Orange Shows Phone-Charging Festival Wellies

Ever got half way through a festival and, just as your friend is helping you to navigate your way back to your tent in the dark, your phone dies and you have to spend the night sleeping in a muddy puddle? Well, it seems Orange has come up with a solution, in the form of boots that charge your phone as you dance.

The so-called “Orange Power Wellies” use a “power-generating sole” to convert heat from your feet into an electrical current. This “welectricity” can then be used to recharge your mobile phone. Orange claims that 12 hours of stomping through muddy fields will give you one hour of phone use.

Created in collaboration with renewable energy experts GotWind, Orange is planning to showcase the wellies at the Glastonbury Festival later this month, where it is an official communications partner.

“Orange remain loyal to the green ethos of the Glastonbury Festival and are committed to researching exciting new energy sources that can be used on site to ensure people can stay in touch with their nearest and dearest,” said Andrew Pearcey, Head of Sponsorship at Orange UK. “The Orange Power Wellies use clean and renewable energy to create valuable electricity ensuring festival goers can text and phone their mates for the duration of the weekend.”

The science bit

Orange explains that, inside the power generating sole, there are thermoelectric modules constructed of pairs of p-type and n-type semiconductor materials, forming a thermocouple. These thermocouples are connected electrically forming a thermopile.

They are then sandwiched between two thin ceramic wafers. When heat from the foot is applied on the top side of the ceramic wafer and cold is applied on the opposite side (from the ground), electricity is generated.

Orange has tested a number of other eco-friendly inventions at the Glastonbury Festival in the past. These include the “Recharge Pod”, powered by wind and solar energy, “Dance Charger”, which uses kinetic energy created by dancing, and the “Orange Power Pump”, which generates electricity through a traditional foot pump.

Eco-friendly mobile charging

Last week, Finnish phone giant Nokia released its Bicycle Charger Kit, which allows users to charge their handsets using pedal power. The unit consists of a charger and dynamo, as well as a holder to secure the phone to the user’s bike.

Nokia claims its bicycle kit provides “free and environmentally friendly electricity for mobile phones,” and gives people “even more freedom to use their Nokia without worrying about battery life.”

eWEEK Europe also recently reviewed Infinit’s solar-charging backpack, allowing gadget-fiends to charge mobile devices on the go using the sun. The backpack comes with a 2.4W solar panel – about 8 in by 5 in – which is enough to charge handheld gadgets with, but not enough for a laptop.

eWEEK Europe has one solar backpack to give away to a reader of our Daily Newsletter, in our latest prize draw. Sign up here.