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Rechargeable Boots

Posted by michael on from the ground-pounder dept.

Fancypants writes: "ABCNews.com has posted an article about a Menlo Park, CA company that is developing boots that generate power. Imagine charging your cell phone by walking to class." Seems as if we've done a story before on shoes that generate electricity, but I sure don't see it in the archives.

10 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. electric shoes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/06/22/183825 1&mode=thread

  2. No actual power by pouwelse · · Score: 3, Informative
    Nice idea, but far from usefull.

    The previous Slashdot article on this topic gives actual numbers: 0.0013 W when walking normally.

    This fluffy article gives no numbers on the performance, but with their menthod it should not come even close to being realistic. When you do the math it is theoretically possible to get resonable amount of power from your shoes, but the technology is still experimental.

    As one of the developers of an Open Hardware PDA I can say that you can only do very litte computation for that and it would require an afternoon of walking to scrape enough energy together for a cell phone call.

    Just my 2 Eurocents,
    Johan.

    1. Re:No actual power by mikeage · · Score: 3, Informative

      Almost ;). The previous article was a piezoelectric design for the sole of the shoe... this uses two charged plates being moved through a magnetic field... according to the article, this one does 1/2W, soon to be boosted to 2W.

      --
      -- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
  3. Old hat by tomknight · · Score: 5, Informative
    (or should I say old shoe....?)

    The Electric Shoe Company sells these (or rather, a verion of them).

    Tom.

    --
    Oh arse
  4. Re:wha... the.... by TheMMaster · · Score: 2, Informative

    I am not actually an expert on the subject but (quote) A tiny battery positively charges one side of the flexible material and the other negatively. As the material is compressed and released ? such as by the foot pressure generated during walking ? the distance between the positive and negative sides change, which in turn creates electricity.

    From what I can remember from science class this seems to have something to do with electro-magnetism.... and for I guess it uses the battery to make the initial electro magnetic field...
    PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong ;-)

    --
    Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
  5. Actual power 1/2 a watt, heading to 2 watts by Ezza · · Score: 3, Informative

    From the article (you did read it right?):
    >the prototype boot generates about half a watt of
    >power -- more than enough energy to recharge the boot's built-in battery and
    >a cell phone. But Pelgrine hopes that by the end of January the boot's output
    >could be raised to nearly two watts

    --
    I'm a perfectionist but I'm trying to cut back.
    1. Re:Actual power 1/2 a watt, heading to 2 watts by pouwelse · · Score: 4, Informative
      From the article: >the prototype boot generates about half a > watt of power

      Because no technical details are available their is no way to know if this is the maximum power output during touchdown of the foot or the average power output during an average person walking at an average pace.

      My assumption is that the quoted 0.5 W is the delivered top power, not the average. This would be more in balance with existing technology. Otherwise they go directly for the next Nobel price for advancing current technology with a factor of 10,000 .

      As a guy who likes technology I hope they win the Noble price, but it is doubtfull.

      Just my 2 Eurocents,, Johan.

  6. Parasitic power by joel.neely · · Score: 5, Informative

    The good folks at the MIT Media Lab (especially under the Things That Think research program) have been researching such things for years.
    The July/August issue of IEEE Micro contains several articles on their work, including one on parasitic power.

  7. Previously Seen Story??? by Schwarzchild · · Score: 3, Informative
    Seems as if we've done a story before on shoes that generate electricity...

    Hmm....maybe maybe not but /. has certainly previously posted a story on human generated power.

    --

    "sweet dreams are made of this..."

  8. Boot power technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    Investigation of this goes back a long way, at least a few years. Work has definitely been done at QinetiQ on the subject. Check


    http://www.qinetiq.com/applications/qinetiq/news _r oom/news_releases/show.asp?ShowID=106&category=0


    Even very small amounts of power can be useful in particular circumstances.