Patent ID: 11880253
Assignee: HIGH SEC LABS LTD.
Field: Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  H  Y | IPC G

Claim 26:
27. A method for charging a smartphone by an add-on device using a combined data/power interface having one or more data pins configured to transfer data between the add-on device and the smartphone, and one or more power delivery pins, where both the smartphone and the add-on device, include a rechargeable battery that is protected by battery protection circuitry that is configured to protect the battery by cutting off or limiting the current or voltage on the battery electrodes, and where both include an interface controller to negotiate a power delivery mode between the smartphone and the add-on device, the method comprising:
a) negotiating between the interface controller of the smartphone and the interface controller of the add-on device to agree on performing a power delivery mode;
b) selecting responsive to the add-on device properties and the smartphone properties, which include at least the monitoring information regarding the difference between the battery voltage of the add-on device and the battery voltage of the smartphone, the power delivery mode from at least one of:
(1) a protected-battery power delivery mode, and
(2) a regulated power delivery mode,

wherein the protected-battery power delivery mode directly connects between the battery protection circuitries of the smartphone and the add-on device over the power delivery pins without any voltage conversion or voltage regulation, thereby achieve minimal power loss in the power transfer between the batteries, and the regulated power delivery mode performs a voltage conversion or voltage regulation between the battery protection circuitries to keep the voltage of the power delivery pins within a fixed pre-defined voltage range.