You know, for somebody who doesn’t even really want a smartwatch right now, I feel like I’ve been writing a lot about them lately. Despite the fact that I don’t fancy smartwatches in their current form, I do think that the development of the gadget is rather interesting and heading in the right direction to become a more “standard” accessory, and possibly even a standalone product.
But let’s back up a little bit before we even dive into talking about smartphones. Instead, what we need to talk about is flexibility, and how it’s become a highly anticipated design feature in our smart products for quite some time. We first started entertaining the idea of flexible smart products when we heard that graphene, a super product that is apparently supposed to fix everything wrong with today’s designs, was able to be used to make one super thin, super flexible, and super long-lasting battery. We were also dabbling in flexible screens, so when we put two and two together we thought perhaps that the idea was to make flexible smartphones sometime in the future. Yes, a smartphone that you could roll up, fold up, boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew (a little Lord of the Rings humor, please don’t treat any phone like ‘taters).
We’ve still never seen anything quite like that, but we’ve taken steps to get there - just look at the LG G Flex, Samsung Galaxy Round, or even the new Samsung Galaxy Note Edge. We’ve got “flexible” displays, but they’re only flexible to an extent. The main purposes of the G Flex or the Round was to give the user better viewing angles or a more comfortable hold in the hand, not being able to bend the phone any which way they wanted.
But you can’t make truly flexible phones without a flexible battery, which is something that Samsung recently unveiled that they’ve created. It’s even been described as being able to roll up and still be fully functional. Does this mean that “flexible phones” will soon be making their way to shelves? Probably not. If I had to guess now, the main purpose behind a truly flexible display or battery probably serves a much smaller purpose: smartwatches. Particularly, increasing the abysmal battery life that most smartwatches have today.
It wasn’t too long ago that I wrote an article talking about the benefits of the Pebble smartwatch, even though it’s probably the smartwatch with the fewest features on the market. However, one feature that really stands it out from the rest of the smartwatches is its ability to last at least a week. Most other smartwatches can get 3 days if you’re lucky, 4 days at most, and probably more if you don’t plan on using any of the extra features you’re actually paying for. With this new flexible battery, Samsung has the ability to extend smartwatch battery life significantly by placing this battery in the wristband.
Perhaps the smartwatch game is about to change, and in Samsung’s favor. With a longer battery life, companies could probably justify the $250+ price tag, especially in Samsung’s case. All of those crazy features that Samsung has added to their smartwatch could finally be usable for a much longer amount of time.
Many people are already on board with the idea and love their smartwatches as is, but battery life seems to be one of the biggest reasons that people choose not to even consider the gadget. Would a longer battery life in smartwatches change how you view smartwatches today? Let us know in the comments below!
Image via Daily Mail, Mashable
