Charging matters - the Samsung Galaxy S6

What does it take to capture attention at a packed trade show amidst all the hustle and bustle? In my case it was a single slide that promised a charge time of no less than ten minutes for a new smartphone due to be released. I stopped dead in my tracks whilst passing the Samsung booth at the 2015 Mobile World Congress - the specs of Samsung’s new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S6, were being unveiled.

Battery life and charge time

Charging is a nuisance and battery life still ranks at the top of most people’s preferences when selecting a new device. The paradigm from my perspective had always been “How much time do you get from a single charge?” But passing Samsung’s booth it occurred to me that by dramatically reducing the time needed for a full charge is another way to skin the cat. The nuisance factor of charging drops and influences the acceptance of shorter “battery life”. Device selection by scrutinizing the energy metric then becomes a trade off between the time needed to fully power the phone and the ensuing endurance of its charge.

At the Mobile World Congress: Samsung compares the charge
time needed for their new flagship Galaxy S6 versus the iPhone 6

At the MWC, Samsung claimed that their Galaxy S6 (due for release on 10 April 2015) will provide four hours of operation on a 10-minute charge. Oops. I initially thought 10 minutes would mean a full charge. Besides, does being operational mean making calls, browsing the web or just being idle in standby? This is where things gets confusing.

4 versus 3 hours?

Back home I quickly checked what my iPhone 6 plus gets me on a ten-minute charge from an empty battery. It’s battery status indicated a 5 % charge. It lasted for around 3 hours during which I spent roughly one hour surfing the Internet using a 802.11 ac WiFi connection. Sure, that’s comparing apples with oranges. Battery endurance should accurately measure the split of time spent on making calls, browsing the web or just being idle in standby as well as taking the wireless connection into account. But 4 versus 3 hours? Is that a quantum leap as Samsung suggests, or just another case of marketing interpreting basic physics in new ways?

Copying: the sincerest form of flattery

In its comparative marathon, Samsung claimed its new flagship phone charges in half the time of an iPhone 6. The jury is out on that one and certainly phone review websites will seize the opportunity as soon as the device is available. Keep watching this space. It’s clear that Samsung has done much with its new device to match Apple’s latest smartphone models: use of superior materials lead to a higher appreciation of quality; the battery is now built into the device and can no longer be removed; the phone no longer accepts memory cards. Some of these new features are bound to annoy Samsung aficionados who have cherished this differentiation from the iconic smartphone inventor. On the other hand, new features such as wireless charging with its support of both WMC and PMA standards means Samsung is one lap ahead of the field.

Keep your eyes peeled

Fast charging is a prized feature for power-hungry phones. I’m curious to find out what it takes in battery technology, semiconductor devices and the chargers as such to offer incremental improvements for decreasing the time it takes to “fill up a phone” as we move forward.

MWC 2015 and the Connected Car

Ready for the self-driving car? With all the hoopla surrounding this hot topic during January's CES in Las Vegas, many observers have been foiled to believe we're almost there. 

With this in mind, I traversed the exhibition halls of last week's record-breaking Mobile World Congress (MWC 2015) in search of the automotive industry's latest answer to its autonomous future. On the Connected Car front, this is what I found at the show which was frequented by over 93000 visitors and featured almost 2000 exhibitors.

Into the Conceptual Future

The Tesla always stops attendees in their tracks and NXP Semiconductors stashed a range of boards and modules feautring their automotive ICs in its trunk. More than anything, NXP paints a conceptual picture of the car's future if you connect the dots of new and existing functions that their silicon addresses.

Automotive solutions from NXP include:

- a single-chip radar front-end transmitter for ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) and collision avoidance

- car-to-car (C2C) and car-to-Infrastructure (C2I) communication based upon the IEEE 802.11p automotive WiFi standard

- a single-chip FM/AM/satellite radio with tuner plus further ICs that support digital radio such as DAB (+), T-DMB, HD radio and DRM

- in-vehicle networking using automotive-grade Ethernet PHY that complements existing technologies like CAN, FlexRay etc.

- a wireless "smart car key" using NFC hidden in an iPhone cover

Replacing mirrors with cameras and screens

Qualcomm and QNX showcase the future of automotive in a Maserati that uses cameras and displays where we usually find mirrors. The video feeds are delivered by two front cameras, one at the back, and one on the roof of the car. 

The development platform embedded in the car uses Qualcomm ICs built around its automotive grade Snapdragon 602A quadcore processor and the QNX operating system. The 602A integrates four Krait CPUs, one Adreno graphics engine, a Hexagon DSP, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, three USB ports and support for four camera connections by way of the MIPI standard. At the center of the driver's console is a large 12-inch infotainment display that reacts to touch, voice and gestures. Qualcomm's Gobi 3G/4G modem connects to the cellular network for communications and media streaming. It further serves the WiFi hotspot in the car for passenger entertainment. The center console also features a surface to wirelessly charge your cell phone based Qualcomm's WiPower solution based on the Rezense standard.

Connect to and control your e-vehicle

Porsche's Car Connect service is not a future concept but is something real and available today.

The Panamera e-hybrid vehicle is equipped with a telematics unit from Italian company Cobra, which Vodafone recently acquired. By way of a cellular "machine to machine" connection (M2M), the service features vehicle tracking, remote monitoring & assistance, as well as usage-based insurance. 

The smartphone app controls the electric charging of the Panamera and can also detect the car's location. Vodafone is the operator providing the cellular connection. The service's annual pricing ranges from € 145 to € 289. When buying a Panamera, the first year of service is free.

The best ager's dream come true

On Ford's booth visitors saw what is more akin to a connected bike than the Connected Car: an e-bike that folds and stows easily into the back of the car, with an accompanying smartphone app that finds bike-friendly roads, calculates the best route, and suggests convenient parking.

The MoDe:Me e-bike targets urban commuters who are wary of congested city traffic and thus decide to park on the city outskirts and use their 200-watt e-bike to travel to their final destination.

A carrier's automotive focus

From 2016 onwards, AT&T will provide all US Audi models featuring their Connect infotainment system with 4G LTE or 3G coverage allowing drivers to enjoy navigation, streaming and high-speed access to the Internet. 

An AT&T SIM card will be pre-installed in the telematics unit for customers who purchase a new Audi in the USA next year, enabling on-board Internet access for up to 8 devices.

AT&T works together with car manufacturers in its 5,000-square-foot innovation center in Atlanta called Drive Studio to create new technologies and services for the Connected Car ecosystem.

Something simple for the automotive after-market

Visitors perusing this year's MWC showgrounds will have noticed the VIP shuttles with a banner of Huawei's simple yet neat product called CarFi on them.

That's the Connected Car in its most basic form. CarFi plugs into a 12-volt cigarette lighter socket and allows any car to become a WiFi hotspot for up to 10 devices using a LTE connection that supports up to 150 Mbit/s. The device retails for roughly € 160.

Bold visionaries see the autonomous car traveling on public roads by 2017. That's hard to imagine right now. For the moment most of us will be able to get Internet into their car in one way or another.