This “knee dynamo” taps your normal walking movement to charge your mobile devices. The device uses the motion of your leg swinging forward at the beginning of your stride to generate power. Now you really don’t have any excuse for missing an important call because your phone was out of juice.
10 thoughts on “Knee dynamo could solve energy crisis”
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The problem here of course is that most people with lots of mobile devices don’t walk that much…
The problem here is of course Lenz’s law, which means that generating electricity this way means you have to push harder against the dynamo as the current increases – which means you burn more calories, which means you eat more….so “solving the energy crisis” this way might just lead to a food shortage ;)
I’m interested in this, but there are better ways to harvest kinetic energy from walking – piezoelectrics on the soles of the feet for one…
I heard the creator of this on NPR and it was a quite interesting interview. I like their ideas, but I am with Agronksi on this one. Why can’t we put non-invasive generators of some type on the soles of our shoes and generate small amounts of energy with each step without additional effort on our part? If we do that with each step, our total energy production would add up quickly.
There *may* even be an additional benefit of cushioning your foot with each step.
There are substantial efforts being thrown at developing these sorts of gadgets. For instance: the US Military loves to fund projects like this, as soldiers tasked with operating over long distances, often on foot in remote areas need to keep their techno-goodies charged and ready to deploy.
I read something about a dynamo that looked a little different just a few days ago.
As I understood it thát dynamo only generates power/resistance when you are at the end of your stride and have to stop your leg from moving forward, kind of like the braking system on a hybrid car.