UK cellular company Orange has just announced a foot-powered air pump capable of recharging a cell phone. The “Orange Power Pump” will be shown off at the Glastonbury Festival in late June.
According to the press release:
A compact camping accessory which fits all handsets, the Orange Power Pump measures 154mm by 129mm with a height of 47mm making it no bigger than a packet of Wet Wipes, is lightweight and easy to fit into your rucksack. Encased in sleek black housing, the turbine can generate enough energy to power 5 minutes of call time in the time it takes to inflate a pillow.
I, for one, really enjoy the objects that Orange uses for comparison. The pump, you see, is no bigger than a pack of Wet Wipes (note the capitalization, denoting the importance of wet wipes). How big is a pack of Wet Wipes? I’ve not had the pleasure to carry an entire pack around with me. And is this a family size pack or a travel size pack?
And just how long does it take to inflate a pillow? I feel embarrassed to say that I’ve never inflated a pillow before either. I’ve carried around regular pillows, which are often larger than a pack of Wet Wipes. I’ve inflated mattresses, which deflate down to the size of a small laser printer (a tandem bicycle is larger, though). Let’s just assume that it takes between one minute and one hour to inflate a pillow, depending how puny your legs are.
Weird comparisons aside, the pump seems like a pretty good idea. It’d be cool to get something like this in the US, although it’d have to be powered by gasoline or batteries for people to use it. Cool. Battery-operated foot pump.
Give it some welly! Orange launches the Power Pump charger for Glastonbury 2009 [Orange via Red Ferret]
P.S. What does “welly” mean?
You suck me in with the blonde, and you keep me interested with the Wet Wipes and tandem bikes.
Well played, Crunchgear. Well played indeed.
While this is an interesting idea and a possibly greener way to charge up your cell phone, never forget to think about the “carbon footprint” of making this device. How many charges do you need to do before the carbon footprint of the device equals that of the nuclear power used to charge your phone.
Unfortunately I fear you’ll never use the device enough times for this ever to be a truly green solution.
Also I’d like to point out, if you are in a place where you don’t have access to a power plug, 99% of the time you won’t be close enough for a cell phone tower to use your phone anyway. So unless you’re playing games on your phone, it’s kind of useless, sorry.
While TravisO brings up an important point about mobile phone areas and power, I see potential here for backcountry devices like GPS and Digital Cameras. I can’t count the number of time internal batteries have out on cameras and GPS on multi-day hikes.
I’m guessing “welly” refers to Wellington boot.
A Calf length rubber boot that is required footwear for the mudfest that is Glastonbury.