go. The app uses image recognition to recommend a device name. From now on users will be able to simply look for the image of the device that they want to fully deactivate or pause power to.

For sake of user comfort and to avoid more nefarious uses of the battery packs, they have built-in communication chips similar to the Apple Air Tag technology, letting smart device users know whether they are near a device using SanityCells.

When a SanityCell gets too low it tells the app to remind users to charge them, which is achieved by using the built in USB C charge port.

Reality.

Honestly, I don’t think that this technology is that farfetched, the fact that there have been at least 2 start-ups trying to offer something akin to this technology means that consumer interest/cost was probably a bigger issue than anything else. The note about the warning system was inspired by a concern that creeps might use these batteries to harass people, and if they are at least actively flagged victims will at least have an idea of what’s going on.

This 2016 post from 9-5 Mac talked about a remotely controlled battery system that used a $10 adapter to turn a AAA into a smart AA

While a TechCrunch article from 2013 looked at a smart battery with accelerometers that would cost $40 CAD ($19 CAD without accelerometers).

So there is a legitimate question as to how much people would be willing to pay for these devices. Rechargeable AAs that can be topped off using USB ports retail for about $7.50 per battery. So it doesn’t seem too crazy for $20 for something that also gives remote control to be a reasonable retail price. Whether or not that price point can be achieved is something else.

*I did find some articles from 2013 and 2016, but none of these products still seem to be available, but until I started doing research for this post I had no active recollection of seeing this concept in the wild (not saying it didn’t cross my radar, just that I don’t remember seeing it)