Samsung banks on batteries
By Kim Yoo-chul, Lee Min-hyung
SEOUL/LAS VEGAS ― This year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world’s most influential annual tech fair, held in the U.S. desert city, introduced a variety of new products and business strategies.
Drones, three-dimensional printing, augmented reality, HDR viewing quality and OLED were among exhibits that caught people’s imagination.
Samsung used the fair as a podium to highlight its efforts to connect all devices to the Internet ― technology known as the Internet of Things (IoT). Samsung management at the show said that the company had been finding partners to jointly develop efficient production methods.
The company has thrown itself into producing products for the IoT.
Interestingly, Samsung believe that its IoT strategy, a response to defuse an increased sense of urgency amid greater market uncertainties, will be powered by batteries from its sister company, Samsung SDI.
“The IoT will rely on billions of tiny yet highly connected devices to work, and these devices need equally tiny and extremely efficient power sources,” Samsung SDS CEO Hong Won-pyo said last week. “This is the reason why Samsung SDI has developed a new generation of batteries.”
Samsung’s battery business has been on a bullish track over the last few years, mostly thanks to growing demand for battery-powered electric vehicles and a growing market for longer-life batteries for personal devices.
Samsung SDI America vice president Fabrice Hudry stressed the role of batteries in IoT.
“Batteries are taking us into the age of IoT,” Hudry said at the unveiling of Samsung’s IoT strategy on the sidelines of 2016 CES. “For the IoT to work, we also need an age of the Batteries of Things (BoT),”
Stressing Samsung’s gradual shift to make life easy and to help people communicate and work together within IoT frameworks, Hudry said, “Batteries are revolutionizing transport by powering electric vehicles and finally allowing us to store renewable energy.”
Hudry pointed out that “design flexibility” is one of the key drivers to help demand grow for IoT devices.
“IoT products need small and wearable batteries,” he said. “That’s why we are developing batteries that are ultra slim, light and bendable.”
The SDI executive showed off its latest “Stripe Battery,” which he claimes is a next-generation thing, with features such as fiber-like flexibility and innovative energy density.
Hudry also focused Samsung’s gradual shift to change its way of thinking and to listen to what consumers wanted.
“Our batteries can be charged really quickly,” he said. “Consumers don’t like waiting for a battery to charge. That’s why we have developed batteries that charge to 50 percent in about 15 minutes. These fast-charging high-capacity batteries will help the IoT ecosystem to flourish … and soon you will see them in many IoT devices.”
Hudry’s last point about why batteries will have more power in IoT devices and an era of BoT does make sense is that the IoT ecosystem depends on being always on, with data being sent, received and analyzed in real time.
“It requires a stable electricity supply, “he said. “This is especially true for data centers, if you want to avoid IoT data blackouts. “That’s why the age of the IoT will also be an age of the BoT underpinned by the design-flexibility, ease of charging and eco-friendliness of Samsung SDI batteries.”