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Kinesis K3 powered by sun, wind, and well, electricity
The Kinesis K3 is a handy handheld recharger for your cellphone, MP3 player or portable gadget, juicing it up in the greenest ways possible: solar and wind. Plus, the battery onboard can also be charged the old-fashioned way — by electricity. It has a USB adapter, AC plug and a 12-volt cigarette lighter plug. Why? Well, heading out for an alpine start of a hiking trip, why not charge it up in the car on the way to the trailhead? Certainly more convenient than hanging it out the window, right?
The K3 will be available in June for $100. At 10.5 ounces, it might not be on the list of an ultralight hiker, but for emergencies, or folks who think running out of talk time on their iPhone is a major catastrophe, it's quite handy. It's also waterproof — great for boating trips where weight isn't an issue. Want a purely off-the-grid model? The older Kinesis K2 just uses solar and wind power.
More details after the jump.
The K3's 4,000 mAh battery will recharge a cellphone about five times or an MP3 player over 10 times. One hour of sun or wind power will give you about 30 minutes of cellphone talk time. LEDs on the side indicate how much power is available. I wonder how long it would take to charge my bike's GPS. As long as I'm moving, there should be enough wind to power the K3. Gotta go figure that out — what better way to wrap up Green Week than a wind/solar-powered bike ride?
By MDNomad at 9:42 PM ON 04/24/09
Is this thing water proof? I could see rigging it off the side of a boat and letting the blades spin as you motored around... or if you're camping by a stream placing it somewhere to work overnight.
By rjcampa at 1:33 AM ON 04/25/09
Highly inefficient. $100 in gas/oil will provide thousands of times more energy than this thing will produce in its lifetime. It is a cool gadget, but too situational and inefficient too be considered "Green". I don't think this thing would even capture the amount of energy put in to make it.
By Ken at 11:42 PM ON 04/26/09
This is another good green gadget charger. I wish they will add another feature of kinetics / charge by movement to their next K4! :)
Combine with the solar, wind and kinetic, I'm sure they can shorten the charging time while providing much more power then before! :)
By Quentin at 5:44 PM ON 07/30/09
This product is available now at http://www.greenwindsolar.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=158
on your cellphone!
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Quentin:
This product is available now at htt...More »