SolePower promises to charge your mobile device by walking

Shawn Knight

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If you needed convincing that we’re headed for a future of wearable tech, look no further. A new Kickstarter campaign looks to take a different approach with regards to charging your wireless device. It’s called SolePower – a power generating shoe insert that promises to capture the energy in a step and convert it to usable electrical energy that is stored in a rechargeable battery. This battery can then be connected to any portable device for a quick recharge on the go.

The company behind the project claims it changes everything because for the first time, people can be constantly mobile without having to worry about their device running out of juice. It isn’t dependent on weather conditions like solar solutions and doesn’t require the user to be stationary like crank flashlights.

SolePower started as a senior design project at Carnegie Mellon University before snowballing into something that has a serious shot at becoming a real product. At present, the goal is to fully charge an iPhone with just 2.5 miles of walking – the average amount of walking a person does in a day. But they need your help to make it a reality.

The campaign is roughly $12,000 away from reaching its $50,000 goal with just nine days left. You’ll need to plop down at least $100 to guarantee you’ll be one of the first to receive a SolePower insole once it ships in December 2014.

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A great idea, but I cant help thinking if it was feasible it would have been done already by one of the big corporations.
 
Judge: You have been charged with "texting and walking". Do you have anything to say for yourself?
Defendant: Your honor, I was charging my phone. If my phone had not been dead, I would not have been walking.
 
Al I have to do is plug my phone in and wait to charge without walking :)
 
Yup. All the ridiculousness of this wearable tech is never ending. I'll leave it to the early adopters of this wearable junk to look silly. Heavens knows we need them otherwise technology would expand at a much slower pace.
 
Yup. All the ridiculousness of this wearable tech is never ending. I'll leave it to the early adopters of this wearable junk to look silly. Heavens knows we need them otherwise technology would expand at a much slower pace.

Nothing ridiculous or strange looking about this one, it's actually a pretty decent idea. For things like camping or hiking trips where power is not easy to get this makes a lot of sense.
 
Just think if you are a jogger and set the charger with the tempo of your music (emulate low batteries in a walkman), you would be able to audibly tell when you start dragging your heals. lol
 
Nothing ridiculous or strange looking about this one, it's actually a pretty decent idea. For things like camping or hiking trips where power is not easy to get this makes a lot of sense.

To be honest this is probably the only bit of wearable tech that makes a bit of sense to me.
 
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