Mobile technology has made many strides in the recent past since they make our lives to be easier. You can’t imagine the world without smartphones, laptops, palmtops, etc. Just to mention a few.
All these gadgets rely on their battery to power them and one of the biggest challenge facing the players in this filed is that that batteries can never have unlimited life so they must be charged once in awhile forcing you to carry the charger whenever you go. Constant charging puts a strain both on your schedules and on the environment.
We are always close to our chargers and power source such that sometimes we just assume that we will be able to charge our mobile gadgets any time we feel like.
A situation may arise that would require you to charge your Smartphone but you are away from power source. For example, when you are on a picnic or on a tour in a remote area you may not be able to charge it unless you carried a solar panel which is very heavy.
A solution to this problem seems to be in the offing. Ever imagined that in the near future you could be able to charge your Smartphone just put putting on your favourite clothing?
Pauline van Dongen, a Dutch fashion designer has come up with an innovation that combines connectivity, environmentalism and fashion.
Through her startup that she has named Wearable Solar, she has already developed a prototype for a solar powered dress that is able to charge various mobile devices.
Pauline van Dongen told TechCrunch’s Antony Ha at a Northside Festival that there were a few different inspirations behind this innovation.
“There are two main reasons for it. One of them is the fact that we highly depend on connectivity. We’re all addicted to our smartphones and we want them constantly powered, and the better our batteries get, the more we’ll use them,” she said
Pauline added that working as a wearable tech designer, she understands the difficulties in integrating the bulky batteries as this won’t allow for any comfort or wearability. So that’s why she thought of a way of coming up with clothes that could power the phones.
Currently, what we have is just a prototype but the real product might be rolled out soon.
Pauline is also considering other improvements. For example, she wants to make the electrical circuit feel and look more like natural textiles and at the same time make the solar cells washable.
The drawback with this design is that it relies on the sun and other sources of light to function. That means in the absence of these sources of light it will not function. Furthermore, it may not work as fast as may be desired in a cloudy weather.
This area will need to be looked into but the idea is really interesting. Apart from reducing the cost of charging your Smartphone, it will also be convenient.
Pauline still has a lot of work to do on this design but when she finally rolls it out on commercial scale it may turn out to be an outstanding innovation
