Samsung's Latest Battery Wraps Around Your Wrist

A new wave of flexible mobile and wearable devices will need a power source that's just as bendable and twistable. Samsung's SDI division — which handles the research and development of energy and batteries — has made a breakthrough on this front with a flexible battery that can wrap around a person’s wrist. The South Korean mobile hardware maker demonstrated the battery at the InterBattery 2014 convention in South Korea.

The unveiling of the new battery comes on the heels of Samsung’s release of a curved battery, the 210 mAh, that ended up in its Gear Fit smartwatch. Samsung also is planning other flexible devices that could be the target for the new battery.

While development of the battery is complete, the company didn't reveal a timeframe for availability, saying that it won’t release the technology until it has met reliability and safety standards. Requests for further comment were declined.

In the meantime, Samsung researchers aren’t the only ones working on flexible battery technology. Researchers at South Korea's Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology have developed an imprintable and bendable lithium-ion battery that they claim is the world’s first, and could be used in Samsung’s line of flexible devices.

Looking beyond traditional batteries, researchers at Germany's Fraunhofer-Institute für Zuverlässigkeit und Mikrointegration are developing a flexible energy harvester that can be manufactured through a low-cost printing process. And researchers in China have designed a flexible solar cell that can be woven into fabric for wearable technology.

In addition to the flexible battery, Samsung also revealed another new battery at InterBattery 2014 — a tiny one the size of a pill (Measuring 0.14 inches (3.6 mm) across and 0.79 inches (20 mm) long) that has a capacity of 10mAh, although again no further details were revealed. 

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