[buro9]

> the patent application describes the device's battery being charged by ambient light and kinetic energy. That's pretty wild.

Fairly common, automatic mechanical watches already use kinetic, but were we to say "But those aren't electronic" then you could always look at something like the Seiko Premier ( http://www.seiko.co.uk/products/seiko/c/premier/m/snp005p1_s... )

And for ambient light charging, you have Citizen and their Eco-Drive range ( http://www.citizenwatch.com/en-us/watches/collections/citize... ) and Casio's G-shock ( http://www.gshock.com/technology/solar/ )

I enjoy the fact that my current watch is ambient light powered, syncs with atomic clocks each night via radio... and therefore never needs a battery or charging, and is so damn accurate that I can glance at my watch when some event happens on my NTP sync'd server and the entry in the log file is precisely when the time on my watch said it would be.

Anyhow... those power sources should be irrelevant to the patent... they've existed for years by numerous players in the watch market.

[allwein]

> Anyhow... those power sources should be irrelevant to the patent... they've existed for years by numerous players in the watch market.

This is my biggest complaint whenever there's a patent discussion on HN (or anywhere else) by laypersons. The power sources are highly relevant to the patent; Every single claim in the patent is important. Otherwise, someone back at the beginning of patent-time could have simply patented "thing which you wrap around your wrist" and owned the patent to watches, bracelets, and handcuffs. As well, there could exist pre-existing patents for a straight stick, a piece of string, and a hook; But putting them all together to make a fishing rod would be an innovation that you could patent.

[Samuel_Michon]

Thanks for the explanation, but the watches in your examples use very little juice. Apple's concept device has a large touchscreen and a persistent network connection with other iDevices. That uses a lot more power, that's why I was surprised to read that they're trying to run it off ambient light and kinetic energy -- I would've thought it wouldn't be worth it.

[buro9]

The patent mentions using multiple power acquisition methods to simply extend the life of the battery.

The patent also mentions many power savings features, basically putting the device into life-saving mode most of the time and only waking to perform a task or notify you of something.

If that's the case, then low power use when off is the priority for them, and if they are able to use drips of power from multiple sources to partially power that stand-by, then the battery only really gets used when you put the screen on... meaning that the device's standby time can be legitimately advertised as being some very long period of time.

And for an idea of standby power for a bluetooth device, let's go back to Casio ( http://world.g-shock.com/us/en/ble/function/ )...

> Since Bluetooth® v4.0 uses low-power near field communication technology, your function-packed G-SHOCK is able deliver to approximately two years of operation on a single coin type battery. This makes the watch's advanced functions practical for everyday use. Approximate battery life when communication function are used for 12 hours a day (tentative value).

2 years!

The iWatch (or whatever it's called) really is only going to drain the battery when that screen is on and in use.

[Samuel_Michon]

Interesting. Assuming the device has only Bluetooth 4.0 and not 2.1 or WiFi, then the only iDevices that would be compatible are the iPhone 4S and later, iPod touch 5th gen, iPad 4, and iPad mini.

Given the limited number of compatible iDevices, it might be prudent for Apple to hold out launching this snap bracelet device, at least until they launch the next generation of iPhones and iPod touches.

[allwein]

It might be a limited number of models, but there are more iPhone 5's and iPhone 4S's than all of the previous iPhone models combined.

[ishansharma]

Network connection can be handled by Bluetooth low power mode. I don't know exact specs but it may work.