Samsung's new battery prototypes, Band and Stripe, show that the tech giant is working on a wearable tech future beyond smartwatches.
The battery tech was demoed at InterBattery 2015 in Seoul, South Korea, and in a press release, Samsung said: "The batteries are an embodiment of the age of wearable batteries that is applicable to any curves of a human body."
Though Samsung hasn't confirmed we will see any of this tech in its products any time soon, Band is the nearer term innovation. It's designed to be attached to a smartwatch strap and increase the battery of the device by 50%. Band can also withstand more than 50,000 bends over the course of its lifetime.
More exciting for the worlds of smart jewellery and smart clothing is Stripe. It is a 0.3mm thin, bendy battery which could be used in connected necklaces, hairbands and "t-shirt accessories", whatever they are.
Samsung says Stripe is as flexible as fiber which makes it a good candidate for powering smart sportswear, say, and it is also said to have a higher energy density than other battery tech. There aren't any details on how long Stripe would be able to power a smart garment yet, though.
Battery tech like Samsung's means less bulky jewellery and less of a reliance on hardware and battery hubs for smart clothing. But lots of challenges remain - researchers in Canada and China have created batteries that can be woven into fabrics and washed in a washing machine, for instance. Still, being Samsung it's likely to get these prototypes into real gadgets quicker than anyone else.
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