There are two types of people: those who panic and those who prepare in advance. For the latter, portable backup battery solutions have become a popular means to remain prepared for instances when life literally takes you off the grid, whether purposely or by unexpected circumstances. Despite its categorical label, portable power is hardly portable at all. As anyone with a back-up battery system knows, lithium batteries are heavy and cumbersome, and also come with concerns about flammability. Yoshino is a new portable power station brand staking claim as the first company to use solid-state batteries within their portable power stations, a technology halving the weight and eliminating most of those safety concerns.
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Solid-state battery technology has been a long awaited next generation upgrade in the realm of charging solutions, with applications spanning from lighter, safer, and more affordable EVs, to mobile devices capable of keeping their charge for days at a time. Compared to conventional lithium batteries filled with flammable liquid electrolytes, solid-state batteries weigh a lot less, offer significantly higher energy densities, and can be offered at much smaller sizes with comparable energy capacity. Without any concerns of housing flammable liquid electrolytes, solid-state batteries are also a lot safer than their lithium ion predecessors. It’s a safe bet to say, solid-state batteries are the future.
Veering away from the market’s tendency to wrap batteries within masculine and technical industrial design, fuseproject identified an opportunity to design a line of power stations that present less like a tool and more like a lifestyle product.
To complement the upgrade, Yoshino tapped the talents of Yves Behar and fuseproject to dress up their technology’s exterior trappings into something more akin to a portable speaker than an industrial component.
With up to 11 different ports dotting the exterior case, a portable battery needs to be first and foremost accessible, but also protected from damage. Fuseproject designers encased all four designs within a shatterproof and water-resistant matte gray and a muted green exterior protected by the trim of the face plate or the battery’s metal handlebars.
Designed around a strong metal handle forming a continuous band wrapping vertically or horizontally around the shell, Behar’s team was able to enhance the improved ergonomics of Yoshino’s solid-state battery technology. A subtle hexagonal pattern is applied strategically for venting, while also tying back to Yoshino’s bee/honeycomb branding, representative of the company’s ethos of “nature, hard work, and nonstop energy.”
To ensure an intuitive experience for users, fuseproject was also tasked to design a custom UI control panel, punctuated with the inclusion of a small green bee logo graphic.
The smallest B330 SST – 330W battery weighs just under 10lbs, with the largest B4000 SST – 4000W model weighing in at 53.6lbs. In comparison, a highly-rated Red Dot Award winning 2400W portable lithium iron phosphate battery weighs over 67lbs.
Behar is already well acquainted with the fast-paced realm of battery technology, spearheading the development of TELO, a small modern urban and off-road EV pickup truck. But where that project utilizes a liquid-cooled 106kWh battery pack, Yoshino delivers an advancement that will likely find its way into powering TELO and other vehicles.
Yoshino’s family of power stations offers an appealing solution for weekend car campers, off-the-grid residences, emergency workers, and other commercial workers dependent upon power on-the-go, and households seeking a stylish and convenient means of powering up lights, speakers, projectors, or other devices in their backyard. Their superior lighter weight, increased capacity, and ergonomics is currently partially canceled out by the premium in price attached to the new technology, but expect the economy of scale to head towards a price drop as other device manufacturers beeline to follow Yoshino’s lead into the highly competitive market.
For more information on Yoshino’s Solid-State Portable Power Stations, visit yoshinopower.com.
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Source: design-milk