Phone-charging belt with flexible batteries

[polar8]

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/xoo-belt-by-nifty-a-phone-charging-belt

Any idea what kind of battery they're demonstrating?

[polar8]

Demonstration of the lipo:

[miguelvp]

Audio is annoying to the point I had to stop watching that video.

[johansen]

and what happens when it catches on fire.. 

[ConKbot]

http://www.powerstream.com/thin-lithium-ion.htm

In the 0.6mm thickness, looks like they get 2.17 mAH/cm^2. So ~3.5 cm wide  by ~70 cm of usable space in a belt that isnt going to get pinched in the latch, 85cm or more if they have a latch which grips the edge or something where it wont damage the battery.  Works out to 531 mAh/layer for the short battery, 645mAh/layer for a thicker battery.  So call that 4 layers to reach 2100mAh either way, 2.4mm thick of battery, 2mm of leather either side makes for a 6mm thick belt. kind of beefy, but Ive seen stuff around that.

4 layers would slide over each other as you bend it, and be better than one 2.4mm thick battery.  So, plausible claims, not totally far fetched.

[wraper]

and what happens when it catches on fire.. 

[ConKbot]

Its missing his pants being around his ankles because the belt went up in flames

[mikerj]

and what happens when it catches on fire.. 

had one of these belts.

[Refrigerator]

Come on guys, people are trying to innovate.

[rob77]

i would rather prefer a charger built into a backpack than into my belt if my backpack catches fire , then i'll simply drop it... but if the belt catches fire.... well.... i could imagine a better day 

[PlainName]

but if the belt catches fire....

And yet many people - possibly even you - are happy to shove their phone in the front pocket of their jeans without a second thought.

[rob77]

but if the belt catches fire....

And yet many people - possibly even you - are happy to shove their phone in the front pocket of their jeans without a second thought.

the phone and it's lithium battery are rigid and the current draw is minimal when the phone is in my pocket... so the risk of catching fire is practically zero... the batteries like to catch fire either during charging, heavy discharging or during mechanical stress/damage.
ok the guys demonstrated the cells are pretty durable - punctured and cut the cell several times in the video.... but they didn't demonstrate the many thousand times bending and actually that's what happening to a belt during wearing  - constant bending during the day... it's not a "single bend" in the morning and then static all day.... it's thousands of changes in the curvature of the bend all day long.

[PlainName]

so the risk of catching fire is practically zero...

Not quite zero - it has happened more than once. There is some thought that these instances were due to after market batteries, but that's irrelevant to the point that those people shoved their phones down their pants.

More relevant, I would have thought, is that this IGG affair would carry the appropriate test marks (whereas the 'light-up' batteries above probably didn't). As such they would be as safe as original batteries - otherwise they wouldn't pass the tests - so no more likely to burst into flames. If the don't pass those tests then you a) know you're buying rubbish and/or b) they wouldn't be able to complete the project. Either way, if the batteries are a liability they would be in really really deep shit.

I wouldn't worry that the batteries fail catastrophically. I would worry that my money disappears because they can't ship safe batteries.

Incidentally, BBC Click! showed this project over the weekend. They (Click!) tend to be near the bleeding edge but generally don't show hopeless stuff that doesn't have a chance. Not sure if that means anything regarding this project - maybe they got hoodwinked, or they have new and more gullible researchers just joined

[rob77]

so the risk of catching fire is practically zero...

Not quite zero - it has happened more than once.

agree it's definitely not zero - but the very few cases per many many millions of batteries is "practically zero".
it's like aviation - the chances that the plane you're travelling on will crash is practically zero, but we all know plane crashes do happen sometimes.

so in fact we can consider the rigid phone battery safe (as travelling via airplanes is the safest way of transportation) under the standard circumstances (no overload, no damage from mechanical stress).