Why are battery cases needed for iPhone deployments?

All versions of Voalte One ever released for iPhone have required, as part of the product solution, a Voalte-approved external battery pack that supplies power to the phone constantly. The primary reason for this is to ensure that the phone remains in its highest-possible power management state while in use. Like all mobile phones, the iPhone uses various proprietary algorithms to manage energy consumption, and disabling the WiFi radio is one power management strategy the phone may employ. The exact trigger conditions for this are proprietary to Apple and historically have been dependent on numerous factors such as whether or not the phone has roamed out of WiFi range, the quality of the WiFi connection for the associated SSID, what applications are running, etc. We qualify the solution's performance only with the external pack keeping the phone in its least-aggressive power management state, and we provide an onscreen advisory to both the local user and to other users viewing the Voalte directory if a phone's external battery has become depleted.

Another consideration is that the Voalte charging station workflow has been designed and field-proven to work best with one phone and two battery packs per user. During a shift, the phone will be powered primarily by the external battery pack. In many cases, at the end of the shift, the internal battery will still be full. The person going off shift simply hands the phone to the person coming on-shift, who puts a fresh pack on it and replaces the depleted pack in the charging station. The phone's internal battery experiences the minimum possible cycling, and there is always a charged pack available for every user coming on shift.

If the phone has no external battery pack at all, it must be returned to the cart for full charging before it can be reused, which requires a costly investment of up to 2 times the required number of phones.

If the phone has an unapproved type of battery pack that does not charge in the manner required by Voalte, the phone's internal battery will be depleted on shift and will need to be recharged from the external pack while the next person is using it. This results in a worst-case wear scenario on the phone's internal battery, as well as an undesirable user experience of warm phones in the pocket. Two battery packs per phone are still required to maintain continuous 24/7 use of the phone in this scenario.

Voalte has numerous years of field experience with thousands of deployed iPhones on the Voalte One solution and continues to require the battery pack as part of this solution as it provides the best possible functional and logistical experience. Departure from this approved configuration introduces risk and is not recommended.

For more information, please refer to this article.