Charging Batteries: Can iPhones Share Power?

[Monkeyboy123]

Hi,

Does anyone know if (in theory) it would be possible to link two iPhones together by a small cable and share power between the two? i.e if the battery is flat on one and full on the other is it possible for one of the phones to "give" power to the other? The process of how much you share would be controlled by an iPhone app. i.e I choose to give 15% of my power to this other phone.

That doable or is there some reason why batteries can't share in this manner?

Many Thanks

 

[Evil Bunny]

Hmmm... Interesting idea.

I can't see the programming being too terribly difficult for the folks that do that sort of thing. Hardware issues would be the hang up... diodes in the charging circuit would prevent this, for example. Any apps out there that allow your iPhone to power anything external?

 

[turbo]

There are lots of solutions for the battery problem if you are in a remote place, including Eton Red Cross Emergency Radios that can be operated by magneto (crank) and have charging ports for cell phones. Phone-to-phone seems like a waste. If you have access to a fully-charged cell phone, why not use that one to make calls/surf/check emails, etc?

I don't know how many charging cycles that modern cell phone batteries can survive, though it's probably quite a few. I see a potential problem with designing a charging circuit that allows the fully-charged phone to be discharged quickly, though. Making calls, using the backlight, etc are comfortably within the design parameters of the batteries in your phones, but rapid discharge to share charge with a flat battery? Could result in overheating, and severe shortening of battery life. Just a thought. I don't design battery-operated devices, but those are concerns that you might want to explore.

 

[Monkeyboy123]

Thanks for the answers - I think the point about needing to rapidly discharge power and this probably causing overheating is a good one. Food for thought