On a laptop, you know the battery status information, like percent, time remaining, and so on? Well, all that data is actually calculated by a chip built into the battery itself. Therefore, if you can figure out how to talk to the battery itself, you can get all this wonderfully useful data about how much your power consumption is, and how long you have left before you need a battery change. Nifty ey?
So I did just that. I researched the protocol used by smart batteries in laptops, and turns out it's just a subset of I2C. Spiffy. So next I researched and found an example of someone who had figured out how to talk to the laptop battery he had. Nifty. Then I wrote my own library based on that example, and got it working on one of my laptop batteries. Excellent. So I have smart batteries working with the DPHP!
-Thinkpad-X60-Table-Battery.jpg)
That looks like a comfortable shape, doesn't it?
But one of the things that bugged me is that laptop batteries, especially the Thinkpad ones I'm using, are designed to fit in a laptop. What that means is a long and awkwardly shaped battery with a boxy, uncomfortable shape, sharp corners and mounting sprues and all. Someone has to have put all the capabilities of smart batteries in a more uniform and simplistic shape, right?
Well, eventually I stumbled into Inspired Energy. And guess what? They do exactly as I thought, they put the guts of smart batteries in a more universal housing that can be used by anyone that wants to. They do the manufacturing, testing, and especially certification for you. The certification part will get more important as lithium shipping rules get more and more stringent.
A rounded, simple shape, Wohoo!
So once I can afford a set of these, I'll probably being using them instead of my current setup. Much less risk of an electrical short, ensuing fire, and hospital visit.
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