Unplugging the Future: Why Your Monitors Are the Last Cord Standing
By Robert Kroon
Extended battery life enhances the value of Agile Workplaces, especially in retrofits where expanding AC power is costly or impossible.
For building owners, architects, facility managers, and commercial interior designers, the landscape of workplace technology is constantly evolving. A significant and welcome shift is the move towards universal charging standards and, more importantly, devices that are designed for unparalleled energy efficiency. The recent launch of Microsoft's Surface Laptop (7th Generation) and Surface Pro (11th Generation) are prime examples of this trend, echoing a similar philosophy championed by Apple for years.
Gone are the days when a new laptop meant another proprietary power brick to manage. Microsoft, with its latest Surface offerings, has firmly embraced USB-C charging. This isn't just about convenience; it's a strategic move that fundamentally alters how we think about power infrastructure in commercial real estate, especially for innovative solutions like our battery-powered Agile Workplace furniture.
Beyond the Battery: The Brilliance of Integrated Design
When you hear about the impressive battery life of devices like the new Surface Laptop (with up to 22 hours of local video playback for the 15-inch model) or the Surface Pro (offering up to 14 hours of local video playback), it's easy to assume manufacturers are simply stuffing bigger batteries into these sleek machines. While battery technology certainly improves, the real game-changer is the synergistic design of hardware and software.
Both Microsoft's new Copilot+ PCs, powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and Plus processors, and Apple's celebrated MacBooks and iPads with their M-series chips, are engineered from the ground up for energy efficiency. This means:
Optimized Processors: The new chip architectures in both camps intelligently manage workloads, assigning tasks to specialized cores (like the Neural Processing Unit for AI tasks in Copilot+ PCs, or the efficiency cores in Apple Silicon) that consume less power. This dynamic workload management is crucial for extending battery life without sacrificing performance.
Software Integration: Whether it's Windows 11 on these new Surfaces or macOS/iPadOS on Apple devices, the operating systems are finely tuned to leverage these efficient processors, ensuring applications run smoothly without unnecessarily draining power. Features like "Energy Saver" and intelligent background activity management further contribute to sustained battery life across both ecosystems.
AI at the Core, Not at the Cost: The "Copilot+" designation for Microsoft and the advanced machine learning capabilities of Apple's M-series chips signify a deep integration of on-device AI. This isn't just a marketing buzzword; it's about performing AI tasks locally and efficiently, rather than constantly relying on cloud processing that would consume more power.
The result? Laptops and tablets from both leading manufacturers that genuinely last an entire workday, and often beyond, on a single charge. This newfound longevity isn't solely due to a larger battery capacity, but rather a testament to meticulous engineering where every component, from the silicon to the operating system, works in harmony to conserve energy.
The Inefficient Hurdle: Why Monitors Still Need an Inverter on Our Desks
A view of the underside of an August Berres Respond! Desk showing an inverter and triplex outlet. These are necessary components for agile furniture solutions in today’s world, only because monitor manufacturers have not incorporated USB-C as a way to power monitors.
At August Berres, we engineer battery-powered Agile Workplace furniture designed for ultimate flexibility. Our vision is a completely wire-free, untethered workstation that can be deployed anywhere. Devices like the new Microsoft Surface Laptops, and indeed the entire modern lineup of Apple MacBooks and iPads with their native USB-C power input, are precisely what we need to make this vision a reality. They can draw power directly from our low-voltage battery systems with remarkable efficiency.
However, a significant inefficiency persists: the vast majority of external monitors on the market still require AC power.
This means that for every battery-powered desk we deploy, we are currently forced to include an inverter. An inverter converts the efficient DC (direct current) power from our batteries into AC (alternating current) power for the monitor's power brick, which then converts it back to DC for the monitor's internal components. This double conversion is inherently inefficient, leading to:
Energy Loss: Each conversion step results in wasted energy as heat, reducing the overall runtime of our battery-powered desks. This directly impacts the "unplugged" duration our furniture can offer.
Increased Component Count: Adding an inverter increases the complexity, size, and cost of our furniture solutions.
Less "Green": While our core solution is highly sustainable, the persistent need for an inverter detracts from the ultimate energy efficiency we strive for in a truly low-voltage ecosystem.
Imagine if monitors could simply accept USB-C power directly, just like the new Microsoft Surface laptops and current Apple MacBooks! If monitors could be powered by 12V, 20V, or 48V DC via USB-C (utilizing standards like USB PD 3.1 Extended Power Range for higher wattages), our battery-powered desks could deliver clean, efficient DC power straight to the monitor. This would eliminate the need for inverters, significantly extending battery life, reducing heat, and creating truly streamlined, mobile workstations. While Apple's own Studio Display does offer 96W of power delivery to connected Macs, this is for charging the laptop from the monitor, not powering the monitor from a low-voltage DC source via USB-C. We need monitors designed to be powered by USB-C, rather than primarily providing power through USB-C.
The Impact on Agile Workplaces and Building Retrofits
For those shaping the future of commercial spaces, this dichotomy presents both opportunities and challenges:
An August Berres Respond! desk with both DC and AC connections. Suitable for Agile Workplaces but an on-board inverter is necessary to accommodate monitors.
True Agility and Mobility (Pending Monitor Evolution): Employees can move seamlessly between collaborative zones and individual focus areas with their laptops, confident in long battery life and USB-C charging. Our battery-powered desks offer unparalleled freedom, but their maximum untethered uptime is currently limited by the inverter required for monitors.
Simplified Power Infrastructure (Future State): The dream of a fully USB-C powered workstation—laptop and monitor—would revolutionize office design. It would dramatically simplify electrical planning, reduce the demand for traditional wall outlets, and enable truly flexible floor plans.
The Power of Fault-Managed Power (FMP) and DC Microgrids: This is where our expertise in agile furniture using fault-managed power becomes even more critical. Our battery-powered desks are essentially a form of localized DC microgrid. If monitors adopted direct USB-C DC power input, we could leverage FMP systems to deliver low-voltage DC power efficiently and safely from building infrastructure using batteries to directly power future monitors, eliminating AC entirely from the workstation. This is a game-changer for retrofitting older buildings, offering a less disruptive and significantly more energy-efficient pathway to modern power delivery.
Enhanced Sustainability and Cost Savings: Less energy consumption by all devices, coupled with the elimination of inefficient inverters, translates to lower operational costs for building owners and a significantly smaller carbon footprint.
The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Generation and Surface Pro 11th Generation, alongside Apple's consistent innovations in power-efficient computing, are pushing the envelope for device power efficiency. Now, the industry needs monitor manufacturers to catch up. For August Berres, this next step is crucial for unlocking the full potential of truly battery-powered, plug-and-play Agile Workplaces. We are ready with the battery solutions; we just need the monitors to join the modern power revolution.
