Bang & Olufsen is best known as a luxury audio brand, but it’s not just about shiny, covetable products. The company has aimed to take great strides in making its products more sustainable, and one key area it’s striving for better in is the battery department.
It’s latest partnership is with a company called Breath Technology to extend the lifespan of its batteries, extending the lifespan and, hopefully, prolonging your enjoyment of the product.
Why it matters
Batteries are tricky.
They power a good number of devices in your home. They’re helpful in making devices portable and, in recent years, technologies around batteries have made it easier for them to last longer on a single charge.
But they are tricky to replace, and once they’re used up, they’re difficult to recycle.
The Right to Repair movement has aimed to make it easier to replace and remove batteries from devices, though the way batteries are integrated into hardware makes that task difficult in today’s climate.
So you can see why Bang & Olufsen is looking to make battery longevity a key part of its mission going forward. Batteries that last longer should result in less waste piling up in landfills, reducing their environmental footprint.
B&O’s approach is a software-focused view, taking Breathe’s Charge software tech and integrating it within B&O’s product development.
Bang & Olufsen claims the use of these software tools will result in “more precise modelling”, simulation and “intelligent charging strategies” to extend the lifespan of batteries, as well as allowing for greater design freedom.
Adapting to you
What’s most interesting about what B&O and Breathe’s partnership is that it believes battery use will be able to learn from its usage over time, producing a dynamic performance that evolves and adapts with the user’s behaviour.
From what I can tell, this isn’t necessarily about adapting thepower demands to each user. If you’re a heavy user that drains the battery, you still might drain the battery quicker than most. Moreso, it comes into effect when the battery is being charged, ensuring it doesn’t deplete to rapidly over its lifespan and protecting its battery “health”.
It all seems to add up to products that will last longer, though considering this is Bang & Olufsen, you’ll have to pay a pretty penny to access that kind of performance.
There’s no word on which or what type of products will benefit from this partnership, but you imagine it won’t be too long before we see the fruits of this partnership.
