SpareOne press image via CES 2012
We’ve all been here before; you’re casually driving your van down a rural Texas road and all of a sudden the van breaks down. What then seems like a family of nice locals coming to your aid turns out to be chainsaw-wielding cannibals looking to turn you into their next meal. If we only had an emergency cellphone that could hold a charge for more than a decade we could have avoided being dinner and called AAA instead.
However unlikely that scenario is (it could still happen), the emergency phone is, in fact, a reality with XPAL Power’s new ‘SmartOne’ cellphone. The phone is designed to hold a charge for 15 years with one AA battery giving the user around 10 hours of talk time. 15 years? Yes or the equivalent of the battery’s shelf-life meaning if you never use the phone, it will stay charged for that long. It can do this due to the phones incredibly simplistic design and power-efficient battery. The SmartOne phone has no screen and uses two LED’s that let you know that the phone is “in-use” and its “signal strength.” That’s pretty much all it has. However the phone is well-built and can stand a sizable degree of punishment making it suitable for inclusion in your vehicles emergency kit. Using the SmartOne is surprisingly easy; insert your SIM card, install any AA battery and call. That’s it. The phone is available now for $50 US and comes with one AA Energizer Ultimate Lithium L91 battery which can be found here: http://www.shop.power-skin.com/spareone-phone
No word on price plans for service. However, in the USA, dialing 911 must be accessable through every and all cellular phones free of charge. (I recently dialed 911 with a HandSpring Visor Prism with a Cellular Springboard, it worked.) Paired with 911, the SmartOne it the necessary backup phone for everyone.
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