
Gbatteries (YC W14) Launches BatteryBox, A 50Whr Backup Battery For MacBooks - timsher
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/24/gbatteries-batterybox/
======
bittercynic
They're making some pretty strange claims about capacity and number of cycles.

In electric RC heli circles, batteries come along once in a while claiming to
use previously unknown techniques to improve the performance of existing cells
and a few gullible people buy them. They never deliver on the promises.

People who make (established) battery management circuits understand very well
how to care for the cells, and claiming to beat the numbers published by the
battery manufacturers by a wide margin is close to announcing an "Ambient
Energy" device.

[Edited to poke fun at idea, not person/company.]

~~~
thrownaway2424
Yeah, it's obviously snake oil. If you had a technology that increased the
charge-cycle lifetime of a battery by any substantial amount, you wouldn't be
marketing a stupid plastic box for mactards. You'd be cashing billion-dollar
checks twice a day.

~~~
Blahah
if you read the article, you'd see they're working on OEM deals to get the
tech into batteries across the board. The Box is just a nice consumer demo so
people can get their hands on it now. Actually a pretty smart PR move.

Also, the patent:
[https://www.google.com/patents/WO2013142964A1](https://www.google.com/patents/WO2013142964A1)

~~~
thrownaway2424
That's a patent application, yes. Are you aware that the USPTO gets so many
applications for perpetual motion patents that they have regulations
forbidding them? Patent application does not in any way indicate feasibility.

~~~
resu_nimda
I believe the point was for you, with all of your infinite battery wisdom, to
review the patent and possibly even use that to back up your hyperbolic
"obviously snake oil" claim, but I'm not holding my breath.

------
pg
Here is a classic example of a startup launching an Altair Basic with the
potential produce a Microsoft-like giant. Incidentally, I think this is also
the first father/son team we've funded.

~~~
_jss
What is the strategy for when Apple disallows sales based on the Magsafe
adapter?

This happened to HyperMac (now HyperJuice) batteries back in 2011. I still
have mine, ordered before Apple lawyers went after them. It's wonderful.

Edit: Adding link to Wired article:
[http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/hypermac-is-back-
with...](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/hypermac-is-back-with-cable-
chopping-magic-magsafe-adapter/)

~~~
pg
I don't remember the details, but IIRC they are Apple proof.

~~~
enraged_camel
Hopefully, but color me skeptical. I don't see how _anyone_ can be X-proof,
where X is a company that has over $100 billion in their bank account.

~~~
kalleboo
HyperMac literally bought Apple adapters and chopped off the cable. I'm not
sure how much more Apple-proof you can get than that. What you need to be is
"lawyers on retainers who can keep draining your law funds"-proof.

edit: another comment suggest a MagSafe-MagSafe2 adapter is used. That's an
interesting solution that may very well work if they require the customer to
buy it themselves, as I believe the Apple patent hinges on using a magnet. Of
course, they may want to argue that in court. For years and years.

------
mxfh
Maybe this feature was a bit underreported: the current line of _Lenovo_ 's
Ultrabooks, the _ThinkPad X240 /T440s_ allows for hot swapping the battery
pack while running on a secondary built in battery. Adding up to 23.5 Whr
built in plus up to 72Whr per battery pack.

[http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/t-series/t440s...](http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/t-series/t440s/#features)

~~~
bananas
Yep. I could do this on my circa 2005 IBM T43.

~~~
pekk
Great. So why can't you do it on a MacBook Pro?

~~~
photojosh
Because they valued more the engineering advantage of a built-in battery:
thinness, weight, individually connected cells for power management.

Those attributes of design are more appealing to the majority than are
interchangeable batteries.

My MBP and MBAir, even with the single built-in battery, gets more runtime
than a 1996 laptop with two battery packs.

------
hackcasual
I suspect the 100% charging time was miscalculated. USB power is 5volts, so a
1A charger meants 5W of continuous power. Battery charging, especially past
85% is not very efficient, so I suspect total charging time will be more in
the neighborhood of 20 hours.

~~~
jmgrosen
My guess is those times are assuming a 2A charger, which isn't particularly
uncommon nowadays.

~~~
hackcasual
They call that out as taking half as long. My guess is they calculated the
charge time using 1A but the voltage from the output (17v?)

~~~
rasz_pl
>nine hours for 100 percent charge on a 1A power supply

They are simply LYING, probably learned from the same Chinese that will build
it for them using 5000mAh* Ultrafire 16850 cells ;)

*400mAh when tested

------
gopalv
Why Macbooks?

Is Apple friendly towards people who replicate their connector interfaces?

Or are Macs the only popular device out there where people wish "I wish I
could carry an extra battery!"?

~~~
maxmcd
If you wanted to cover as much current and future market share as possible (at
least in the market they're targeting) I can't think of a better current
combination than magsafe2 + usb.

Other than, maybe, a portable power outlet.

~~~
ctz
You surely mean magsafe 2, here.

------
ja27
Love it. Actually sitting next to my own "battery box" \- a wheeled backpack
with a 55 amp-hour AGM (lead acid) battery and inverter. I think I can get 3
work days out of that, but it's a lot bigger than this. Great for taking to
the park though.

------
diminoten
This has almost nothing at all to do with Apple.

I'm a little sad that folks can't get past the proof-of-concept product.

The game-changer is BatteryOS, not BatteryBox. Who cares about BatteryBox
itself?

Think bigger, people, come on.

~~~
kalleboo
There's not much to discuss about BatteryOS until it's been verified by third
parties. Every 4 months or so we get a news article about some amazing
breakthrough in battery technology, and they never ever seem to pan out.

------
rayiner
This technology, if legit, is I think a very good example of where software
patents can add value. The future of this technology isn't a little $139
backup battery for Macbooks. Rather, its licensing the charging algorithms to
every battery charging controller manufacturer on the planet. One can imagine
that over time it might be a good idea for a company like this to vertically
integrate and start producing its own batteries, but it's going to be a long
time before they have the capital to take on the Korean/Japanese companies
currently playing in that space. The alternative might be to angle to get
bought by an Apple or Samsung, but that's probably not what's best for the
industry. There's a lot of value to R&D companies like this that can focus on
a specific niche without having to rely on some vertically-integrated
conglomerate to get anything done.

------
qwerta
My laptop has swapable battery. I can also swap HDD bay from my desktop when I
am traveling.

It is really funny to see Mac fans excited about simple external battery. This
stuff is around for decades!

~~~
alexcroox
What laptop do you have? Macbook Pro's are so thin now even a RJ45 hole is too
tall. I can forgive them for not having a replaceable battery for size/weight
and noise reduction having everything so tightly integrated.

~~~
jsnell
The ThinkPad x240 is thinner and lighter than a MacBook Pro and still manages
to find space for an external battery, an RJ45 jack, and a VGA connector.

~~~
natdempk
Its not thinner. The x240 is 0.8 inches thick [1] and the MacBook Pro is 0.71
inches thick. [2] Not trying to fanboy here having used both of those laptops
recently.

[1] [http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/lenovo-
thinkpad-x24...](http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/lenovo-
thinkpad-x240.aspx)

[2] [http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-
retina/](http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/)

~~~
jsnell
Thanks, and sorry about the misinformation. I got my info from
[http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/](http://www.apple.com/macbook-
pro/specs/), which was the first result for a search for "Macbook Pro
dimensions". Didn't realize that was apparently obsolete info.

------
zxcvvcxz
Wow this seems to be a very clear-cut value add.

Question on how the technology works: I don't really understand what a
"battery OS" is. Do they have circuits that somehow manage the battery better
or something?

~~~
klaruz
They say they have a patent pending, that should have more details. I would
like to read it, can anybody find the filing?

[http://www.gbatteries.com/technology/](http://www.gbatteries.com/technology/)

~~~
Blahah
pretty sure it's this one:
[https://www.google.com/patents/WO2013142964A1](https://www.google.com/patents/WO2013142964A1)

basically the technique involves pulsing the current during (dis)charging, and
optimising the length and timing of the pulsing in real-time, because the
optimal settings change through the life of the battery.

~~~
noonespecial
I'm kind of a battery nut. I've been building various pulse chargers and
capacitive current limiting chargers for years. Without fail all of my most
promising pulse charge/bleed schemes that yielded faster charges and greater
runtimes have done so at the expense of cycle numbers. Usually by a factor of
10 or more. I hope they've outsmarted this, but I have my doubts.

------
dotBen
Mentioned in passing in child comments below, but worth highlighting - the
HyperJuice Battery range of products (eg
[http://amzn.to/1mqK9ap](http://amzn.to/1mqK9ap)) already does this, at a
similar price point, and is available for purchase today.

In fact they're already onto the second generation of the product, with minor
bugs and issues with the first gen already ironed out. I get this GBattery has
a new "BatteryOS" management feature but right now that's vaporware and
unproven, and unavailable for purchase - thus I don't really understand the
excitement vs what you could already buy today.

~~~
mcmillion
We bought a HyperJuice 2 for use on trips. It's terrible. It'll charge a 15"
rMBP about 10-15% before it's completely dead.

~~~
post_break
It's not made to charge the laptops. It's made to keep them running. The rmbp
will suck any battery dry trying to charge and run at the same time. Keep the
rmbp at 100% and plug in the battery and let me know how long it lasts.

------
JSadowski
They claim that their 50 Whr battery can power a MacBook Pro for 6 hours, a
MacBook Air for 12 hrs. By my math, that would mean that the MacBook Pro would
only be consuming an average of around 8.3 watts an hour, the air only around
4.2 watts an hour.

That seems absurd to me, considering the power supplies that ship with the
MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air are 85-watt and 45-watt respectively. They are
assuming that each only draws about 10% of the power that the official power
supplies are rated at. Anyone have a Kill-A-Watt to see the actual draw of
their device?

~~~
rayiner
The Air has I think a 50 WHr battery and will last 11-12 hours for Wi-Fi
surfing. I think the idle load is just a couple of watts. Peak load is of
course higher.

~~~
JSadowski
Good point, I didn't think to check the capacity of the Air's internal
battery.

------
ed
Would love to see a battery built in to my MBP's power brick. Charge, and
provide power, when it's plugged in. Run off the battery when it's not.

------
ycaspirant
Many companies have been trying to produce external Macbook batteries (e.g.
[http://www.hypershop.com/HyperJuice/External-Battery-for-
Mac...](http://www.hypershop.com/HyperJuice/External-Battery-for-MacBook-iPad-
iPhone-USB/)), but the major stumbling block has been that Apple does not
allow third parties to use the Magsafe interface. Has Gbatteries found a way
around this problem?

------
huslage
Come on pg. This isn't real tech. This is just a battery in a box with a $1
microcontroller. We could hack this together in a day in my basement.

------
ntoshev
It was about time someone optimized charging/discharging of batteries. I
didn't know ordinary batteries have such a potential for optimization, I
thought that would be the batteries in UPSes. Current UPS batteries die in 3
years, having been used just a dozen times, apparently because the UPS insists
to keep them fully charged at all times. Someone fix this, please.

------
jacquesm
Pre-ordering hardware that makes promises of substantial improvements over the
status-quo that will only be testable by the buyer a few years down the line
is a recipe for disaster.

Do yourself a favour and hold on to your money until there are actual units
that have been tested rigorously (as in, in an independent lab unaffiliated
with the company) to see if the promises are delivered on.

~~~
JacobAldridge
Would have been nice if TechCrunch did some testing / reporting, instead of
accepting / repeating. Not that I'm surprised, just would have been nice in
this area.

------
williwu
Does Apple allow licensing of MagSafe now?

~~~
iwasakabukiman
That was my first thought. I remember reading a few years ago that a company
actually had to stop making Macbook compatible external batteries because
Apple threatened to sue them over use of the MagSafe connector.

EDIT: I found the article, and apparently the company was sued for using
actual recycled connectors, not just using the design.

[http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/21/apple_sues_hyperma...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/21/apple_sues_hypermac_accessory_maker_over_magsafe_ipod_cables)

~~~
mabhatter
But they used recycled connectors as a way of using the legal argument their
product was a "customer modification" of a licensed and paid for product. You
sent them YOUR charger and they modified it to work with their device.

They STILL got shut down by Apple because the Mag Safe also used circuitry
inside the brick that they "hacked" to make their brick work like.. Basically
DRM and DMCA for power bricks shut them down.

~~~
post_break
I have one of the original cables before they got shut down. It's just a
magsafe end with a barrel connector on the other. No DRM voodoo.

~~~
rasz_pl
DRM voodoo is in the charger, it speaks 1-Wire telling computer its make model
and power. Most likely can also be controlled over 1-Wire.

~~~
kens
The magsafe connector talks 1-wire, not the charger itself. It provides serial
number and version info but no DRM/crypto. The Mac also uses the 1-wire to
control the LEDs on the connector. See my teardown for the details:
[http://www.righto.com/2013/06/teardown-and-exploration-of-
ma...](http://www.righto.com/2013/06/teardown-and-exploration-of-magsafe.html)

~~~
rasz_pl
Nice, thanks. What about magsafe2? same deal? DELL also uses serial connection
with the charger, with chip inside the charger. Kinda surprising Apple didnt
lock it down like they are used to do.

------
akramhussein
BatteryOS seems to be the most important aspect here. Consumer electronics
manufacturers have different goals than this class of product, which may not
always align with every consumer. So if they are abstracting all that logic
into their own MCU OS, that is pretty smart. I can see an iPhone/Mac app to
tune your BatteryBox to charge faster at the cost of life time/cycles(?)
(clearly telling you this!) or vice versa...allowing you to tailor the
solution to your needs. This is different to what Apple would offer as they
need to find a one size fits all solution and that is usually some sweet spot
for high cycle count + low charge time and long battery life.

Going one step further, possibility for some ML to learn your use case and
charge your MacBook accordingly. Regardless, the battery is irrelevant, the OS
is key.

------
dsirijus
Get a new industrial designer onboard. Yesterday. Seeing the thing, I'm
inclined to believe that that "new" in previous sentence is superfluous.

Plugging this into my MacBook Air would make me feel like getting a $20
prostitute. And paying her $200 afterwards nonetheless.

------
bluedino
The Air's battery already lasts 12+ hours. How much demand could there
possibly be for people to stretch it out even further? HyperJuice (and I would
guess others) is already out there and I've never even seen one of those
things in the wild.

~~~
tim333
The latest Air in ideal conditions does 12hrs. My friends couple of year old
one managed to run out fairly promptly when using by the swimming pool where
there were no sockets. He could be a customer if the gadget's good.

------
uncleruckus
I would love if this had some sort of a universal plug on it so you can power
other laptops besides Macs. Then you can plug some sort of adapter in so you
can charge Dell, Sony, etc. laptops as well.

------
frade33
This is really exciting, and a real problem solver, than good-for-nothing
social apps popping up every other day. I wonder do they ship
'internationally'?

on a second thought, why not make the color of the box, say like mbp body
color, or other light grayish colors, when it's intended for apple products.
the green color does not seem a right fit for an accessory of apple products.

>and a total of 9 hours for 100% charge

yikes! But i guess it's okay since it's a 'standby' battery.

------
evck
If this works, it seems pretty strange to build their own devices with it.
With a patent on the methods they could make a fortune licensing the
technology to Si companies. They would reach the market much quicker too.

However, having worked on BMS systems for lithium batteries this sounds very
fishy. Maybe they've hit on something spectacular, but it seriously looks like
snake oil based on the info they've provided thus far.

------
maxmcd
I really like the end of their FAQ. Almost made a call.

[http://www.getbatterybox.com/#faq](http://www.getbatterybox.com/#faq)

------
btrautsc
Pre-ordered. Unfortunately when traveling - device power is a constant pain
point for me. very excited about utilizing for both Macbook & phone.

------
ehsanu1
As a product, this doesn't seem to offer all that much over competitors
besides the claimed reduction in degradation. Otherwise, something like this
seems better and cheaper: [http://www.amazon.com/20000mAh-Multi-Voltage-
External-Netboo...](http://www.amazon.com/20000mAh-Multi-Voltage-External-
Netbooks-Notebooks/dp/B00B45EOYS/ref=pd_cp_pc_3)

------
thisisrobv
How does a YC backed company create a video with audio that's clearly
watermarked. Presumably they could afford the $17 license...

------
enscr
I think all laptops can extend the battery life-span significantly with just
smarter software. I manually cycle my laptop battery regularly & do not keep
it charged at 100% all the time even if the laptop is plugged in (some
Thinkpad models allow that). Even after 2 years of daily use, I've got greater
than 80-90% battery capacity left.

~~~
evan_
I do absolutely nothing special to try to prolong the lifetime of my 3-year-
old MacBook Pro battery and it's still got 92% capacity.

~~~
enscr
My experience with Windows laptops is totally different

------
ulfw
Somewhat odd to target a computer that already runs for 12hours to run
'another 12 hours' with a big bulky external battery pack. Would make more
sense to target something like an iPhone or others that run way too short to
last a day. Problem is: battery packs for those are a dime a dozen. I do wish
them best of luck though!

------
magoon
Their battery technology sounds great but, honestly, I am a consumer so my
point of view is "do I want to buy this for $139?"

Yes, I do want it, mostly so that I can set it next to my Macbook Air
(mid-2012) for a full day's worth of power, as is the use case shown so
prominently on the web site.

Take away the MagSafe 2 and I don't want it.

------
kiddz
This looks like a great idea. We are applying to the upcoming class with a
different approach though. Instead of owning batteries (however spectacular
they are), we think it's about creating a network to share batteries. Think
bike share for batteries.

Would love to chat about using Gbatteries in such a network.

------
oddevan
> note it does not charge the internal Macbook battery. Instead BatteryBox
> feeds power directly to the Mac in an effort to minimize the number of
> cycles (and stress) on the internal battery.

Is this something that any power adapter does? Is there something in the way
they have it connected that does this?

------
4684499
I don't know why many people are focus on Apple or protable battery. With such
tech, the potential could be anywhere need an efficient energy solution. The
BatterBox might be the first appliance. Are you willing to buy something cost
you 10 bucks while it saves you 20 bucks?

------
rosser
How is this different from my HyperJuice? That gives me 50Whr, too, and also
has a USB port. It pretty much doubled the life of my Air, and slightly less
for my 13" rMBP (Haswell i5, with 16GB).

------
tim333
Their patent I believe:
[https://www.google.com/patents/WO2013142964A1](https://www.google.com/patents/WO2013142964A1)

------
Zenst
Nice though would not a A4 (laptop sized) slab instead of a box be better as
could then sit under the laptop and also easily fit inside the laptop case.

Just a thought.

~~~
kalleboo
It's a lot more expensive to make custom-shaped cells than to pop a couple of
standard cylindrical cells into a square box.

~~~
Zenst
True, though more production of flat cells than round, mobile phones case in
point - they are all flat in shape. Actualy not really come across flat LiOn
cells personaly in any form. Capacitors - yes.

------
rdl
Curious why they didn't go with Kickstarter for the BatteryBox. The product
looks really interesting, and I think I'll order some.

------
oq
Take my money already! This is going to be a life saver - it's like a mophie
juice pack for my MacBook, but smaller and more powerful.

------
alandarev
Why the capacity sometimes goes higher on the graph as the battery ages? Can
anyone explain, or is this just a marketing crap?

------
zakelfassi
The desk in the Savannah-like setting + shades + call the founder at his cell
= Take my money.

------
jernejz
Pre-ordered a while ago ... can't wait to live in a jungle and not worry about
juice :)

------
mpg33
This could be huge...wonder if Tesla/Solar City would be interested in buying
them?

------
phreeza
For anyone from the metric world too lazy to look it up: 9 ounces equals
255.146 gramms.

------
mrfusion
Would this be useful for Tesla?

~~~
oddevan
Absolutely. And Apple, and Dell, and anyone else that uses rechargeable
batteries that degrade over time. This solves the degradation aspect of
batteries, so it would improve the longevity of devices.

~~~
mrfusion
But I've read so much about Tesla being really intelligent with charging.
Wouldn't they have already thought of this?

(Or at least be doing enough intelligent things already that they wouldn't get
much additional improvement?)

