Hotswap laptop batteries let you keep the juice flowing

Sure, most laptops let you swap out a battery while the machine's asleep, but sometimes you need things to stay running while you switch out powerpacks -- which is where inventor Ric Richardson's hotswap batteries come into play. In addition to their traditional contacts, the cells have a small extension that plugs into your machine's power jack, allowing you to take out the dead battery and plug in the new one without having to shut down. It's a deceptively simple idea, but Richardson's got a patent on it, and he says he's talking to various companies like HP and Lenovo about using it in consumer laptops. We're definitely intrigued -- but here's hoping there's a good way to stow that cable afterwards.

[SimonRichards @ Feb 4th 2008 5:54PM]

Ric's gonna be rich!

[Geqxon @ Feb 4th 2008 5:58PM]

So the battery charges itself? Perpetuum mobile style? He so is going to implode the universe.

[David @ Feb 4th 2008 6:24PM]

you really suck dude

[Matt @ Feb 4th 2008 6:21PM]

Sadly, no.

When you are going to change the battery, you plug the cable from the charged battery into the PC, which powers it for the time it takes you to remove the dead battery and slide in the charged one. Then you unhook it.

[mushrooshi @ Feb 4th 2008 6:00PM]

Ive got a better idea:

Use two batteries, but:

when at normal, it will use one battery at 100%
then, when you are running low, it switches to the other.

[Geqxon @ Feb 4th 2008 6:14PM]

Dell used to do this. Two front-loaded bays, one for the battery, the second for the optical drive OR a second battery.

[thethirdmoose @ Feb 4th 2008 6:24PM]

So did old PowerBooks. This isn't an apple fanboy post, just saying that this idea isn't necessarily all that great

[morcheeba @ Feb 4th 2008 6:33PM]

Geqxon - yep, I used to enjoy that. 8 hours or real work without changing batteries! You could see the screen flicker for a split second when it switched over.

[Ric Richardson @ Feb 4th 2008 7:39PM]

Two batteries sounds great in theory but its double the weight all the time and the case area is used up.. with this approach the second battery only need to be made available when needed.. its a lot simpler... BTW a patent search by a reputable firm shows that this is indeed a new idea and has not been done before...

[KazO @ Feb 4th 2008 7:18PM]

I had an ancient AT&T Safari NSX20 that had 2 batteries that were hotswappable. So did a TI TravelMate, and that one had em both up front with LED fuel gauges on them. And old ThinkPads used to have a small NiCd pack that let you swap the main battery with the machine suspended, not hibernated.

And of course most high-end machines with swappable optical bays take a 2nd battery that's hotswappable.

[Mile @ Feb 4th 2008 8:48PM]

@Rick

Either way you're carrying around two batteries, so what's your point? That the laptop itself is lighter when it's on...the table out of the case? Big deal. The 2nd battery has to be nearby to be useful so it's in your case. Weight is weight. Quote me on that.

[kureshii @ Feb 4th 2008 10:38PM]

Fujitsu laptops already have this (not all models I think); a main battery bay, and a modular bay that takes a battery or DVD drive (or other accessory). What sucks about it is that both discharge at the same time.

[treetrunk @ Feb 5th 2008 12:22PM]

@Mile:

I think by case he meant the casing of the laptop. The advantage of this over 2 batteries is that it takes up less space IN the laptop, so it can be smaller, or have room for eg. a dvd drive.

[Enzo304 @ Feb 4th 2008 6:00PM]

Wow, that sounds so simple... Why didn't anyone think of this before?!?

[Geir E @ Feb 5th 2008 1:07AM]

What he have "invented" is an crippled UPS. So you get the same effect by getting an inexpensive UPS and just skipping taking the powercord with you. And when you are not using the UPS as a hotswap helper, you can actually use it as an UPS. Amazing. this one however is just a heavy brick that probably is out of power the moment you need it.

[Enzo304 @ Feb 5th 2008 1:19AM]

Did you read the article? Click the "read" link? It's a second battery, that plugs into your laptop's charging port. Then, (since your laptop now has power) you can pull out your first battery (the depleted one), and put the fresh new one (that's plugged into the laptop via the charging port). Once it's in the battery slot, you can unplug it from the charging port. And there you have it, a simple, and awesome, way to hotswap batteries without shutting down.

(By the way, we know you're just jealous, too. I sure wish I had thought of this!!)

[John @ Feb 5th 2008 1:51AM]

I totally thought of this just a few years ago. Ric's been raiding my thoughts again. I'm gonna have to sue him for potential thought/idea, copyright infringment.

[Artr @ Feb 6th 2008 7:42AM]

This really is a case of, why didn't i think of this before

just need to make it so it's not so cumbersom

[mike @ Feb 4th 2008 6:03PM]

Is it that hard to hibernate the laptop?

[marc @ Feb 4th 2008 6:08PM]

People that use the computers for field production and mission critical work will like this feature.

[mike @ Feb 4th 2008 6:11PM]

You could also just have a second battery in the laptop too though.

[sturmnacht @ Feb 4th 2008 6:26PM]

I know. Imagine having doubling the life to 8 hours in the Macbook Air.

[aguiluz @ Feb 4th 2008 6:32PM]

@Mike

It's hard to hibernate your laptop when you play games on the road like me.

Screw the PSP and DS. A Laptop is my portable game system.

[turn_self_off @ Feb 4th 2008 7:32PM]

hibernation isnt 100% reliable it seems. there are stories about all os's failing to come out of hibernation correctly.

[shaun @ Feb 4th 2008 6:05PM]

always the simplest ideas are best, as the adage goes

[WhiteRtlNav @ Feb 5th 2008 7:41AM]

Um, Dell STILL does this. If your Dell laptop has a D-bay (most of them do), you can purchase a battery to use in it. But, with as much as Dell gets for regular batteries, you're better off just hauling around the power adapter.

[Clete R. Blackwell II @ Feb 4th 2008 6:21PM]

What a brilliant idea! I'm sure that he will become very rich selling his idea. When I first saw this post, I was thinking of something like having a small internal battery (that lasts ~5 mins) that your main battery can charge while it is in. When you need to remove the battery, just let it run on the small internal battery for a second while you swap.

However, this guy's idea is even better. I sure hope that they implement this -and- make the cord auto-retractable (I'd hate to put it in like you do a phone cord. :().

[Che @ Feb 4th 2008 10:01PM]

Actually, I'd prefer a laptop with a two minute internal battery (or capacitor?). That way, there's no fussing with cables and no need for any voltage converters, which I assume this battery has. Just pull a battery out and put another in. No hassle. Oh, and any laptop with an optical drive should have the option to replace it with a second, hot-swappable battery.

[Clete R. Blackwell II @ Feb 4th 2008 10:03PM]

Yeah, that's the general idea. A capacitor rather than a battery would probably work better (& be smaller).

[DT @ Feb 4th 2008 6:21PM]

Brilliant. If I remember correctly, Apple laptops used to (or still do, I haven't tried it in a while) be able to sleep (not hibernate) through a battery swap. You'd close the lid, swap the battery, and when you open the lid you are right where you were, with no waiting to recover. I think there was a capacitor in there that supplied the tiny amount of juice needed to keep the laptop in sleep mode while there's no battery in. At the time I thought it was pretty neat, and that all premium laptops did it. No?

This definitely does improve on that though, because there's always the rare event of your laptop not waking up from sleep, and this avoids having to go into sleep mode.

[karts41 @ Feb 4th 2008 6:38PM]

You should be able to do it through hibernate. Hibernate saves the ram to disk, and turns off the laptop, so removing the battery shouldnt be a problem.

[DT @ Feb 4th 2008 6:50PM]

No, I know you can do it thru hibernate, but I was pointing out that you can do it while in the more power-hungry sleep mode.

[bobartig @ Feb 4th 2008 7:12PM]

Several versions of the Powerbook G4 could do this, including the original Titanium, which I had. Just close lid, swap battery, open lid, and be typing where you had left off, all in about 5 seconds. You had around 1 minute to swap the battery, although I never pushed it to see how long it could last.

Now that intel Macs are using more similar hardware to PC's, I don't know if this still works. My MacBook Pro will write a sleep image and hibernate like a PC lappy.

[Charge Ahead @ Feb 4th 2008 6:21PM]

It's more than somewhat dismaying that the idea of temporarily adding a second battery in parallel while the old battery is switched out is patentable.

[Dualboot @ Feb 4th 2008 6:22PM]

Ric may be smart, but his Photoshop skills are weak. if you follow the link to his web page and download his Powerpoint, you'll see that a) there is no power jack on the back of the HP laptop, b) the powerjack in on the left side of the laptop (right side of the picture) and that c) both the battery and the power jack have been edited for all the slides.

I would think that before you actually market this, you would try to build a working prototype, not photoshop one...

[Josh @ Feb 4th 2008 7:09PM]

Yup, those photoshop skills are decidedly dodgy, as are the electrical diagrams. Patents should really only be fully granted with the inclusion of a working prototype, or at least proof-of-concept.

[Ric Richardson @ Feb 4th 2008 7:56PM]

Hi, FYI the prototype for this is an old Dell that looks really crappy so I used my late HP but did want to ruin the casing on it... as you will see its not proof of work just illustrative... but the elctronics work as advertised...
Ric (the inventor)

[Ric Richardson @ Feb 4th 2008 7:58PM]

Maybe I should do a whitepaper for everyone... there is stuff that is going to the manufacturer but the idea should be able to be jerry rigged for most laptops... what do you think? Should I do that?
R

[Dualboot @ Feb 4th 2008 10:47PM]

A white paper would be nice. I personally would like to know how the battery can be connected to the laptop and provide power through two different ways (cable, battery connectors). In my mind, this would create a loop which isn't usually very nice...

[sturmnacht @ Feb 4th 2008 6:24PM]

Should he also make an external battery to extend the battery life of the Macbook Air?

[sjdurfey @ Feb 4th 2008 8:02PM]

i would hope so, arstechnica.com did a review of the Air, and with the screen brightness set to low, they recorded ONLY 2.5 hours of battery life. ouch. http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/macbook-air-review.ars/4

[Sirocco @ Feb 4th 2008 6:24PM]

Cool, something else we can't buy.

[Ric Richardson @ Feb 4th 2008 8:25PM]

Maybe if I do a whitepaper you could do the mod to your own laptop while I wait for HP or Lenovo to get it on their machines... would that be of help to you?
R

[western @ Feb 4th 2008 6:36PM]

This is a good idea, but sooner of later you get to the point of wanting to decrease the weight you are carrying around on your shoulder bag

There are so many tempting gadgets - hard to decide what to bring with you

[karts41 @ Feb 4th 2008 6:41PM]

I wouldn't mind an external battery, like a ups, but for a laptop.

Better yet, cover the external battery in solar panels, and allow it to charge the laptops battery as well.

[Jayayess1190 @ Feb 4th 2008 6:43PM]

You'll really need that for an HP TX tablet! ;)

[Emi Garcia @ Feb 4th 2008 6:55PM]

Dell has had this forever on their latitude line. You can pull out the DVD/CD drive and put a battery in there. Then you can keep swapping the media bay batteries indefinitely.

[bobartig @ Feb 4th 2008 7:17PM]

The Wallstreet Powerbook G3, which is 10 years old, had this as well. But you see, his patent uses your DC-in port instead of a swappable bay, which have all but disappeared these days to reduce bulk. I'm also 'whatever' on this one.

[Will @ Feb 5th 2008 2:59PM]

Well it's all DC-in, nothing special about using a different connector.

[Sameer @ Feb 4th 2008 7:27PM]

Why not just use the power adapter that comes standard with all laptops while you do this? If you are a road warrior who has the need to carry a spare battery, surely you will also have a power adapter and/or car charger handy.. or am I missing something here.