There are 3rd party inductive charging solutions that I assume would work with the N900. It requires sticking a doohickey on the back. Then you just lay the phone on a pad and it charges.

Here's one.

However, that doesn't increase the run-time/talk-time like an extended-life battery would do.

Already some CAD guys have a look for doing a new/improved back cover, I got the resources to produce them if someone has resources to sell them. Also known replacement battery retailers will do a larger battery with an extend cover. there is no need for us to do this, there are professionals out there waiting to be asked.

A widget with user interaction is not a solution for this, there shouldn't user interaction be needed.

If this is not about software I am out. I wont do testing on a new device which is €500+ to loose my warranty... maybe I order the housing some day to do some reverse engineering and try some ideas but that will be it for now.

I'd also like a double thickness battery... I'm probably one of those rare breed who aren't bothered in the slightest by the n900's size. In fact, I wouldn't mind if it were 5mm bigger in every dimension, as I tend to wear cargos everywhere with nice big pockets.

Anyway, I just wanted to post my thoughts on power saving measures... I humbly submit that we should try to minimize the complexity of power saving techniques as much as possible (ie. complicated daemon wakeup framework, network traffic bursting, multiple runlevels, etc) as:

1. Battery technology is still improving, and
2. These complexities (often hacks) almost always lead to device instability. Coming from the Palm world, oh do I loath notifications/events and scheduled wakeups.

I think it's outstanding that we can just SSH to our phones, anytime, anywhere, without waking it from suspend. In fact, the n900 doesn't seem to suspend at all; the switch seems to turn off the screen, and encourage the processor to drop into a low cycle state. So all the complication of waking daemons periodically is avoided; crond _just works_. SSH is always responsive. IM clients don't have to schedule wake up points, etc.

I submit that this is the future - devices running 100% of the time, very slowly while "asleep." Let the battery technology catch up on its own.

In the meantime, I believe software enhancements should focus on improving code efficiency (particularly for daemons), intelligent power path management (ie. android's Where's My Power Going widget), user notification ("be advised that this app or device is drawing a lot of power"), and maintaining device cleanliness.

My $0.02.