By Evan Ackerman
Finally, a practical reason to go somewhere on a bike. The OHM Personal Energy Device, designed by Xavier Unwin, is a little generator that siphons power from your bike’s wheels to charge your iPod or cell phone or anything else that can suck down 5 volts. All you have to do is clip some magnets to your spokes, align the charger with the magnets, and start to peddle. The unit’s internal 1200 mAh lithium battery gets charged inductively as the magnets move past it, and depending on how insane serious of a cyclist you are, you’ll be able to charge your cell phone in 45 minutes to an hour. This is a much more effective charge rate than some other portable chargers we’ve tested, with the trade-off being that you have to put work into this one. Consequently, it will certainly slow you down a little bit, but if you’re riding a bike, you can’t be in that much of a hurry anyway, right?
The OHM is currently in the concept stage, but I figured that it’s such a simple and straightforward idea that someone is bound to put it into production sometime soon.
VIA [ Yanko Design ]
