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Self-Heating Can

Posted by michael on from the cup-o-soup dept.

nickprecision writes "Ontro has been working for a while, and they are about ready to get to the public market. Quite a nifty little self-heating can... imagine the uses. Read up so you know about it when your friends pull one out on the ski hill."

9 of 291 comments (clear)

  1. they've be at it since 98 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I worked on one of their early sites. The can does seem like a nice thing to have on camping trips and other places where you can't light up a big fire to heat stuff up. The military I believe was interested in.

  2. they trademarked two words. nice. by gTsiros · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "anytime, anywhere"

    and they trademarked it. am i the only one who thinks that this is stupid?

    --
    Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
  3. Website Design by jaavaaguru · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I can see this getting slashdotted fairly quickly if they had more information on the site, since they seem to want to do everything as images. And the site has one paragraph of text and no links when viewed in Lynx. Not very geek-friendly.

    --
    Follow me
  4. Re:Already In Europe by psychofox · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The other problem with it is the amount of coffee you actually get. The Nescafe product comes in what looks like a regular 330ml coke can size package. However, it only only holds ~200 ml of coffee. The other ~100ml being taken up by the heating mechanism.

    Its interesting that they also sell two variants. One can with sugar and one without. Both come with milk.

    I actually think it tastes quite nice!

  5. wastes ? by mirko · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you are interested this product, then you're most probably willing to wander in some places where you would neither have time to cook...

    So, you're probably trekking.

    The problem is with the container itself as you can't obviously just drop it in a bush and it may be an oversupply in terms of volume, once used.

    Especially if, as they say, you use it for Baby-food : you will need its place to store the pampers... If you at least have some respect for the environment.

    I saw such self-heating doses of food here in Switzerland and they actually took care of this detail by storing these (and their self-heating chemicals) in plastic/metal bag which advantage is to occupy very little space, once empty...

    --
    Trolling using another account since 2005.
  6. Let me get this straight... by joebp · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The huge flaw in their design is that it contains Calcium Oxide. AKA Lime. AKA Quicklime. AKA a substance used in manufacturing steel and paper, in glassmaking, in waste treatment, in insecticides, and as an industrial alkali.

    Not something I'd like near my coffee, thanks!

    When mixed with water it turns into Slaked Lime and heat. So the waste problem goes from recycling cans to recycling cans full of Slaked Lime! Oh well, perhaps the sewage and effluent treatment industry would buy it off the recyclers?

  7. How does it work when it's freezing? by cardcounter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Since the reaction of water and CaO is what creates heat here, how can it work when the puck of water is solid ice?

    Doesn't seem like a reliable way to enjoy a hot beverage on the slopes.

    1. Re:How does it work when it's freezing? by mwood · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Works great, I presume. Telegraph linemen used to thaw frozen ground by upending a keg of quicklime over the spot where they needed to dig a post-hole.

  8. Fire in a Can is ANCIENT (back to mid 1900s) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It's been around for quite some time. My parents used to sell some antiques from an old store we owned, and many of these antiques were old cans, food jars, pop bottles, and fruit crates. I specifically remember seeing fire-in-a-can. Instructions were "pop the lid and wait."

    I didn't pop the lid at the time, but the can was stamped something like 1930 or 1940. At least 50 years ago anyway.