You might not have noticed but the number of devices we charge every day is creeping up…

• Phone
• Tablet
• Headphones / ear buds
• Smart watch or ring

And soon a lot of us will be wearing XR glasses (a combo of VR and AR).

Meanwhile, as a large subset of the population gets relatively richer, travel will keep becoming more common, which means charging devices on the go.

Here are some ideas for how our charging protocols might change:

The Box – Think a shoe box. When not plugged in it is a box to carry stuff in, like socks and undies. When plugged in (it could come with a universal plug for different countries) it is a wireless charging device that works on anything inside it. Just chuck everything in. On the outside it could be a smart device itself, with a screen and speakers, so it sits bedside, you can talk to it, it can show the weather, time, play music.

Swappable Batteries – should not be hard to achieve. China is going hard on them for cars because it is more efficient, swap batteries instead of waiting for yours to charge. When you get home, or back to your hotel, you pull out the batteries of your devices and swap them with those in the chargers. It was a while ago but batteries in phones used to be very accessible. When you dropped your phone, the back case fell of and the battery fell out.

The Jacket – a 24 hour charging regime suits most users, but power users will always drain their devices quicker and might not be at home to charge them. There might be severe safety risks, and it doesn’t work in summer (you might need a backpack or fanny pack), but having a mega battery on your person, that can charge all of your devices on demand, could be a thing. To keep the devices operating (because you are a power user) it will require wires. Unless they can work out how to conduct electricity through your body…

More likely, given all the research and dollars up grabs, long-life batteries will turn up, that give us a week instead of a day. Or, some people will go for low powered devices. I’ve had (cheap, basic) smart watches that last 3 weeks on one charge.