PowerShake: power transfer interactions for mobile devices

Current devices have limited battery life, typically lasting less than one day. This can lead to situations where critical tasks, such as making an emergency phone call, are not possible. Other devices, supporting different functionality, may have sufficient battery life to enable this task. We present PowerShake; an exploration of power as a shareable commodity between mobile (and wearable) devices. PowerShake enables users to control the balance of power levels in their own devices (intra-personal transactions) and to trade power with others (inter-personal transactions) according to their ongoing usage requirements. This paper demonstrates Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) between mobile devices. PowerShake is: simple to perform on-the-go; supports ongoing/continuous tasks (transferring at ~3.1W); fits in a small form factor; and is compliant with electromagnetic safety guidelines while providing charging efficiency similar to other standards (48.2% vs. 51.2% in Qi). Based on our proposed technical implementation, we run a series of workshops to derive candidate designs for PowerShake enabled devices and interactions, and to bring to light the social implications of power as a tradable asset.