July 3, 2011
WiFi 'napping' doubles phone battery life thanks to SleepWell
Justin Manweiler, a Duke University graduate student, has found a way to double the battery life of mobile devices – such as smartphones or laptop computers – by making changes to WiFi technology. PhysOrg.com reports.
WiFi is a popular wireless technology that helps users download information from the Internet. Such downloads, including pictures, music and video streaming, can be a major drain of battery.
The energy drain is especially severe in the presence of other WiFi devices in the neighborhood. In such cases, each device has to "stay awake" before it gets its turn to download a small piece of the desired information. This means that the battery drainage in downloading a movie in Manhattan is far higher than downloading the same movie in a farmhouse in the Midwest, the researchers said.
The Duke-developed software eliminates this problem by allowing mobile devices to sleep while a neighboring device is downloading information. This not only saves energy for the sleeping device, but also for competing devices as well.
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