Impact Power Technologies to showcase long-lasting lithium-polymer battery during IWCE 2015

LAS VEGAS—Impact Power Technologies this week at IWCE 2015 will exhibit the company’s lithium-polymer battery solution that lets land-mobile-radio (LMR) and bar-code scanner users realize 35 hours worth of communications from a single battery charge, according to company officials.

Long battery life is critical to first responders, who often need to use two-way radios to communicate, even in difficult environments that do not allow time to recharge traditional batteries, Ken Murphy, chief operating officer (COO) at Impact Power Technologies. The company’s lightweight lithium-polymer technology lets responders remain in the field, instead of having to stop to recharge their radios, he said.

“We sell product to the DEA, Homeland Security, Border Patrol, Massachusetts Emergency Management, and then we have a number of different police departments, universities and different customers using our two-way products,” Murphy said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “It's an indication of the quality of our products, we haven't got anything back. No product out of the box is not working.

“We guarantee 900 recharges before the battery gets slowly reset. With Motorola, you might get 250. And so, we give them a full two-year warranty, or 900 recycles. We made the plastics a little bit stronger, we put a little bit more bulb on the contacts. We made the product a little bit more robust, because our customers beat the living heck out of the product. They're first responders.”

Impact President Curt Quinter added, “Their lives depend on that product.”

Although it is not a life-and-death situation, allowing employees to continue working also can impact productivity at retail companies like Staples, which now uses Impact Power Technologies batteries in its bar-code scanners, Murphy said.

“[When an employee’s battery would die, she would] go down to the battery room get another battery, go to the bathroom, talk to Mabel at the checkout, maybe go have a smoke—and, by the time she gets back to her station, the day's over,” Murphy said. “[Staples] was losing a lot of productivity. Now, with our custom battery, they're getting anywhere up to 12 hours work and run time, which is way beyond a full shift.”

In addition to lasting a long time while in use, the Impact Power Technologies lithium-polymer batteries also have a significantly shelf life than other batteries, according to Quinter.

“With metal hydrides, they'll get about seven to eight months [of shelf life],” Quinter said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “Some take real good care of it, and they'll get maybe nine months to a year. And on the lithium product you might go a year to one year and a couple of months.

“With ours, we give a two-year full warranty. And in most cases, those batteries last three years.”

During the IWCE show at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Impact Power Technologies plans to conduct 10-minute educational sessions at 11:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday in the company’s booth (Booth #2249) in the IWCE exhibit hall.

In addition, Impact Power Technologies representatives will distribute vouchers to visitors at the company’s booth that will be redeemable for a free sample battery that users can test, Murphy said.

“When I tell [police personnel] I have a battery that lasts 35 hours, they look at me as if I'm crazy,” Murphy said. “So what we do is we put our money where our mouth is. We do trade shows or we contact people, we give them a sample and just say, ‘Hey, try it.’

“And the proof is in the pudding. On the samples that we put out, our batting average right now is around .750. When a sample goes out, they test it, they like it, they buy it. [About] 75 out of 100 will buy it. The other 25, they just don't have the money right now.”