Breathtaking Mini Wind Turbines to charge iPhone
We’ve become very used to seeing both onshore and offshore wind turbines rotating majestically in the breeze, but there’s an energy-making on a much much smaller scale around. How about something powered by your breath? Ok, it may not generate enough energy to keep all the lights on in your house, but just as small solar-powered panels can charge calculators and gadgets like your phone, the mini turbines used here can do the same.
This concept design was created by Joao Paulo Lammoglia and it utilizes the power of your breath to convert into electricity via very small wind turbines. The user simply worns the AIRE mask hooked up to an iOS device and by breathing into the mask, the gadget is able to recharge the phone.
This mask will charge your iDevice while you are breathing at a normal pace; using the air you breathe to propel the mini wind turbines. At the moment it is only a concept, but it does work.
Unfortunately, it is unlikely to get people clamouring to the inventor’s website demanding to know when the AIRE mask becomes available to buy. As can be seen from the photos of the mask in use, it just doesn’t look right! The comments range from embarrassing (“it’s like you’re trying to protect yourself from Bird-Flu”) to the rude (“why would I want to look like a Star Wars Stormtrooper?”)
The off-putting physical appearance is a shame, as the device doesn’t require any battery or electricity power to use and to have designed and produced such robust mini wind turbines to create energy from exhaled air is a real innovation. Could the very same turbines be used inside mini windmills in country gardens, spaced among the gnomes, to re-charge re-chargeable batteries? Why not?
The inventor, Lammoglia explains:
“AIRE can be used in any situation, indoors or outdoors. It can be used while you sleep, walk, run, or read a book, for example. Besides saving energy (and contributing to environmental preservation), it also encourages the practice of physical exercise.”
AIRE won a RedDot Design Award: Best of the Best in 2011 and Lammoglia hopes to commercialize the design in the near future.
Looking at his website, the inventor has two other renewable energy creation prototypes; ankle-bands that charge MP3 and other small cell batteries when you walk or jog, and a doormat called a doormat that collects a charge when you wipe your feet on it, sufficient to activate the doorbell. Clever, but not sure if they’ll catch on.
Would there be a danger if you were out jogging with the AIRE mask, the anklet and then came home and wiped your feet on the mat, you’d create a massive electricity surge sufficient to stand your hair on end and frizzle your fingertips?
I think there is definitely something here worth persevering with. Watch this space- and look out for this powering up your garden and pond lights anytime soon!
