A friend of mine from UCSD, Derek Lomas, and some other folks who have migrated to India for the time being have put together this sewing machine mobile phone charger. Since a lot of folks have sewing machines, but many don’t have electricity, they hacked together this device that charges your mobile phone to about an hour of talk time for 20 minutes of foot pedaling! Apparently where there is electricity, people still use foot-powered sewing machines. Watch the video — this is pretty cool.
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About Brynn Evans
I'm Brynn Evans, a design and user experience strategist. I blog here (occasionally) and can be found daily as @brynn on Twitter.
One Comment
I recently bought a solar cell phone charger (www.solarstyle.com). I got it because it was dirt cheap, and because I wanted to see if it was feasible to take something like a cell phone, which doesn’t use very much energy, off the grid. So far, I’ve had variable success. If I can get it in the direct sun for about 6-7 hours, it seems to be able to keep my phone charged. But obviously those are tough conditions to get, and it usually happens over several days (there isn’t much sun in my lab, so I have to just leave it in one spot at home). But it’s completely reasonable for people who don’t have access to electricity, since it’s really quite capable of powering small devices for periods of time that are actually useful.
It’s not as cheap as converting a sewing machine, but it definitely shows the effect that solar power can have in developing countries, even while it’s not so great for our high-tech lifestyles.