LG Chem, a branch of LG, has its aims on climbing up the ranks of the small-battery market that feeds the smartwatch and wearables industry. In the medium to large-sized battery market, the company already claims to have the number one spot. It has plans to lead the competition by releasing a creative, hexagonal battery for smartwatches with circular faces such as LG’s own G Watch R and Watch Urbane and the Moto 360. Until now, only square or rectangular batteries were used in circular smartwatches. This left a considerable amount of space that was not utilized. In the field of wearables where the devices are very small, performance relies upon making the most of the limited area. Even though Pebble Time and Apple Watch are both rectangular, a growing number of Android Wear smartwatches sport circular designs. The space under a circular watch face is used by the hexagonal shape more effectively. In comparison to a traditional battery, it’s shape has more degrees of freedom. Along with the space, the battery capacity is also increased up to 25% by the new design. LG expects that an additional four hours of battery life will be added to smartwatches. The hexagon-shaped battery is part of LG Chem’s “free form battery” business that uses proprietary patented tech called “stack and folding” to create small batteries in any shape. The method requires “injecting electrolytes after stacking anode material, separation film, and cathode material layer by layer,” according to the Electronic Times. In comparison to the traditional “winding” method of battery manufacturing, freeform batteries should provide a great amount of energy density and stability in performance.
