Mobile Battery Chargers and Other Alternatives

When you are out on the road or stranded in some isolated places without any electrical or battery supplies, a mechanical charger would come in handy as it enables you to charge the device mechanically (in another word, manually).

Starting from the earliest form of mechanical charger, is the one for the torchlight. Our first mechanically charged torchlight was a corporate gift all the way back around 2004 (if I remember correctly). That first model was likely an improved prototype that didn’t last very long. Some time later, someone took the design and mass produce it. It is now sold in the stores such as this one sold by an online store in Singapore:

The price of these have dropped dramatically and it currently sold at only SGD7.90 ($5.60 USD) after 34% discount.

30 secs of shaking provides 5 mins of light via LED, and it contains a capacitor as the main energy store with 2 flat batteries as a backup.

A comparable and newer product is the handcrank torchlight sold at UxCell. It is also currently sold at a reduced price of $8.99. Turning the crank either way will help to generate electricity.

Another version is the one from Jessica Nebel below, a torchlight that “functions as long as it is hand held and emitting surround light once it is placed on a surface. The Stop ‘n Go Light, as its called, is very useful as shown in the pictures below, especially in situations where electricity supply is not readily available such as camping. It serves well as an emergency light source. However, we do not have any information on the power supply or mechanical charging details (not quite sure its charged mechanically).

A more popular and extensive use of mechanical charging is used for mobile devices such as mobile phones.

Yogen has a pull-release mobile charger (see below) that helps to charge the phone when its out of battery at the most inconvenient times. It weighs only 98gms and smaller than most mobile phones, and can be carried in the pocket giving you the peace of mind of a backup charger that does not need to be maintained. This is something that we would buy, and is selling for $39.99 at this time of writing.

There is also the invention by an Indian Entrepreneur, Ankit Mehta, a top ranked student at IIT Bombay. He invented this mechanical charging device (see below) that is now sold worldwide. This product needs a little more user involvement to charge but by rotating a crank, similar to the handcrank torchlight above. According to the shop, a 1 minute of continual turning gives about 3 mins of talk time and 30 mins of standby time. An interesting point is that it states that a lower charging currents can lead to a better battery life.

Some designers have started to come up with ideas that completely forego the need to carry an additional charger (whether mechanical or not), by building the charging system directly into the phone.

Yanko Design has a page showing the design from Mikhail Stawsky. Just put your fingers into the hole and start spinning while you walk. If this gets popular, we can imagine everybody doing the spins at the shopping mall or along the busy streets.

Just have to make sure it doesn’t fly off accidentally, not because you will lose the phone, but you might end up paying for medical bills or damaged property.

Then we stumbled upon this interesting personal site of a product designer, Ben Pritz (bpritzdesign.com), which also has one of these conceptual phone design in his portfolio (see below). The are other designs in his portfolio such as shoes, and sports equipment. If you have an upcoming business idea and need a product designer, you might like to check him up.

For the health or fitness freaks out there who would rather do something more than cranking, pulling or shaking, you can try to find something similar to this concept design:

This picture above looks like a 3D rendering rather than a real prototype, and you can find out more at Petit Invention.

And finally if cranking, pulling, shaking and working-out is not going to work for your upcoming business idea, you can try the solar and wind charger by Kinesis Industries (see below). This is a 3-in-1 hybrid, which includes solar power, wind power and AC power. There is no mechanical charging option.

The K3 weighs at 300gms, and is powered by rechargeable Li-Ion battery with a capacity of 4,000 mAH, which is equivalent to some notebook batteries. The downside is that it is bigger and bulky as compared to the smaller mobile chargers. However, that is the trade-off in return for using free “elemental” power and a higher capacity.

These are selling for $99.95, and you can find out more about this product or latest updates at Kinesis Industries .

Note: All information are subject to changes. Please check with the original supplier or manufacturer for the latest updated information/price (if quoted).

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