According to internal polling data that I just made up, the average OhGizmo reader has 16.03 gadgets. That’s a lot, and since most if not all of them require electricity to operate, it’s important to mooch as much of it from other people as possible. The extension cord that you have plugged into your neighbor’s garage can only handle so much current, but soon there may be a way to steal electric power from someone who isn’t expecting it and won’t come after you with a weed whacker: the water company.
This little device gets stuck onto the end of a faucet or inserted into an existing water pipe. It’s got a little hydroelectric turbine in it, and when water moves through, the turbine spins to charge a battery. You can then plug into the battery to charge stuff. It’s not completely free, of course… You’re taking advantage of either gravity or a water company pump somewhere, and you’ll pay for your electricity with a reduction in water pressure caused by the resistance of the turbine. But hey, if you don’t overthink it, it’s free [minuscule amounts of] electricity!
Needless to say, there’s no information on production, but I bet whatever it would cost would be the equivalent of a whoooole bunch of kilowatt-hours of electricity out of a socket.
At CES this year, we saw several different stabs at wireless power. Most of them involved either direct contact, or minuscule amounts of electricity. At ETech last week, we saw a demo from a company called PowerBeam, which has a wireless power solution that promises to tackle both of those shortcomings. It’s exciting enough to start a fire in your pants. Unfortunately, the fire that PowerBeam starts in your pants may not just be the OMG wireless power!!11! type of fire. No, PowerBeam may start an actual fire. More, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Hey. You. You know what? You’re wasting electricity right now. And you could be harvesting all of that energy and pumping it back into your house. The Inlet Outlet concept is designed to be mounted next to your existing outlets, but instead of taking electricity out of them, you put electricity into them. The outlets will come with a variety of different adapter kits that let you convert waste energy emitted by things around your house into electricity generators, things like door hinges. Or a Wii Fit. Or a hamster wheel. Or bed springs: “hey babe, want to go generate some electricity?”
Realistically, that’s why this is only a concept, though… If it was that cheap and easy to turn everyday objects into electricity generators, wouldn’t we be doing it already? The sad fact is that for the near future, it’s almost always going to be less efficient to produce things like this than it’s going to be to use them. It’s still a cool idea, though.
We’ve heard it all before: fuel cells are going to power the devices of the future. They’re going to put out more power for longer and be instantly rechargeable with disposable cartridges. Sounds great… But obviously, this hasn’t happened yet. At CTIA last year, though, we were introduced to a company called Medis, who is producing a portable fuel cell charger that you can actually buy right now. It’s between 25 and 40 bucks on Amazon, and we’ll let you know whether this new technology is worth the money in our review, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
This little hamster is wearing a special jacket with a nanogenerator in it that harvests the biomechanical energy that the hamster creates as it moves. Each generator module can produce up to 70 milliwatts, and researchers are hoping to make them smaller to power nanoscale devices, as well as to integrate them into clothing to allow you to recharge stuff just by walking around. Too bad that sounds like soooo much more work than plugging things into the wall and then lying on the couch and watching them charge that way… But I guess I could just outfit my pet rats with biogenerator jackets of their own and replace their drinking water with Jolt.
Last year at CES, PowerCast really seemed to be the future. True wireless power… No pads, no adapters, no contacts, nothing at all. Just power getting sent straight through the air. Wouldn’t that be great? Like many things we saw last year at CES, though, the ultimate potential of this technology has not yet been realized. Powecast is making progress, however, and they were able to demo a few conceptual products to us. I say “conceptual” since although these things are fully functional prototypes, Powercast isn’t going to produce them directly… Rather, they’re looking to license their technology to manufacturers.
These Christmas ornaments are being lit up by a power transmitter plugged into the wall behind them. They stay lit even if you move them a meter or two away from the transmitter. Wunderlights, as they’re called, may possibly be available for Christmas 2009 at $35ish per ornament, or somewhere around $250-$300 for the kit pictured above with a transmitter included.
The actual “cast” part of Powercast technology, the ranged wireless power, is (sadly) really only practical for ultra low power applications like LEDs and sensors and stuff. For higher power electronics, the receiver needs to be a lot closer to (generally, in contact with) the charging surface. Powercast has put together some concepts for how this might work in the home, including this TV stand and lamp that charge remotes and stuff. Powecast says that using their continuous charging technology, you’ll have to replace the remote itself before you’ll have to change the batteries.
If you absolutely can’t wait to play around with Powecast tech, the only thing they’re actually selling right now is a development kit which contains everything you’ll need to create a Powercast enabled prototype… It’s $2000.
When we talked about WildCharge last year, I commented that the practicality of WildCharge was questionable due to the lack of consumer devices directly incorporating the technology. And that’s kinda still true, unfortunately, with only a few exceptions. But WildCharge is tackling this problem head on by releasing a line of plug-in accessories designed to help your gadgets charge with surface induction technology as gracefully as possible.
Unlike eCoupled and Powermat, WildCharge uses electrical contacts to (safely) charge things through a physical connection, but without cables. All you have to do is set your WildCharge enabled gadget down on the pad, and it charges. So, WildCharge has come out with swap-in battery packs for some phones, with contacts on the outside that interface with the pad:
WildCharge also has solutions for cellphones, called the universal adapter. It plugs into the USB jack on the side of most cellphones, and connects to a charging pad underneath the phone, allowing for contact charging. It’s about $45, including one USB tip and one pad.
For everything else, you can get a dongle that connects via USB (mini) and has a little pad attached. It’s about $25, but since you have to plug it IN to your gadget to get it to work, it doesn’t seem that much easier than using the cord that came with your gadget in the first place.
And, if you have an iPhone, WildCharge is coming out with a case on Feb 15 that includes contacts on the back and an integrated dock connector. It’ll cost $35.
The actual charging pad itself, btw, is $50ish and available at Best Buy, Target, and places like that. Oh, and they also have a 90w laptop power pad in the works, with modified batteries with contacts designed to work with some major brands of laptops.
The Motorola rep wouldn’t give me any specifics, but the company is “exploring” a potential partnership with wireless power products from eCoupled which would allow for wireless charging of your cellphone. The big barrier (one of them) to the introduction of wireless power is that people won’t use it if you have to buy a whole bunch of complicated accessories to get it to work. Motorola and eCoupled have been working on a replacement battery back and induction coil that’s a direct replacement for the Motorola extended battery. The only tradeoff is a decrease in the capacity of the battery to make room for the coil: 1200 mAh instead of 1800 mAh.
This is exactly what needs to happen: the introduction of wireless charging solutions that can be integrated seamlessly with existing products, allowing consumers to experience the advantages and make the transition.
Last year we saw a couple different stabs at wireless power, including WildCharge, PowerCast, and eCoupled. Power cords suck, and with the potentially beneficial establishment of a Wireless Power Consortium, we’re all hoping that we can do away with those horrible betanglements behind our desks sooner rather than later. Powermat has a consumer solution ready to go, with the familiar hardware combination of a non-conductive charging mat and adapters for various devices. You can either plug (!) your gadget into a Powermat enabled dock, plug (!) it into an adapter which gets placed on a Powermat, or equip it with a case with an integrated Powermat receiver:
Powermat is also apparently able to transmit data through the same system, allowing the transfer of audio and video at unspecified rates, which could be neat. But, the big question is when will wireless charging capability be integrated into the devices themselves, and Powermat’s obligatory answer is that they’re “working on it.” I dunno, guys… I’m a little bit worried that until that actually happens, the rest of us (i.e. the consumer base) are just going to suck it up and keep plugging stuff in rather than have to buy a bunch of expensive adapters.
The mat part of the Powermat system will hit retail in Q4 for about $100, and the adapters will go for between $25 and $35 each.
Related Tags: Concepts, Eco-friendly, Power
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