Tag Archives: Battery

Power up your devices while with this portable battery while camping outdoors

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One of the reasons why people go camping is to commune with nature and escape life from the concrete jungle. But of course, you can’t really unplug from life for various reasons unless you plan to totally go off the grid for the next few days. You still need some electrical source for various devices and a lot of campsites now actually have some electrical outlets for various needs of the campers. These will of course tend to be “crowded” and so you need some sort of solution that will give you power and space.

Designer: Yifeeling Design Lab

The Mobile Universe is basically a portable battery that you can bring with you when you go camping. It has different inputs and outputs so you can power up all the various devices you may need while camping. You have AC output, USB-A, USB-C, 12V for car sockets, and other things you may need. There’s also a part of the battery that you can pull away from the main body so you or your other campmates can use it a little further away if needed.

This is still a concept and there are no details about the technical specifications of the battery itself. One of the photos shows a counter with up to 100 so we’re assuming that it’s meant to charge up to 100 kilowatts or watts or whatever unit of measurement. It shows smartphones charging and can power even a small coffeemaker so it must mean that it has significant power to be able to do so. The device also has different wires and connectors, living up to its “universal” name.

It would be nice to see more details about what the Mobile Universe can bring if it ever becomes an actual product. Campers and those that will be spending time in the great outdoors can definitely benefit from bringing a device like this, if they don’t want to totally go off-grid and still have access to things like phones, tablets, and other electronic devices.

The post Power up your devices while with this portable battery while camping outdoors first appeared on Yanko Design.

Your clothes could soon be a limitless battery source to juice-up wearables

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We have a limitless resource in the form of energy on the planet and in the universe. Keeping it within the realms of planet earth, for the time being, researchers around the world have long been on the lookout for alternative sources of energy that capture energy from the most unusual resources.

In a similar endeavor, researchers at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University have devised a novel way to capture the energy dissipated by our body and turn it into a battery for numerous uses.

Designer: Nanyang Technological University

So, you could be charging up a wearable lithium-ion battery as you run, walk or while breathing. Consequently, the stored energy can be used to charge gadgets. And where is the energy stored with all this technological goodness? In the clothes one wears. Yes, the researchers have created a prototype of this never-before-seen fabric capable of harvesting energy. According to them a 3cm by 4cm piece of such fabric can generate energy equivalent to powering 100 light-emitting diodes for around 5 months. That’s around 2.34 watts of power per square meter. Now that’s a lot of energy that otherwise goes to waste.

The durable material made out of polymer converts mechanical stress into electrical energy. Things like pressing, stretching, or squeezing the fabric with any kind of body movements, 24×7. So, you could be a source of energy as long as you are running, moving around your arms or legs, or even while tossing and turning in your deepest sleep. This is the perfect development for the power-hungry wearables of today that demand an abundant energy resource in a very small form factor. Your clothes generate energy without you even being conscious about it is the ideal solution.

Moving onto the technical part of the body battery, the researchers screen-printed electrode pattern on the material made out of silver and styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene used in bicycle handlebar grips. Then they attached it to a piezoelectric nanofiber which generates an electrical charge when moved or touched. They fitted the fine fabric with perovskite material to increase the electrical conductivity. The smart textile was tested for durability by washing and tossing around since it is waterproof as well.

So, we are slowly inching towards times where Matrix-like smart energy generating systems could rule the future. Human batteries are powered by smart textiles that won’t weather with use, to be precise.

The post Your clothes could soon be a limitless battery source to juice-up wearables first appeared on Yanko Design.

This power station and battery is designed for supplying your home and EV with off-grid energy

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With power cuts becoming a norm around the world due to energy shortages, heat waves, and economic fallouts, having your own power backup isn’t just a ‘good idea’ anymore, it’s a necessity. Now in its second generation, Bluetti’s AC500 power station and modular B300S battery pack let you gain absolute power independence. Hook them up to your home’s power supply or connect them to a solar grid and you’ve got emergency power backups that work perfectly during blackouts and can even be used outdoors to give you power without being connected to a traditional grid.

Designer: Bluetti

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Built with a 5,000W inverter (that also handles 10,000W surges), the A500 can handle pretty much anything you throw at it. It’s designed to take over 99% of all your power needs, with a UPS system that kicks in in just 20 milliseconds, keeping your fridge, microwave, TV, AC, CPAP, and other appliances running. Heck, the AC500 can even charge your Tesla if you need it to. The beauty of the AC500’s system is its modular design, letting you hook up as many B300 or B300S batteries as you need (up to 18,432Wh) to fulfill your energy requirements, whether it’s for an entire home, a cabin in the woods, or just the camper hooked to the back of your pickup.

Weighing 66 lbs (30 kilograms), the AC500 is just slightly larger than your average ice box and can be stowed away in your garage or even the back of your RV or pickup truck. It comes with 16 output ports, including plug points, USB-A and USB-C ports, and even heavy-duty outlets for your EV. It sports a display that details your power consumption and even lets you know if there’s any issue with the AC500, although the power station has a comprehensive battery management system, and the B300S’s LiFePO4 batteries offer long-term durability and 3,500+ charging cycles to 80% of its original capacity.

The AC500 can be charged in 9 different ways, giving you the option of hooking it to your home’s AC supply, a generator, lead acid battery, or even solar panels depending on whichever method works best for you. You can even hook two AC500s together for split phase bonding, doubling your capacity, voltage, and power to 36,864Wh, 240V/6,000W (you’ll require Bluetti’s Fusion Box Pro for that). The power station comes with a modular battery system that lets you hook multiple battery packs together depending on your power needs (they recommend at least 2 B300S battery packs for optimal use), and Bluetti claims that it takes just 40 minutes to charge 2 batteries up to 80%. Moreover, to make things even easier, the Bluetti smartphone app lets you see your power stats, monitor usage, and even trigger OTA updates to keep your power station in peak performance condition, so no matter whether there’s a heatwave or a hailstorm raging outside, you’ve always got energy to keep your home and life on track!

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The post This power station and battery is designed for supplying your home and EV with off-grid energy first appeared on Yanko Design.

This portable lantern’s battery was designed to be recharged using ocean water

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This low-cost high-innovation LED lamp uses saltwater to recharge its batteries! Labeled the WaterLight, it was designed for neighborhoods with little to no access to electricity. Instead of requiring a traditional power outlet to replenish its batteries, the WaterLight uses a water-activated magnesium battery that causes a reaction when it comes in contact with brine. This effectively means the WaterLight can be charged via ocean water, regular salt water, or in emergency cases, even urine.

Designed by Colombian start-up E-Dina in collaboration with creative agency Wunderman Thompson, the lamp hopes to act as a stand-in for solar-powered lamps. The WaterLight is much more efficient than a solar-powered lamp, generating much more energy than a solar panel would. “WaterLight can be more efficient than solar energy lanterns because it regenerates instantly,” said Pipe Ruiz Pineda, executive creative director of Wunderman Thompson Colombia. “Once filled with water, the energy delivery is immediate while solar lanterns need to transform solar energy to alternative energy to charge batteries and they only work if there is sun.”

Almost a billion people have no access to electricity, according to World Health Organization data. That’s roughly 14% of the world that has to live in the darkness for half of the day. This stops them from being able to work and live, and makes it difficult for kids to study past dusk too. The WaterLight was designed to help them easily and effectively combat this situation without relying on a power grid. The light comes made from entirely recyclable materials that are water-resistant too. Inlets on the top of the lamp let water flow in, while the LEDs at the bottom provide 45 days of electricity with just half a liter of salt water.

The design of the WaterLight is inspired by the Colombian Wayuu community, an indigenous tribe with a strong ancestral connection to the sea. Living practically isolated from civilization, the tribes still rely on fishing and handicrafts to sustain themselves – activities that can’t be done after dark. The WaterLight puts a powerful portable light in each household. Fishermen can take the light out to sea and use its canoe-friendly design to suspend it to their boats. Craftswomen, on the other hand, can use the lamp after dark to work on their art, and their children can use it to study after sunset.

Water-activated magnesium batteries aren’t new, although their applications are few and far apart. The Solar Desalination Light (a finalist at the Lexus Design Award 2021) uses a similar solution to power lights at night while using the sun during the day to purify the ocean’s salty water for consumption. The WaterLight on the other hand, focuses on providing a versatile, portable, and efficient light that can be recharged using limited resources available to the users. For good measure, the lamps even work as mini generators, and a USB port on one side of the lamp lets you charge small devices with it like a smartphone, giving you access to communication and even to emergency services, should you ever need them.

Designer: E-Dina in collaboration with Wunderman Thompson

Biden will review tech supply chains to reduce dependence on China

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The US is still heavily dependent on other countries for technology manufacturing (among other products), and President Biden is looking for ways to reduce that dependence. The LA Times has learned that Biden is ordering a review of US supply chains...

Samsung is using quantum computing to research better batteries

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Even the slightest improvement in battery technology could help you decide what gadgets you buy, and Samsung is hoping quantum computing will give it an edge. The tech firm and Imperial College London researchers are using Honeywell's System Mode...

Fiat Chrysler teams with startup Archer to build an electric air taxi

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Archer Aviation is one of many startups trying to build an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, among Volocopter, Hyundai, Lilium and many others. The startup just boosted its standing, however, as it has announced a partnership wi...