We believe that the advancement in science and technology, while being a good thing, has made us dependent on gadgets and we are continually looking for charging ports. What if there was a gadget that could generate energy using your body movement and stored it? What if you could jog for 30 minutes and have enough power generated to provide 3 hours of battery life to your smartphone? Turns out that yes, you can do it, all thanks to the nPower PEG concept’s further miniaturization in the form of Ampy.
The basic concept has been upgraded by 3 Northwestern University Ph.D. candidates who have come up with Ampy as the final result, which is wearable, smaller and far more efficient. It is about half the size of a regular smartphone and can be strapped by users onto the arm, leg or hips. If you don’t like strapping the device then you can simply carry it in a bag. The gadget benefits from a proprietary linear inductor that allow the kinetic energy’s transformation into electricity and storage into a lithium ion battery. The USB port on it can then be used for accessing this stored energy.
Tejas Shasty, Co-founder and CEO of Ampy said, “We came up with a new proprietary architecture for inductors that allows us to generate significant power in a small form factor. Inductors on the marketplace used for kinetic charging are the size of a paper towel roll (like those in the nPower PEG and Genneo). We figured out a way to make them much smaller and deliver similar power.”
According to the team behind this gadget, an hour of cycling, 10,000 steps of walking or 30 minutes of jogging in a day shall create enough energy to allow for 3-hours’ worth charge. Ampy has a 1,000 mAh storage and this can charge your smartphone from zero battery to 50-75% of battery level. Ampy can fully charge smaller gadgets such as a smartwatch. The gadget is connected to your smartphone via an app that displays information like the amount of energy created, number of calories burnt and the carbon footprint offset by the user.
Ampy targets the larger market of common people and therefore, it is bound to be a success and is likely to receive many orders. Shastry said, “This scale opens up a whole new realm of possibilities, and in the future, we see our technology being integrated directly into smartwatches, fitness trackers, and other wearables.”
It weighs 100 grams and measures 3” square with a thickness of 0.75”. A Kickstarter campaign for the device has been launched this week and has already met 1/3rd of its goal. The backers shall be able to get a unit for $75 with deliveries starting in June, 2015 and a price tag of $95. Check out the video below for more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttzOnJFh6qc