Swapable batteries were common on cell phones in the 80's and 90's except no fancy machine was needed.
this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
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and... get this: while you were swapping your battery you could drop in a swappable expansion on storage. Utter madness.
Many phones let you upgrade storage without opening it. Madness, I know.
I was using an LG G5 that had swappable batteries 3 years ago.
IKR.
Why did we start building batteries into phones?
So they can sell you a new phone instead of a replacement battery.
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So... you're essentially carrying around a power bank on the back of your phone all the time? Seems like a gimmick at best.
Honestly, fast charging has turned this into such a non-issue that you'll be hard pressed to find a more convenient solution.
Right?
$450 and a toaster to use something like the external batteries I've used for a decade.
I had one of those power bank cases, and it was absolutely awesome for extended battery life. It was always there with the phone, it was just a bulky case (which did not bother me), it tripled or quadrupled my battery life, and it was about $20.
Sorely missing that it's not available for my current phone (Pixel 8a).
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The biggest issue for me is compatibility.
Swippitt works with any phone as long as there’s a case designed for it. That way, a single hub can serve a whole household of people with different phone models.
Makes sense. Similar to the replacement phone batteries we used to have...
At launch, it will offer cases for the iPhone 14, 15, and 16 series, and the company plans to expand with Samsung Galaxy S series cases by the end of 2025.
Soo... They'll support some iPhones at launch, and in about a year, they hope to support some Galaxy phones. If being a hub is one of your selling points, that's a very underwhelming, limited list.
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Why do so many western start ups come up with ways to make something simple complicated? This gives me lots of juicero vibes.
Juicero was an attempt at replicating the printer (or Razor and blades) model for juice, that's why.
Merkur 23C, btw, in case anyone is looking for a safety razor that's both inexpensive and very good. Unchanged for literally a century now, no fancy materials ("aerospace-grade aluminium") but good ole chromed zinc and brass. On the blade side, Russians being out of the picture, BIC is probably the right choice unlike other western brands they didn't slouch on quality. Feather is always an option but many consider them too sharp. Also, more expensive. BICs should be somewhere around 15ct a piece. Don't buy anything of that stuff from Wilkinson or such their offerings in that area seem to only exist to make safety razors look bad.
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I mean a phone case with a removable battery? Yeah that’s cool. Already been done though … a very long time ago.
https://www.wired.com/2011/05/third-rail-case-adds-removable-battery-to-iphone/
But I don’t need a machine to take out the battery and replace it. It’s just something else to take up room on my nightstand and eventually break. I’d bet they somehow figure out a way to make it a subscription service too.
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2010s replaceable battery phones: look what they need to mimic fraction of our power.
At least with an external battery pack you don't have to reboot your phone (which is a minor inconvenience, as a FP5 owner).
2010s?
Laughs in Nokia
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I'm getting Juicero vibes
Right? This is so stupid
I especially love the sound! This thing is hilarious, can't wait to read the disaster postmortem in a few years time.
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Coming Soon: A subscription model where you pay $10 a month for the ability to use your $450 battery swapper.
And you need a special mandatory app on the phone to use it. It needs all permissions and tracks you. It downloads audio ads and uploads them to the swapper while swapping, so it can play them while you sleep.
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I thought the thing will lower your phone into the box so that the battery doesn’t take your whole room with it when it eventually explodes during charging…
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Wow, if only someone could find a way to miniaturize and "reimagine" this technology to put it in the phone itself...
Oh, right.
I worked as a consultant at a product development firm. One of our clients had us making a kitchen appliance that would take a “pod” of some kind (like Keurig).
Their little ad video that they made before involving us had a little CG video showing the pod floating into the receiver and sliding down into the machine.
When we showed them the prototype, the first question we got is if the pod receiver thing was motorized.
Like…no. You push it down. Takes 1 second.
Anyway replacing a phone battery does not need to be automated.
This doesn’t even replace the phone battery, it changes an external charging case.
We have these in bars etc, they let you rent a charged power bank. This is just that with added complexity.
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“There’s no AI of dubious value”
The whole thing is of little to no value. Maybe a good idea for people with physical limitations like bad arthritis where swapping a battery might be difficult, but for the average person it’s tech vaporware waiting to fail.
At which point even the ones who it does help will no longer be able to use it because it probably depends on an online connection for no good reason.
Didn’t even think of that, but true. The device would only work as long as a service provider is willing to support it. Or your subscription runs out.
Sounds super wasteful... It seems like the bigger the threat of climate change fucking up all of us the bigger the number of CEOs shooting shit into space and shitty "innovative" start-ups being founded
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I don’t see the use case for phones, and maybe there is for other personal electronics, but something similar for EVs should become the norm.
Basically a range extender when you need it, but it can be removed to save on weight when your trips are within the built-in battery’s range. Such a system could easily be extended to trailers, including their own static or removable batteries, and where the additional axles could be powered so they can contribute regenerative braking.
Having to haul a trailer of some sort would be really annoying for long road trips because of the speed limits towing entails. Not to mention the nightmare it is to find parking with a trailer, and even worse charging that accommodates room for a trailer.
I've been road tripping around Europe a few times in my EV, and the car is always done charging before the kids are done on the toilet and we have restocked snacks/coffee/gotten an ice cream. Having a break for every ~2-3h of driving is also extremely nice I found, you arrive much less trashed. It's actually only annoying when you stop to eat lunch/dinner, because you have to move the car before you're done eating because it's finished charging.
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Most EVs can now do 200 plus miles on a full charge so I really don't think range extenders are that necessary (especially when combined with level 3 fast charging). Plus where would you put it? The batteries on an EVs are stored on the undercarriage and they pretty much take up the entirety of the undercarriage, if there was extra space left over you would just put a permanent battery in there.
The batteries are what make EVs heavier compared to ICE vehicles, and the majority of trips don’t call for anything close to their peak range.
Installing a fraction of the capacity as a static battery would reduce weight for shorter trips, also extending the typical range.
Removable batteries could be installed in a standard cavity in the undercarriage, or in the regular cargo space, it just needs an electrical connection to the rest of the system.
Fast charging is also a problem, as it disproportionately affects the performance and longevity of the batteries. Swapping batteries would permit charging them at a more leisurely and manageable rate.
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How does this make any sense when buying 2 of the cases is half the price while also faster and easier to swap? It would maybe make sense if it swapped out the actual phone battery. Maybe that’s their end goal, but how does it make sense at all to sell this as a real product?
I'm always shocked by how unimaginative this tech-centric community acts. OK, so this version is silly for YOU. Are you the whole world? Are you the future? Stuff like this is typically a bulky demo unit in need of further development. Fringe case devices are also that - fringe case solutions. This isn't for the person sitting at home with a dormant phone. This probably has an application in medical and scientific fields where mobility is critical, staying in one device is necessary, avoiding a tangled external battery pack is preferred, and automation prevent human error like not plugging in the dead pack fully kor at all). Could have larger applications for swapping vehicle batteries, as well.
So don't buy it.
Okay so you tell me what use case there is for an automated battery replacement system. As opposed to just doing it yourself which takes 20 seconds. Especially because when it inevitably breaks you'll have to do it manually anyway.
All for the low low cost of a mid-range gaming laptop.
Well, their website pictures and targets only persons sitting at home with a dormant phone, and not some kind of other specialty use
It’d be cheaper to buy a power bank for every person in the house vs this abomination
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The fuck? Use a battery pack...
This issue has been solved for years.
A charging pad takes up way less space, costs way less, and is something you don't have to plug into your phone.
Still, you could buy a whole bunch of nice MagSafe chargers for that kind of money. But what Swippitt offers is a tidier solution, one you don’t really have to think about.
I don't really know how much mental labor I'm performing placing my phone on the nightstand every night.
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