Oppo just made waves by announcing the Oppo Find N2 Flip foldable phone is getting a global release, but they had plenty more gadgets to show off at MWC 2023 in Barcelona this week. They’re upping their accessory game with the Oppo Wi-Fi 6 router, the Oppo Zero-Power Tag, and a 45W liquid cooler for smartphones.
Oppo Zero-Power Tag
The most potentially transformative device of the three is the Oppo Zero-Power Tag. Similar to the Apple AirTag, the Oppo Zero-Power Tag is a small tracker that can be placed on or in things like wallets to locate them if they’ve been lost or stolen. The difference is suggested by the name — the Oppo tracker doesn’t require a battery, removable or otherwise, to function. The AirTag is powered by a removable coin battery, which results in an awful lot of coin batteries getting tossed away as trash after a while.
The Oppo Zero-Power Tag uses principles of RF signal harvesting, backscattering, and low-power computing to allow the tag to use ambient radio waves to both power itself and bounce its information out into the ether by modulating some of those ambient radio waves.
While the Oppo Zero-Power Tag was shown off as a small rectangle, without a battery, it could in theory be as simple as a sticker with embedded electronics. This would make them way more versatile than an AirTag — beyond just locating lost items, Oppo suggested the Zero-Power Tag could be used to collect environmental data using temperature sensors, or to safely track endangered wildlife without having to attach a bulkier tag onto an animal.
Oppo Wi-Fi 6 Router
The Oppo Wi-Fi 6 Router is powered by Qualcomm’s Immersive Home 216 Platform, meaning it supports the Wi-Fi 6 AX5400 standard and can transmit 2.4GHz+5Ghz dual-band Wi-Fi signals simultaneously. That should help maximize your home internet speeds by itself, but it also helps that Oppo has used their proprietary anti-interference algorithm and network directional speed-up technology to improve range, stability, and speed throughout the home, even in your usual dead zones.
It also looks fancy, because why not? It’s a large, sleek cylinder that sort of has a French press vibe going on, with most of the electronics down in the base. The cylinder, while it looks cool, is actually designed to better dissipate heat while hiding away the router antennas. It’s not trying to be the router that you hide away behind the TV for polite company, in other words.
Oppo 45W Liquid Cooler
And finally, something completely different. Somewhere between concept and ready for store shelves is the Oppo 45W liquid cooler. Along with the OnePlus 45W liquid cooler also unveiled at MWC 2023, or Asus’ Aero AeroActive Cooler 6, the liquid cooler uses desktop-style liquid cooling to keep a smartphone cool. It is, for what it’s worth, larger than the phone it attaches to.
As companies like Qualcomm and Apple release more powerful smartphone processors, making it easier for more players to access MMPORG games, mobile gaming devices need better cooling systems to keep their internals operating optimally. However, better cooling will be impossible to implement while maintaining the sleek and ultra-thin smartphone aesthetic we are now accustomed to. This is where external coolers come in.
External coolers typically attach to smartphones and use a fan or thermoelectric chip to deliver cool air to the rear and reduce the temperature by up to 20 degrees Celsius, which is what the Oppo 45W liquid cooler promises to do. It sounds like Oppo and OnePlus do intend to take these to market, but we’re not sure when that might be.