Charging mobile phones by dancing

No sooner did we write about Orange’s wind-powered recharging station at the UK’s Glastonbury Festival, than one of our spotters alerted us to another eco-innovation for charging cellphones—also at Glastonbury, and once again by Orange. This time, Orange has tapped into the energy festival-goers expend dancing and put it to work for powering up mobile phones. The Orange Dance Charge, developed with renewable energy firm Gotwind and currently just in prototype form, weighs just 180 grams and measures 4¼ x 2½ inches—about the same size as a pack of cards and the same weight as a mobile phone. The unit comes encased in a black elastic neoprene strap that gets attached over the wearer’s bicep with Velcro, much the way a runner’s arm-mounted MP3 player does. As users move their arms along with the music, a specially designed system of weights and magnets creates an electrical current that gets stored as charge in a reserve battery. That energy can then be used to recharge a mobile phone. Reportedly, Orange tested the Dance Charge out at Glasto by employing a “Dance Charging Man” at the festival who was on duty to dance (for free) with those in need of some recharging. As we noted before, it’s hard to beat green free love at a summer music festival—but throw in some fancy footwork and an official Dance Charging Man? It doesn’t get better than that! 😉 Spotted by: BusinessGreen via RK