With Canalys’ report stating that mobile device shipments, including tablets and smartphones, exceeded 300 million units in the first quarter of 2013, it is clear that mobile devices are ruling the roost at the moment. While there is no denying the fact that these devices are smart, it needs to be acknowledged that they are energy-sapping gadgets forcing us to look for power sockets often.
When out on an adventure trip, a survivalist expedition or any extended outdoor situation, these therefore miserably fail. Earl looks to fill in this void — as a wilderness companion built to survive in extreme conditions.
Earl is a tablet that runs Android 4.1 and employs electrophoretic display (the likes of which are generally found in ebook readers), alongside built-in GPS chipsets, weather sensors and radio communication technology. “One of the benefits of using E-ink is it’s low power qualities. The screen is static and requires zero power to hold an image, which means that maps will stay on the screen forever,” said Jonathan Perry, creator of Earl and co-founder of Sqigle Inc.
This implies that the screen will not be as responsive as the capacitive touch screens that we are used to. The screen, however, has an infrared touch array that allows for control in almost any condition, as it can be used with gloves-on.
“E-ink is similar to print ink and does not emit light, which means in direct sunlight images actually are easier to read than LCDs. Our “Lunar” mode is similar to a backlight on a LCD screen, except it is actually a thin layer on-top of the screen that illuminates as front light for night-time,” explained Perry, about the visibility of Earl.
While solar cells would fall flat if they were to back normal tablets with high discharge rates, they might prove to be the perfect match in this case. The creators claim that the flip-out laminated solar panel that comes with Earl can provide 20 hours of battery life and recharge itself in 5 hours of direct sunlight. “Discharge rates will vary depending on sensor and radio usage. If one was using the GPS and constantly updating, battery life would drop just like in any regular mobile phone. Our solar cell is a 6 volt 2 watt panel,” added Perry.
The Earl is being crowd-funded till June 9 and has already found over 1000 backers to reach more than its scheduled monetary goal. “We are designing Earl to last. We expect the life of Earl to exceed 5 years. We are on schedule but our main challenge will be FCC [Federal Communications Commission] approval. We are confident that our design will meet their standards,” said Perry, who is looking to start the production process from July.
