We all know how much a hassle it is to find an available power outlet to charge our smartphones, especially if you’re in a public place. Xiaomi aims to solve this perennial problem by patenting a design for a solar-powered smartphone.
The Chinese smartphone maker filed the patent at the World Intellectual Property Office in July of last year. The patent application, which was first spotted by the blog LetsGoDigital, contains a few sketches of a bezel-less design phone, along with a sheet of photovoltaic solar panels on the backside.
Looking at the sketches and renders of this proposed solar-powered smartphone, we can see that it doesn’t have a notch, so we can’t be sure where the front-facing camera will be. There’s also no sign of a pop-up module for the secondary camera. Xiaomi will most likely use its in-display camera technology for this phone should it come to fruition.
This hypothetical smartphone sports a dual-camera setup with the LED flash placed in between the two vertically-aligned sensors. Below the main camera module is the solar panel, which sits flush or maybe even underneath the rear glass. Some Xiaomi phones such as the Mi 9 have see-through rear glass, so this could be where the solar panel will be placed.
Although it’s great to have a smartphone that you can charge by exposing to sunlight, there’s no guarantee that Xiaomi will actually produce such a phone. It’s not an entirely new and novel idea though, as there used to be a solar-powered phone – the Samsung E1107 Crest Solar. Xiaomi’s idea would be the first for smartphones, and while there’s no indication that it will become a reality, we can never discount the possibility. After all, the company is working on new and advanced technology such as reverse wireless charging. It’s possible that Xiaomi is working hard to bring solar charging technology to our smartphones.
How about you? Are you excited with the idea of charging your smartphones using sunlight?
