Charging Our Devices With Our Clothes

As the world relies more and more on mobile devices, our necessity for new ways to charge batteries gets to be more pressing. That is why inventors today work to create clothing that does more than keeps you warm; it can also charge your gadgets! This was highlighted in a recent
story in Mashable. It discusses a number of different clothing and textile products that double as chargers. We go over a few below.

Rain Boots that Charge Your Phone

A British mobile carrier called Orange partnered with GotWind to build some rain boots that can be used to change phones. They were unveiled at the Glastonbury Music Festival and were just a prototype. They did get mobile users excited and possibly this will be a hint of the technologies to come.

Military Tech

The military is usually coming up with innovative technologies and this holds true for charging technology also. The military is presently using a product created by Intellectual Textiles. It is bits of fabric that are sewn into vests, shirts, and helmets. Essentially, it charges one battery at a time. Then the power from that battery is transferred to whatever device must be charged through the clothing.

The Most Advanced Felt in the World

And if you thought that was cutting-edge, check out Power Felt. Scientists at the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials at Wake Forest University are developing this presently. It is a thermoelectric device that turns body heat into electricity. It’s like something out of a science fiction novel but if they nail this technology down, then we may have an infinite supply of electricity from our clothing for our devices.

Again, much of this feels like something you’d see in a science-fiction movie, but the technology behind power fashion is developing rapidly. It might not be long before that “10 percent battery power” signal will no longer sends us into fits of panic.