Over half of all consumer electronic devices returned to shops are not broken ? they have just confounded their owners with their complexity ? that?s the findings of a report by research company Deloitte.

In the company?s predictions for 2007, its Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) practice said that consumers? tolerance for mastering a new gadget is limited to 20 just minutes, after which they tend to give up, assume the product is faulty and return it to the shop. It concluded that this year would see technology companies making more concerted efforts to make products easier to use. Many will focus on redesigning the user-interface, using both existing technologies and newer solutions, from haptics to artificial intelligence. Companies able to minimize product complexity may achieve greater success than competitors with superior, but relatively inaccessible, technology, said TMT.

Further findings of the report identified two key environmental trends in consumer electronics including the need to make products less harmful to environment and a move away from batteries as a portable power source. Over $31 billion is spent every year on disposable batteries; $6 billion is spent on rechargeable batteries and over a billion rechargeable batteries are included with electronic gadgets. Given that the limits of lithium-ion technology may be approaching, TMT predicted technology companies turning to power scavenging solutions, which draw energy from the environment around them. Body-heat, ambient light, vibrations and movement may all be harvested to supply supplementary charge to tiring batteries.

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