Technology Casserole

Do you spend a lot of time using your smartphone more for it’s “smarts” than it’s “phone”? Are you Qik streaming a concert, or trying to check in to every single shop on the Boardwalk with Foursquare? Taking Google Tracks on an all-day hike? Then you need some serious battery power.

Facing these very issues, this is what I assembled. It’s called the Minty Boost and it’s available in kit form from Adafruit Industries. If you’ve soldered before (and have an Altoids gum tin to re-purpose) you could have it together in under an hour. The website has all the details for tweaks you can do to the kit as well as a description of how it was developed.

My experience using it with my Nexus One has been positive. It seems to be able to put about 50% charge into the phone from the rechargeable batteries I have been using.

Things to note:

• The discharge profile ends with the batteries getting quite warm as the regulator sucks every last electron to maintain 5V on the USB header.
• So far I have only used NiMH, but alkaline calls are also compatible and should do in a pinch.
• You do need to have a cable for your device (this is where the standardization on micro USB for cell phones will be handy).

The only concern is keeping an eye on the charge status since, on my Nexus One and my G1 at least, it will still think it’s charging after the batteries are drained past the point of providing power (after it’s gone all hot, as mentioned above). At that point I imagine it would be best to unplug the Minty Boost.

So go build yourself one! Or maybe try one of the other projects at Adafruit.