Motorola's Battery Conserving Phone

Various techniques have been tried to avoid failing batteries in cellphones—such as replaceable AA/AAA cells and solar-powered units—but Motorola’s new technology goes in a different direction.

When the phone’s battery goes below a certain low level, it automatically goes into flight mode (stops accessing the network) and turns off all the other features that are not primary. It then uses Bluetooth to find another phone (using this same technology) and connects to it, using its network instead of its own to send and receive SMSes. The actual network access of the phone is one of the most battery-taxing functions of the phone (after the multimedia features), so just using Bluetooth to exchange textual messages helps conserve battery and hold on for a little longer. You can’t talk, you can only SMS. But at least you’ll be in contact for longer.

This is an interesting project, but if you’re going to be within 10-meters of a Bluetooth phone that is configured to let other low-battery phones send and receive SMSes, wouldn’t you rather just walk up to the person with that phone and ask him to let you make a call? On the other hand, if the phone can connect to any random Bluetooth phone in the vicinity, such as in a restaurant or so, wouldn’t it pose as a security risk? I wouldn’t want a stranger sitting next to me sending out ’emergency’ messages via my phone, dude.

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If they do decide to go ahead with the phone, I wonder what they’d call it. LCHR? SUKR?