This windup battery charger is brought to you by Freeplay Energy Group, the London-based company that gave the world the windup radio and the windup flashlight. Selling a few million of these gadgets since the mid-1990s has yielded annual revenues of $40 million, but the firm expects to sell a whopping 40 million mobile-phone chargers in the first year.
While the other windup products used bulky springs, the phone charger has a tiny alternator that translates the mechanical (windup) energy into electricity, which it stores in its own lithium-ion battery. A 30-second burst of winding yields six minutes of talk time, the company claims. “It takes years to develop something that’s small, efficient and comfortable for human beings to use,” says technical director John Hutchinson.
The device will satisfy power-guzzling next-generation phones as well as the needs of Third World countries, where mobile phones are picking up slack from poor land-line networks. Motorola is lending its name to the $50 gizmo and will distribute it to stores in Europe and the United States later this year. Freeplay also wants to adapt the technology for handheld computers, toys and medical instruments.
