/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25820260/257477_Swippitt_CES_2025_AJohnson_0006.jpg)
This is awesome! For only $450 you can get a machine that can automatically swap battery packs placed on bulky $120 phone cases.
You don’t need to plug a cable in your phone anymore, your over engineered machine can swap battery packs for you
I never imagined that I would live this long to see the future
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.
Mercur 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.
“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.
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.
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
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.
Yes, this is my experience with EV too (France)
When doing a long trip I actually enjoy having to stop for recharging. It gives me a 15-20 min break to pee, her some coffee and stretch my legs without having the impression that I’m losing time.
I’m in Australia, so my perspective may be skewed. The trailer would be optional, and I only mentioned it as the system as proposed could be just an extension of the self contained removable battery in a vehicle.
Unless batteries can become tremendously lighter, I see a standardised, swappable EV battery a given as a means to further increase vehicle efficiency. Why lug around hundreds of km of range when the distance between typical charging points is a fraction of that.
So you need to raid Battery Town and Gastown on your road trips while fighting off weirdos on the road? 😀
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.
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.
Years? If this part of ever actually gets released it’ll last about 6 months before they stop production. It’s massively expensive and completely pointless.
The fuck? Use a battery pack…
This issue has been solved for years.
deleted by creator
Swapable batteries were common on cell phones in the 80’s and 90’s except no fancy machine was needed.
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.
Some fairly recent phones even had docks that would charge your phone and a swappable battery at the same time
That’s whole century.
You mean a decade. A century is 100 years.
I mean /s
……fuck.
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.
90’s, definitely.
Which 80’s models mobiles are you thinking of, exactly?
The Motorola DynaTAC. They had a big Ni-Cd battery that is also the back of the case. You would need often need two batteries to get through a whole day, so they were made to be easily swapped.
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.
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
And those weird products that make common, simple tasks easier (think: 90s-00s infomercial for like jar openers or soda pourers) only ever showed normal, able-bodied people badly performing tasks. Doesn’t change the fact that those were targeted at people with disabilities without singling them out. The shown user is not always the target audience.
It’d be cheaper to buy a power bank for every person in the house vs this abomination
Marketing =/= Reality!
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).
Magsafe case and a battery pack?
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 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…
That’s what my thought was, and that would be way cooler.
Ok, its a battery charger. Why is it so big?
Because it is a battery CHANGER.
It’s ridiculous!
