Thermoelectric wellies that charge your mobile phone using heat from your feet!

You don't always have an outlet, and, even as sophisticated as many solar chargers have become, you don't always have sunlight or the time to wait for them to give your phone an adequate amount of juice. But (hopefully) you've always got your own two feet, and now, that may be all you need to have a fully charged phone, even during summer camping and festival hopping.

Companies have come up with all sorts of clever, off-the-grid ways to generate power for small electrical devices when away from traditional energy sources, like generators you pedal, crank, or simply lay out in the sun. But these usually require a fair amount of physical fitness, extra time, and good weather to provide any sort of sustained power.

The Orange Power Wellies, (aka boots, for those of you who need the British-to-American English translation) created in collaboration with renewable energy experts GotWind, use a unique ‘power generating sole’ that converts heat from your feet into an electrical current. This ‘welectricity’ can then be used to recharge your mobile phone. Orange, Official Communications Partner for the Glastonbury Festival, will be showcasing the Orange Power Wellies prototype onsite during this year's musical celebration.

How it works: The power collected in the ‘power generating sole’ is collected via a process known as the ‘Seebeck’ effect. Inside the power generating sole there are thermoelectric modules constructed of pairs of p-type and n-type semiconductor materials forming a thermocouple. These thermocouples are connected electrically forming an array of multiple thermocouples (thermopile). They are then sandwiched between two thin ceramic wafers. When the heat from the foot is applied on the top side of the ceramic wafer and cold is applied on the opposite side, from the cold of the ground, electricity is generated.

Dancing, running, or anything else that generates more feet-heat will increase the length of time you can charge your phone. When you're done walking, hiking, or dancing, all you have to do is plug your phone into the power output at the top of the welly and use the energy that has been generated throughout the day to charge your phone.

And the Orange Power Wellies are only the tip of the Orange iceberg. They've produced several other highly innovative alternative sustainable mobile phone charging technologies designed to keep festival go-ers connected with each other, but disconnected from the grid. Previous projects have included the Recharge Pod powered by wind and solar energy, the Dance Charger which drew upon kinetic energy created by dancing, and the Orange Power Pump which uses the energy created from a traditional foot pump and converted it into electricity.

Source: Orange Newsroom