The differences between Smart Battery And Ordinary Battery

The DJI new-released M600 brings big breakthrough to the all UAV Area. Not only the A3’s self-adaptive flight systems and new RONIN-MX is , but also the pretty long flight time supported by six smart batteries.
It introduces that a customized battery management system and power distribution board allows all six batteries to be turned on with one button press, and keeps the system in flight in the event of a failure of a single battery, and allows users to check the battery status in real-time during flight.
As we all know, M100 has adopted smart batteries to support the big heavy device for more professional aerial photography and longer time and distance using. Then what are the differences between Smart Battery and Ordinary Battery, why they are more and more widely used in the electronic ndustry?

1. Definition

A smart battery/A smart battery system(SBS) is a rechargeable battery pack equipped with a built-in battery management system. The smart battery can internally measure voltage and current, and deduce charge level and SoH (State of Health) parameters, indicating the state of the cells, calculated and predicted information to its SMBus Host under software control.
A basic SBS including 3parts:System Host,Smart Charger and Smart Battery.

1.1 Advantages

Ordinary Battery

Ordinary Batteries are illusive and do not exhibit visible changes as part of usage from both the user's and the equipment's perspective. It looks the same when fully charged or empty, new or old and in need of replacement. A very big defect is that they represent an unpredictable source of power.

Firstly, a user has little knowledge that their battery is about to run out or how much operating time is left.

Secondly, equipment powered by the battery cannot determine if the battery, in its present state, is capable of supplying adequate power for an additional load (such as spinning up a hard disk) or not.

Smart Battery

The Smart Battery presents an ideal solution for many of the issues related to batteries used in portable electronic equipment.
The Smart Battery provides the user with accurate state of charge information along with an accurate prediction of the remaining operating time.

It also Provides state-of-charge and full charge capacity; reflects capacity estimations; records battery history; including cycle count, usage pattern, maintenance requirements, max error, etc; configures charger to the correct algorithm; reminds user of periodic service; protects 7.4v lipo battery from unauthorized use; and to prevent accidental system cut-off.
This is why smart battery is more and more popular and widely used.

An excellent smart battery brand-Tattu plus, also have all these advantages when using on your drones.

1.2 Charger

Ordinary Batteries chargers : It must be individually tailored for use with a specific battery size and chemistry and may cause damage if used on another battery.

Smart Battery Charger: It periodically communicates with a Smart Battery and alters its charging characteristics in response to information provided by the Smart Battery（2s 7.4v lipo battery）.

1.3 Defects

The Smart Battery will add 25% to the cost when compared to a Ordinary Battery.
It complicates the charger, most chargers for intelligent batteries are hybrid and also service for non-intelligent batteries.Requires periodic calibration.
Compared with the Smart Battery’s disadvantages, it has more and valuable features.We believe in the future, people will creat more progressived technology on Smart Battery and overcome the price and other problems step by step.