5 Features That Would Make Smart Phones Really Smart
by Jaymi Heimbuch, San Francisco, California 
on 12.24.08
Photo via Chris Jordan
Cell phones do everything these days. They're our communication enablers, our alarm clocks, our calendars. They host our photos, music, and videos, and let us capture off-beat moments with built-in cameras. They provide us with the latest news reports and stock updates. They can calculate our carbon footprint, help us find anything on a map, and even control our home's energy consumption.
They are essentially our superhero sidekick, or at least we treat them that way. So what if a cell phone had super powers to match?
We put together a wish list of what abilities and features we want our smart phones to have.
Powered Efficiently and Entirely by Renewable Energy
Be it solar, talking, bouncing or anything else, we wish our smart phones could collect the energy needed to run them by utilizing the energy resources around them. While we can somewhat accomplish this, such as charging up with a solar or wind charger, it isn’t yet integrated into phones.
Effortless Carbon Emissions Tracking
While ever-improving carbon emissions trackers are being created as we speak, there still isn’t an entirely effortless way to track our impact. Most of the time, apps require our (admit it) flawed input for things like trips. We might forget short excursions, fudge on distances, or make other calculation errors in our input and get inaccurate emissions data back. Having a way to get our daily carbon emissions from each action we take, without thinking about it at all, would be pretty great.
Eco-Mapping of Everything All the Way Back to the Source
Sure, we can find nearly anything on our smart phones. We can get maps, directions, and even travel itineraries with just a few button clicks. But what if it could really map out information? What if we could put in a destination, such as a restaurant, and our phone could give us the whole picture of emissions for that restaurant, for the methods of travel to get there, and so on. It might end up being TMI (too much information) but it would give us a cold, hard look at the actual magnitude of the trip to that restaurant.
Greenwash Detector and Alert System
While it is pretty easy to catch greenwashing, sometimes those marketers are very clever. How great would it be if our phones could send us alerts when we’re near greenwashing? Perhaps we’re planning a trip and like a certain hotel for its eco claims. Before booking, we could check with our phone and it could alert us any greenwashing taking place with that hotel's advertising. This one is really off the wall, but it’d still be great - what if it could alert us just as we approach a store or item with greenwashing? Then again, our phones would probably just go nuts with text alerts as we walk through a store.
Be Manufactured Responsibly and Made to Last
Phones are practically disposable. They have an average use length of 18 months before they’re replaced with the latest and greatest. We want our smart phones to be made with eco-friendly materials in a plant that ensures it has the lowest possible carbon footprint. We want it to be made to last longer than 10 years, and be upgradable so that as new technologies are unleashed, we can make small changes to our existing phones to keep up. And we want them to be 100% recyclable at the end of their very long lives.
Okay, let loose with your eco-imagination. What do you wish your smart phone could do? What apps would you have on it, and what super powers would it hold under its casing?
More on Cell Phone Improvements:
Using Sound Waves to Charge Cell Phones
Gotwind.org Wind-Powered Cell Phone Charger
Motorola 100% EnergyStar Certified
Cell Phone Sales Slump Is Good Green News
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I would have it filter out the 4 lame ideas in most '5 ideas' articles.
Good, you pointed out an obviously good idea that is true of all manufacturing. Build stuff so it lasts, build it sustainably, build it so it's efficient, build it so it's upgradeable and repairable. Gotcha, yeah, I'm with ya.
The rest is half baked. Why would I need to religiously measure my carbon output? I know that if I'm driving I'm wasting energy. I know that if I've got the a/c set to 60 I'm wasting energy, or if the heat's at 75, or if I'm flying anywhere. And greenwash alerts? Really? Sounds awful. I would turn that off in a second. If I'm curious I just use a carbon calculator, but really, I'm not interested in spending hours of my life fiddling with such stuff for such a mediocre benefit, when I could just use that time to plant a tree and save more than meticulous carbon tracking ever could. Making it easier does not make it more than a novelty. These calculators are more for OCD environmentalists than anyone else. The principles of drive less, buy less, share more, eat local are not hard or that complicated. That last 5% is not worth my mindshare to worry about.
Here's what you're trying to ask for with some of these other ideas: a website that has robust information on 'green' cred for as many businesses as possible, and can recommend nearby restaurants that serve local organic food (because that's about the best you can hope for these days, and even that's few and far between if you're not in a hip town like Portland). As far as the phone interface goes, maybe a smart system where you can take a picture of the sign on the building or of course type the name of the place and it pulls the info on that business. A green pages, so to speak. Arrange it so it competes with established yellow pages and sites like yelp, and thus force them to step up and provide more and better information most certainly including sustainability credentials. If you're really good about it and move quickly enough, you might even be able to sell your green cred info to these other existing companies. I dunno what already exists for this, but local info is the next logical step for corporate sustainability review sites, for sure.
I would like to see them EMF free. Eliminate the harmful electro magnetic frequency's driven into our brains. If they are designing more green applications they should start with protecting the user as well as the environment.
Now we can purchase the protection to be added to the cells but why not manufacture them properly in the first place? Is it a money thing?
EMF is released into the atmosphere further polluting it, not just polluting our brain, literally!
Performance, convenience and serious flexibility to communicate are at the forefront, why not our health being the most important feature?
If people can't see the harmful EMF, they ignore the danger. Hmm, something wrong with this picture.
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I totally agree with Uriah Zebadiah. Before writing an article think ahead what you might put in it.
I think what would be more beneficial to have cell phones powered by their internal motion or another alternative besides simply plugging in the device or having some bulk solar power attachment. For example, a cell phone being powered by being in your pocket while you walk around making it a self-sustaining device. Or as previously mentioned here on treehugger being powered by sound waves.
I have to agree with many of the previous comments that some of these ideas sound half-baked. We must think of the practicality and feasibility of some of these ideas. How useful will they really be? Will they create a meaningful change?
Greenwash detector really?? Maybe I could just get a lie detector on my phone. I can agree with a greenwashing database to allow consumers to know of shady business marketing and practices but that doesn’t seem like the idea here.
I'm no so sure repairable,upgradeable cell phone could be affordable. Unless you want to pack around the brick sized portable of yesteryear, or do without the latest bells and whistles. Cell phones are smart users of power, so I don't see much gain by self powered phones. In that cell phones requite radio transceivers to work, can cell phones ever be EMF free?
I agree with Uriah completely, and with kansan.
Obessing about your carbon footprint, lol!
The best possible thing you can for the environment is to off yourself. Besides that, don't have kids. Besides that, don't own a car. Beyond that, you're just wasting your time.
A cell phone is intentionally an EMF device. It sends and receives EMF to carry data back and forth. Without EMF it would be a non-communication device. If you're worried about emf, get rid of your cell phone, buy a 5 year old PDA, and carry a couple rolls of quarters around with you. Ahh, pay phones! Don't forget your tin-foil hat, haha!
cell phones CAN be made to last if people really want them to... mine is 6 (and counting) years old
it's the people who have to change
...
but a manufacture change would be cool