This work describes design analysis of an energy harvesting system suitable for idly charging power-hungry devices such as smartphones. Battery technology in mobile phones has not sufficiently evolved to offer continuous device use throughout the day. Most smartphones today need to be charged at least twice a day. To improve the user experience with the battery life of a smartphone, we look at both active and idle power consumption of smartphones. Then we discuss a strategy to improve the perception of battery life using a low-power solar energy harvesting system that focuses on supporting the energy consumption of a smartphone in the standby/idle mode. A quantitative analysis is presented along with potential energy harvesting technologies that can enable idle charging for modern smartphones.
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