News Microsoft shows off wearable battery-boosting tech

Presumably this is just a software fix, so could be applied to any hardware?

 

Does anyone remember years ago there was a watch that charged from kinetic energy generated from movement? Surely thats the way forward with these devices.

 

Still is, Seiko make a range called (surprise surprise) Kinetic.

 

Yep, there are plenty of watches that use hand motion to recharge, either coiling a spring or charging a battery. The amount of energy generated in in the micro- to nano-Watt range, so not even CLOSE to that needed to run a smartwatch.

 

This is common sense isn't it?

Computer terminals don't have enough processing power, so we do the calculations on the mainframe.
Mobile phones don't have enough processing power for voice, so we do the calculations on the cloud.
Wearable don't have enough battery life to sustain processing, so we do the calculations on the thing it's paired to.


But if they can get their framework right, the seemless change between offloading tasks and independently operable will make this a very good technology for smartwatches. Basically, don't do a Siri.