Belenos Clean Power, a subsidiary of Swatch Group, has developed a new type of battery based on vanadium, with electrical energy storage capacity up to 50 to 100% higher capacity than the battery technologies that exist today. Electric cars and drones might start using Belenos batteries starting this year already, production of Belenos batteries will start this Summer by Swatch Group subsidiary Renata in Switzerland, further Belenos batteries may also get produced in Asia depending on the demand. George Clooney and the Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier are on Belenos’s board of directors, Belenos is 51% owned by Swatch Group and will be put on the Hong Kong stock market with a possible valuation between 5 and 20 Billion dollars. The goal is to power Swatch Smartwatches and other wearables with the Belenos battery, creating a Smartwatch and wearable technologies that never needs to be recharged.

As a half-Swiss, I hope Swatch will release smart watches to put Apple Watch to shame, made in a really smart way, with Swatch’s own ultra low power displays or with E Ink behind the dials of a Swatch Sistem51 based automatic watch, and with low power Bluetooth and Novasentis flexible actuator vibrations in the wrist band. Part of the watch may function as energy harvester, perhaps solar on the watch casing/sides, to recharge the Bluetooth low energy and E Ink or other low power display.