
SpareOne: Emergency mobile phone powered by AA batteries - skbohra123
http://www.spareone.com
======
vosper
They really shouldn't be encouraging people to think of this as something that
will help when lost in the wilderness (see the image on the page). There's a
strong possibility that there'll be no reception. That's a situation where you
need an EPIRB-type rescue device.

~~~
sakopov
Absolutely agree. You want a satellite phone for true emergency situations in
the wilderness. A good one will cost you around $500 and you just have to buy
a temporary plan before your excursion. The sad thing is that this phone
appears to be marketed as wilderness survival device but in all likelihood
will do very little to get you out of backcountry without cell towers in the
area.

~~~
nateberkopec
I own a DeLorme inReach - ~$300 device with a ~$15/month plan. Runs on the
Iridium network, unlike Spot's proprietary network. Also, inReach devices are
duplex, and can send text messages to friends, family, and SAR teams.

~~~
srdeveng
SPOT uses Globalstar.

Argument against Globalstar is that it is not a true polar to polar real-time
solution like Iridium.

Iridium is the only constellation where you will always find a bird overhead
anywhere on the globe (with a ground station relay)

Realistically, Iridium has occasional (~5min) signal gaps likely due to the
aging constellation (based on my own use cases developing with a roof mounted
antenna)

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donw
Or, you can just bring along a small USB battery pack, which can fully charge
pretty much any modern smartphone.

Personally, I carry an Instapark Novobeam 3000 in my backpack. It's about the
size of a roll of breath mints or a small flashlight, is rechargable, has a
waterproof cover, and costs about nine bucks on Amazon.

~~~
Spooky23
Why? You can get primary lithium AA batteries with a 15 year shelf life.

If you need something like this, you don't need to fiddle with USB chargers

~~~
stephengillie
Anecdotally, it's much more difficult for me to find AA batteries than USB -
AA batteries must be bought from stores, and fewer recent devices use them.

USB is available from almost any computing device, a growing number of
displays and other peripherals, and increasingly in common areas. And AC-USB
adapters are easy to get, spreading the convenience to every wall plug too. As
others have mentioned, AA-USB adapters exist too, spreading USB's coverage to
everywhere you can find AA batteries. As I hinted earlier, most recent devices
have switched from AA to USB-charged built-in batteries, so a USB battery may
have more utility than AA batteries these days.

Tangentially, there's a behavior pattern prevalent in the "Prepper" (aka
Emergency Preparedness) community that confuses me. They take a logically-
sound concept such as storing large amounts of food, and seem to separate the
emergency food from every day food. Here, similarly, we have an emergency
device that is not usually used. How do we know if it still works? Test it
occasionally?

The USB battery breaks this pattern in that you can use it frequently and it's
still useful in an emergency. And using it regularly can build a habit of
keeping it charged, and you'll know if it breaks or goes bad before an
emergency.

I'm not saying AA powered emergency devices are harmful, but rather our
emergency devices and processes should be our every day devices and processes,
whenever possible.

~~~
Spooky23
I'm not a "prepper" \-- I just want a way to get help for medical emergencies
when there's a power outage mostly. I get where you're coming from, but a
primary cell Lithium-Iron AA like an Energizer L91
([http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/l91.pdf](http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/l91.pdf))
is up to 20 years -- probably more than the service life of the phone.

I have a phone like this from about 10 years ago that we leave at a family
camp (super rough cabin with no utilities). With the loss of quality, power-
outage survivable POTS phone service, this type type of device fills an
important niche. 20 years ago, NYNEX (now Verizon) would provide dial tone for
10-14 days in the event of a blizzard or other power outage. Now you get 24-72
hours from cable/internet providers at best.

Another issue with conventional rechargeable batteries is they don't handle
charging well when discharged completely. A cellphone left in a cabinet for 5
years is a brick in many cases.

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TheGuyWhoCodes
Or get a phone charger that runs on AA batteries

~~~
nickpsecurity
I didn't know those exist. What's the comparison like vs this phone? As in,
one AA battery provides 10 hours worth of talk time per their claims. How many
times or how much charge do you get from the USB version?

~~~
digi_owl
Lets try some math. Most mobile batteries today is 3.7V.

An AA is 1.5V (rechargeable AAs are 1.2V).

Once that is established, it all comes down to the mAh.

Most AAs sold these days are listed as 2500mAh, multiply that with 1.5V and
you get 3.750 Watts.

Note that this is very close to what you get from a 1000mAh li-ion battery
found in many phones (3.7*1000=3700).

Now with a external li-ion emergency battery you will get conversion losses,
as it has to go up to 5V for the USB and then back down again at the other
end.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Very interesting and EE-like approach. :)

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clarry
I wish more devices used easily replaceable standard size cells of
rechargeable and non-rechargeable variety. You can walk to any shop or service
station and buy a bunch of AA or AAA batteries if it's urgent. And keep a
spare pack at home, in car, etc.

In most devices, the size & weight benefits of proprietary li-ion batteries
mostly aren't worth it for me once the battery goes bad and you have to look
for a replacement (which can be quite expensive, if you can find one to begin
with). Forgot to charge the device? Forgot to bring a charger? Don't have a
usb battery pack in place with no outlets? Sucks. Can't walk into a shop and
get a fix.

~~~
userbinator
It's worth nothing that those generic Chinese phones of various brands
actually tend to use one of a very few number of (replaceable) battery
variations, which tend to be clones of the battery in common models like the
Samsung Galaxy S3. The main variables are width/height/depth/pinout, and the
former 3 are usually fixed by the battery manufacturers themselves, while the
latter is either from cloning another common product or a reference design.

For bigger lithium-ion cells, 18650 is probably the most common size and has
gradually made its way into consumer devices too as a replaceable cell,
although the safety implications of the much higher energy density mean they
have to be treated more carefully than AA/AAA. (E.g. the warnings about not
carrying loose cells because they can short and cause burns or fire is far
more important with a lion cell, since they have much higher current
capacity.) Companies will continue pushing the "safety" excuse to lock-in
users with proprietary batteries, but I see the spread of 18650s as starting
to counter that trend.

~~~
Dylan16807
Alkaline batteries are pretty energy-dense, and can beat cheap lithium-ions.
That's not the main safety issue.

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Aelinsaar
This seems like an emergency device for people who aren't actually
experiencing an emergency. As vosper said, this is fine if you're lost in
Central Park, not actually in the wilderness.

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london888
Four reviews on Amazon so far, apparently the setup procedure is not simple:
[http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BWHZGDU/ref=cm_sw_su_dp](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BWHZGDU/ref=cm_sw_su_dp)

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castratikron
Feels hackable, I wonder what kinds of things people will come up with. Do
they still charge monthly for service?

I think some kind of wind-up cell phone charger would be more useful for
people than a separate cell phone powered by AA batteries ("Hey, where'd I put
those spare AA batteries...?")

~~~
asmithmd1
Why bother trying to hack it? For $40 you can get an Arduino with a cell modem
built it:

[http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/Seeeduino-
GPRS-p-1909.html](http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/Seeeduino-GPRS-p-1909.html)

What about a SIM and data plan you ask? Head over to:

[http://neo.aeris.com/](http://neo.aeris.com/)

With just a credit card, no contract required, you can buy a SIM for $2.75 and
$1/month gets you 750k of data. You can turn SIMs on and off month to month.
You have to buy 10 SIMs to get started but they are having a promotion right
now to get 10 SIMs for the price of one.

I have no connection to either Seeed Studio or Aeris other than being a happy
customer of both

~~~
castratikron
Wow, I've actually been looking for something exactly like this. Thank you for
sharing.

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urlgrey
A Yaesu VX8GR handheld HAM radio transceiver is my spare. I carry it in my
work bag every day, along with a quarter-wave antenna, spare battery and a AA-
battery adapter. It'll run for days as a receiver and can transmit at 5 watts
- plenty of power to hit a repeater within earshot of someone who can call for
help on my behalf. Although I work in a dense city, I'm not under the illusion
that cell-phone infrastructure will be available for long after a major
disaster, particularly an earthquake.

HAM radios are also very useful when venturing into the wilderness. Many
hikers monitor the 2m/1.44m calling frequencies periodically for distress
calls. And at the right altitude your meager 5 watts can cover tremendous
distances.

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nateberkopec
If it's a phone only for calling 911, why does it require a 2-year cell plan
_with data_?

~~~
reustle
I can't find anywhere where it states what type of plan this needs. Where did
you find this info?

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mschuster91
Hate to break the news, but this is nothing new. My first cell phone, when I
was a young kid, was an Alcatel phone that could be run on either a normal
battery pack or AA batteries or AA rechargeables.

I miss that brickphone.

------
mrfusion
So what is the best backup phone to keep in the car? I'd want some thing cheap
with no monthly payments just for emergencies.

Think how much it would suck these days to get lost or broken down and your
phone isn't working! It seems only prudent to keep a backup with you.

(Especially now that all Payphones have been removed)

~~~
ams6110
Any old working flip or bar phone. 911 calls don't require a plan or service
contract. You'll only be able to make 911 calls with that, however. If you
want something that will let you make ordinary calls or text, you'll need
something like a prepaid phone, which are quite inexpensive as well.

~~~
mrfusion
All the prepaid phones I've found seem to have minutes that expire. That
doesn't seem ideal for something I'd never use.

------
jeena
Why batteries and not a dynamo?

------
stevewilhelm
[http://www.amazon.com/American-Cross-Weather-Smartphone-
Char...](http://www.amazon.com/American-Cross-Weather-Smartphone-
Charger/dp/B007KFLVTM)

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jschwartzi
If these are cheap enough, they might make a good rolling burner phone. You
just set up the speed dial to point to other SpareOne phones and then pass
them out at periodic meetings.

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london888
When I've been in trouble the lack of reception is the reason to worry, not my
phone being out of battery.

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newman314
Has anyone tried using gotenna for this use case? Just happened to see one the
other day.

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chinathrow
See their Twitter profile?

[https://twitter.com/SpareOnePhone](https://twitter.com/SpareOnePhone)

>30k favorites, aka favorite spam. I hate those - everything is automated and
it does not add any value at all.

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swagv1
Works great when earthquakes take down the mobile network

~~~
codezero
This still uses the mobile network.

