Batteries – Can’t Live without ‘Em
Last Friday was a bad battery day for me. My bluetooth headset battery died in the middle of a conference call. My mobile phone battery barely made it through that call before it died, too. My two laptop batteries didn’t provide enough juice to make it through my cross country flight from New York to Phoenix. To top it all off, when I got to the airport parking lot, my car battery was dead. Aaarrrrgh! (that is my contribution to Talk Like a Pirate Day).
In this hyper-connected electronic world we live in, we are terribly dependent on batteries. I did a quick inventory of the battery-powered devices I carry with me on my travels:
- Laptop (2 batteries)
- Mobile phone (2 batteries – take that, iPhone!)
- Wireless mouse
- Bluetooth headset
- iPod
- GPS navigator
- Laser pointer
- Security token
- Pedometer
- Wristwatch
- Flashlight
Plus my car, which apparently has a parasitic electrical leak we can’t find. Aaarrrrgh again!
I find it interesting and frustrating that in my lifetime, improvements in battery technology have been only incremental, not revolutionary. Our world is begging for some monumental breakthrough in energy storage technology that is cheap, efficient and long lasting.
In the mean time, I hope we can at least get some standardization in the devices and cables necessary to charge the batteries we have. Of the six devices I have that can be charged via a computer USB port, I must use six different cables. Aaarrrrgh again!
The problem of multiple cords, etc. led me to recently buy an iGo Everywhere (http://www.igo.com/detail/IGO+PS00099-0008) power adapter – 1 transformer with multiple plug-in options (I’ve got a standard wall plug, car/airplane plug and European wall plug) along with a "vampire tap" and adapters for my phone, iPod & DS (with many more available). Carrying a group of adapters is a whole lot better than multiple cords, transformers and plug-adapters, etc…..
-dave
Hi Dave:
I currently charge everything in my bag via my PC using USB, which is a big improvement, but I literally have six different USB cables to adapt from a standard USB port to the devices. I’ll take a look at the iGo to see if it simplifies anything.
Mark
very good