- Image via Wikipedia
Matching the technology of a smart phone with the playlist of Pandora can keep you rocking to your favorite tunes. For as long as your battery lasts, anyway. Even lithium batteries can drain rather quickly, and if you listen for longer than a couple of hours, you may find yourself rocking to no tunes at all. Thankfully, new technology may save you from your conundrum: a (long) walk in the park can charge your battery enough to keep you going.
How does this work? A piezoelectric transducer can be slipped into your shoe to collect the energy you produce from walking. When you walk, the transducer takes the small voltage of electricity generated and saves it in a battery or sends it to your cell phone (depending on how you have set up your system). Although this system is an excellent idea, it is still a far way from prudence. The electricity generated is so small that charging one AA battery can take many miles of walking. Also, harvesting the energy into the cell phone requires an inordinate amount of wiring connecting the transducer in your shoe to the cell phone in your pocket or a bulky five volt converter to plug in your phone to the newly charged battery.
However, for the regular walker with a lengthy route, the piezoelectric transducer may be a good source for charging the cell phone or a battery, if s/he doesn’t mind being attached to the transducer or carrying the converter. For most potential users, though, the piezoelectric transducer is not yet practical. But with the beginnings of the idea in place, it may just be a short time until we can walk our way to freedom from cell phone chargers and battery chargers, all while staying in shape and walking the dog.
