this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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This is a very important spec to include...this battery can deliver 0.03mA of power, which is incredibly little.
0.03mA of current. That times the 3 volts = 0.1 mW of power.
Technology Connections, we need you to make another video.
Should be plenty for watches and IOT devices.
Google says a Casio watch needs .004mA so not quite enough.
Did you typo or did he? .03 is significantly bigger than .004
0.03 is 7.5x more than 0.004 tho?
You are right! I didn't count the 0's!
That's definitely in the ballpark though. Surely they could cut 25% power draw to support a 50 year battery.
I wonder how much we really need for a clock (555 eq) to work?
https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/LM555
2mA minimum, and that's just q current. It's gonna be much higher when you're actually using it for a clock.
I'm sure the casio's main power sink is the display. I bet the refresh rate could be reduced for better battery life.
Isnt the refresh rate just 1 Hz?
Yep.
A lot more than that. 2ma
Analog circuits are weird though
https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/ne555.pdf
Not really actually...not from a single cell at least
Why not?
A CR2032 has 235 mAh, which I believe Casio watches use, and their batteries last 5-7 years. So, if we divide that out, that's something like 5-6 microamps (235 mAh / 5 years / 365 years / 24 hours * 1000 = 5.36... microamps). Converting this to watts @ 3v: 15-18 microwatts.
I think that math is correct (this question reaches a similar conclusion), and it leaves some headroom as well.
If you remove RF from the equation (Bluetooth, WiFi, etc) and custom build the chip, you can get some very low power draws. If all you're doing is sampling temps or something, you could send an update periodically over serial or something and fit under 100microwatts or so. You could probably even do RF if you have a large enough cap and send once it charges.
CR2032s are used in many things that require significantly more power than that, and this cell is absolutely unfit for almost all other uses than barebones old school digital watches.
Sure. I'm not saying it's a drop-in replacement, just that it has a number of applications. A simple digital watch or even a bare bones IOT device (with periodic serial signaling) could work well with it. You'd essentially set it up once and you'll forget it's still there many years later.
Cell != Battery
Battery = MANY Cells
I am not correcting you just hate the headline.
If you made a battery with 666(667 if we round up) of these you could supply 2ma of power at 3v for 50 years!
I don't have sizes available so assuming 2032 sized batteries... If you stacked them that would be over 2meters tall.
With further advancement these could be viable
what kind of things could you power with that amount?
Almost nothing... Maybe some very basic scientific equipment, but they do note that they'd be able to use multiple batteries layered to produce higher output, and that they're expecting to have a 1 watt version later this year; that'd be far more useful in practice.
An RTC that you want to leave on its own for a very long time. Like underwater.