Researchers from TU Delft and Northwestern University have made a Game Boy that functions without a battery. Both universities report this in one press release.
With the Game Boy, called Engage, the researchers want to demonstrate how a more sustainable device can be made. Current batteries contain toxic chemicals that are difficult to recycle. In addition, they can be used for a limited time.
The Engage is packed with solar panels that charge the device. While playing, all of the user’s button presses are also converted to energy.
During gameplay, the state of the game is continuously written to memory so that it can be resumed in case of insufficient power. At the moment, this still happens regularly: on a day with little cloudiness, the game is interrupted every ten seconds for less than one second.
Slow games
According to the makers, that power outage is acceptable for slow games such as Chess, Solitaire or Tetris. However, action games are difficult to play at the moment.
In addition, the Game Boy does not have a speaker and the screen is difficult to see in low light. The pocket game computer was mainly developed to draw attention to what is possible without a battery.
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