June 24, 2008 » Armband Mobile Phone Charger

Orange, a mobile and broadband services provider, announces its armband mobile phone charger. The charger, which debuted at the 2008 Glastonbury music festival, provides current to a phone in response to the wearer’s movement.

From the press release:

The Dance Charge prototype weighs in at only 180grams and measures 4¼” x 2½”, approximately the same size as a pack of cards and the same weight as a mobile phone. The Dance Charge unit comes encased in an elasticated, black, neoprene strap with Velcro attachments which is attached over the wearer’s bicep in a similar fashion to a runner’s arm-mounted mp3 player.
As the user moves their arms along to the music – a specially designed system of weights and magnets, similar to that found in kinetic energy watches, creates an electrical current which provides a top-up of charge to a storage battery. So whilst festival goers are out dancing to their favourite bands, the charger stores dance generated power in the reservoir battery, ready for when they return to their tent each night to recharge their phone.

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