MWC 2016: Oppo announces Super VOOC fast charging and SmartSensor Image Stabilisation

Oppo is known for its uniquely designed phones (swivel camera, anyone?) and build quality. Today, at MWC 2016, the company announced two new innovations related to faster charging and image stabilisation. Super VOOC Flash Charge Oppo has further improved its VOOC technology that takes on Quick Charge. A newly developed low-voltage pulse-charge algorithm now brings your device to 45 percent charge in a mere five minutes (the time taken to answer a handful of emails), claims the company. This also means it offers a full charge in 15 minutes. In just 15 minutes, VOOC Flash Charge can bring a 2500mAh battery equipped OPPO smartphone to a full charge, says Oppo. That’s huge.  The Super VOOC Flash Charge adapter, cable and connector have all received a facelift and are built of premium and extremely reliable military-grade materials, with support for microUSB as well as Type-C standards. “The VOOC charging voltage is in line with the standard smartphone charging voltage of 5V. This means that the power can be directly transmitted to the battery without any voltage conversion, allowing the process to attain a charging efficiency of up to 97%. High-voltage fast charging, however, requires conversion to a lower voltage to supply power to the batter. This means a loss of energy and a lowered charging efficiency of about 85%,” the company explains in a press statement. VOOC Flash Charge was first offered with Oppo’s Find 7 in March 2014. It was launched commercially after spending three years of R&D on the original VOOC Flash Charge.With a 3000 mAh battery, the Find 7 enabled two hours of talk time after just five minutes of charging and 75 percent of the phone was charged in 30 minutes. The new innovation now takes it a gigantic step further. SmartSensor Image Stabilization Oppo also launched its new SmartSensor image stabilisation technology, claiming to be the smallest in the world and the first ever sensor-based image stabiliser. It senses and calculates vibrations on the pitch axis, yaw axis and roll axis, and makes split-second compensations through the use of a comb-shaped, voltage-driven MEMS (microelectromechanical system).

In professional cameras, optical image stabilisation technology is of two types - lens-based and sensor-based. Due to the small size of smartphone camera modules, all previous imaging stabilisation solutions for smartphones have been lens-based. “This type of technology uses a motor to shift the lens slightly to compensate for unwanted movements of the camera on just two axes of motion, and is itself only implemented on select flagship phones of major brands,” writes Oppo.

The SmartSensor, claiming to be only as thin as two sheets of paper, detects motion on three axes of movement and makes split-second compensations with a monocrystalline silicon MEMS system. SmartSensor achieves three-axis image stabilization withing milliseconds. “with three axes of stabilization functionality, the range of motion that OPPO’s SmartSensor can compensate for is far greater, and far more practical, than any other available technology,” claims Oppo. SmartSensor requires just 15 milliseconds to achieve comprehensive image stabilisation. It also reduces power consumption and avoids lens heating. SmartSensor remains precise to a vibration of just 0.3 micrometers, making it ten times more precise than lens-based stabilizers, according to Oppo.