Concerns about Battery Drain in 5G Smartphones Addressed by Ecosystem

With 5G smartphones gradually making their way into the market, one question on many consumers’ minds is how this new and improved connectivity will affect battery life. There have been many discussions about the topic, with some stating that 5G will vastly reduce smartphone battery life and others adamant that it will dramatically increase it. Battery life is an important component of the smartphone User Experience (UX) and is something that consumers take into consideration when upgrading their devices. Expectations of at least day-long battery life have become standard across all smartphone models, and any reduction in this UX will likely turn consumers away from the initial crop of 5G devices before they have even gotten started. Smartphone vendors that have already released 5G devices have looked into various methods of how to mitigate 5G related battery life issues, such as increasing battery size, using chips with power saving solutions, or using adaptive charging technology.

The implementation of 5G will undoubtedly affect smartphones’ battery life one way or another. There are many schools of thought regarding how 5G will either decrease or increase battery life. In terms of reduction, the main arguments are based on how 5G chips, their tasks, and their communications require more software and processing power, leading to a heavier drain on a device’s battery. This drain on the battery life will initially increase as smartphones move in and out between 5G and 4G coverage areas, which is less efficient and puts a strain on the communications technology, but it will be reduced as 5G becomes more ubiquitous. The fact that the addition of 5G to a smartphone adds a considerable amount of extra components compared to 4G could also affect battery life, with device manufacturers having to decide between increasing overall device size to accommodate these components or else reducing other component sizes, notably including the battery.

Despite this, there are others who believe that 5G will have the opposite effect, increasing (or at worst not affecting) the overall battery life of smartphones. As 5G helps to reduce latency, computing power requirements are reduced, leading to increased battery life. Beamforming also uses lower transmit power, helping to decrease the drain on battery life. Moreover, 5G offers advanced sleep modes, which allow parts of a device to sleep when not in use, improving overall battery life. These factors will help to prevent any adverse effects 5G will have on battery life, with the largest improvements expected to occur as 5G coverage increases and smartphones have to switch between 4G and 5G connectivity less frequently. Further advances will be made as 5G chips are created with greater integration and power efficiencies helping to increase the overall battery life of smartphones.

While it is quite clear that 5G devices require more complicated components than 4G devices do, battery life could be immediately improved through the use of a battery with greater capacity. However, this would involve using a battery with increased dimensions, dramatically affecting the design and physical size of smartphones. A larger device size, just like a shorter battery life, would likely affect a device’s desirability among consumers, causing them to turn to other devices. However, as battery technologies continue to be improved, an increased battery capacity will not necessarily mean increased dimensions and will therefore not affect a device’s overall size.

Battery life for 5G smartphones is expected to be less of an issue as 5G network coverage increases over time, with drain associated with the handover from 4G to 5G connectivity reducing and becoming less of a burden. In the meantime, smartphone manufacturers and 5G chip suppliers are working to ensure that 5G devices that do not compromise on either battery life or design and size can be developed to ensure that 5G smartphone UX is not affected by increased charging requirements.

Chip vendors specifically are already keen to ensure that their 5G components do not cause a drain on smartphone battery life. For example, Qualcomm has stated that any 5G smartphone, sub-6GHz or mmWave, powered by its Snapdragon X50 and X55 modems, as well as its Snapdragon 855 processor, will have a full day’s battery life in accordance with its 5G PowerSave solution, which uses 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) features such as discontinuous reception and a number of other, unspecified techniques and capabilities that help to enhance battery life. Qualcomm understands that 5G uses a lot of power consumption even when data is not being received by a device, so the solution stops the modem from listening when it is not receiving data. Other aspects will also likely help to improve overall battery life before 5G, which will then help to reduce any adverse effects that 5G may have on battery life. For example, Wi-Fi 6 is said to improve battery life via its Target Wake Time (TWT) software, which allows devices to plan their communications, reduce transmit time, and decrease the drain on the battery.

Nokia has also announced that it has been working on a new technology that will double a smartphone’s battery life, without increasing the overall battery dimensions and weight, in partnership with Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research (AMBER), a research center in Ireland. Their lithium nanotube-aided battery will help the 5G world because it will overcome any issues with the battery being drained; however, it is unknown when this technology will reach smartphones. Companies such as Qnovo are also aiming to help reduce the effects of 5G on battery life by offering adaptive charging technology that will help improve battery life in the long term. It does this by monitoring the battery and how it is being used to make decisions on how to charge to prevent battery related issues, reducing wear and tear and allowing the battery to function efficiently over a long period of time. Vendors such as Sony use the technology in a number of flagship smartphones to improve their overall battery life.

All of the above solutions—overall larger batteries, Qualcomm’s 5G PowerSave, Wi-Fi 6’s TWT, Nokia and AMBER’s lithium nanotube-aided battery, and Qnovo’s adaptive charging technology—are open to smartphone manufacturers and will help mitigate any adverse effects 5G has on battery life. A combination of the above solutions will likely provide the best overall result, ensuring that battery life for 5G smartphones is the same as, or better than, their 4G counterparts. Particularly, using Qualcomm’s 5G PowerSave and Wi-Fi 6’s TWT will be advantageous as the former comes with Qualcomm’s 5G chips, which are in a number of 5G smartphones, and the latter will be available for all devices with Wi-Fi 6. Adding Qnovo’s technology will also help the long-term battery life, but the solution will likely not be as popular.

It is clear that Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), chipset vendors, and other companies in the 5G and smartphone markets understand that 5G can cause greater drain on a device’s battery and are working hard to ensure that this is lessened via one or more of the methods outlined above. With smartphones often needing to be charged once per day, any further shortening of the battery life would cause inconvenience and an impaired UX for consumers, which can be mitigated by implementing new battery saving or lengthening technologies. Despite this, consumers will still likely be eager to adopt a 5G smartphone that allows them to access faster broadband speeds.