Israeli nanotech startup StoreDot took CES 2015 as an opportunity to introduce the prototype for its new smartphone charger that can completely power up a battery in under two minutes.
This feat was achieved by redesigning the inside of the battery to charge quickly instead of improve the battery's capacity, according to Mashable. While this method results in shorter battery life for your phone (close to five hours), recharging your phone a couple times per day won't be much of an issue.
StoreDot showed the charger off at the trade show, filling an almost empty Galaxy S5 battery to 100 percent in less than two minutes.
"This is not trivial, it took us a lot of research," said Doron Myersdorf, CEO of StoreDot. "This is a design that is trying to achieve something that was not the goal before. Nobody thought about giving you less energy, everybody thought about giving you more energy."
The current version of the charger supplies 40 amps to the battery, which is too much for today's phones to handle, BBC News reported. The battery that the charger works with is also different than those before it, as it features specially synthesized organic molecules. StoreDot's new 2,000mAh battery is able to recharge in three minutes.
Myersdorf said his company has already talked with smartphone makers in the U.S., China, South Korea and Japan about potential partnerships for the technology, adding that he has been in 17 meetings at CES with "all the major" players.
While improvements need to be made to make the charger and battery available to consumers, the goal for StoreDot is to start selling them by 2017 while also cutting the current charging time in half.
Instantly charging phones isn't the only thing StoreDot has in mind, as the company also plans on creating batteries for electric cars that charge within minutes instead of hours, Mashable reported. The company currently has a prototype that can recharge a Tesla's battery in three minutes, and Myersdorf said it should be ready for launch in about one year.
