Give Your Old Batteries a Second Life
Smartphones come and go, but two things usually remain: their charger and their battery. Even after two years of regular use, a smartphone battery retains 80 percent of its capacity, which is equivalent to a real waste if we get rid of it. How can we reuse it? The folks behind the BETTER RE project propose a very interesting option: turning it into an emergency battery to charge other devices.
In my home I must have half a dozen batteries that survived their mobile phones, and to them is added the battery of an old tablet that demanded early retirement. I calculate that our readers have several batteries in a similar situation, but there is something deep down that prevents us from getting rid of them. It's not a matter of "accumulating junk" or anything like that. Smartphone batteries are relatively expensive (depending on the model), and in many cases, the lifespan of the smartphone itself is shorter (whether due to a technical problem or the plague of planned obsolescence). We know very well that they can still be used, but not everyone is willing to play with circuits and improvised chargers, or they simply lack the knowledge to do so.
BETTER RE in Detail
The alternative is BETTER RE, an accessory that enables us to reuse the batteries of our smartphones and safely turn them into emergency batteries. BETTER RE accepts a wide variety of batteries as long as they do not exceed 78.8 millimeters by 62.5 millimeters, and have side contacts. Battery safety is not only guaranteed by its integrated PCM module, but also by the dual protection system that BETTER RE has in its circuit. Its output is a simple full-size USB port, and charging is done through a micro USB port, which opens the possibility of reusing compatible chargers. As if that were not enough, BETTER RE supports an expansion module, thus using two batteries at the same time.
Needless to say, the final performance of BETTER RE will depend on the batteries we use, and the real capacity of each one. If the battery is not in good condition, BETTER RE will indicate it with its integrated LED lights. The project is about to finish on Kickstarter, but it managed to exceed its minimum goal of 50 thousand dollars. Right now, each BETTER RE module costs 44 dollars, and includes a "used" battery to demonstrate the product. Shipping is done worldwide, and if there are no surprises along the way, the first deliveries will be made in November. Something tells me that it won't be long before BETTER RE is cloned and offered through other channels...
