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Nokia Targets Mobile Kinetic Energy Charging

Posted by Soulskill on from the walking-and-talking dept.

justice4all writes "Nokia has filed a US patent for a phone charger that harvests kinetic energy. The technology has been used in laptops, PDAs, and GPS receivers, according to Nokia. Essentially, the mobile devices would be powered in part through the movements of their owners."

3 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Talk about a Euro-centric technology! by Weezul · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm aware that many Europeans and Asians would benefit from this technology, but American outside NYC will never get much current out. Any wonder Nokia dominates the European and Asian markets but preforms dismally over here?

    --
    The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
  2. Seiko Watches by Reason58 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Seiko has been making watches powered solely by kinetic motion for over two decades now. http://www.seikowatches.com/technology/kinetic/index.html

  3. Conference Notes: by KiwiCanuck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was at a conference in Europe a few years ago and they had an afternoon section devoted to power scavenging. Most devices produced nanowatts of power. The problem is extracting the power from random motion. A fixed length cantilever (the simplest design) will only produce meaningful power when at resonance. Complex arrays can extract more power, but the cost-benefit ratio rises quickly. The only device that broke the milliwatt was NASA's micro (milli?) jet turbine (it might have broke the Watt barrier as well, I can't remember exactly). However, the turbine was made out of a stack of twenty 3-inch wafers. At $10 per wafer (very cheap wafer), you're starting cost is $200. So it is very costly to build, but could be extremely useful in many applications.