FlameStower Turns Open Flame into USB Battery Charger

A chill in the night air turns more than a few people's thoughts to bonfires, and though this practice has personal, religious, or even economic significance for many—or even just serving as a convenient and fun way to get rid of excess brush or lawn clippings—the idea that it could be used to charge a smartphone may well have been the stuff of science fiction, until the Kickstarter landed for the FlameStower device, which allows users to harness heat to add juice to a USB device.

FlameStower, part of Stanford's StartX Summer 2013 program, hit Kickstarter with a promise of allowing users to snag heat from most any exposed—but small—flame, providing a maximum output of three watts, though the average output is more around two watts. While this input may sound a bit tiny, FlameStower's makers suggest that each minute a device spends charging with fire can put about two to four minutes' worth of talk time into a smartphone. The FlameStower even comes with adjustable height legs, allowing it to take advantage of several different types of open flame.

The FlameStower works by taking advantage of a difference in temperature, having users expose the device's metal blade to heat. Meanwhile, users also fill a small water reservoir near the device's blade to keep the device somewhat cool during the heating. The resulting differences are used to generate electricity, which flows out from the USB port through the cable into the device in question.

Naturally, FlameStower's first target for this development is the outdoor type who still likes having a smartphone on hand, for emergencies or just for fun, but the FlameStower may well prove a useful tool when it comes to things like power outages as well, whether caused by storm, accident, or similar issue. The FlameStower folds flat when not in use, and should prove an easy carry into most any situation where a backpack would come into play.

The Kickstarter itself, meanwhile, only started Sept. 24, and is out to snag fully $15,000 by Oct. 24. However, the Kickstarter has at last report cleared $11,217, with plenty of time to go, so the success of this Kickstarter is likely to take place.

It's a clever idea, if its usefulness is a bit limited due to its low power output. Still, something like this—especially if it could be scaled up—could be the kind of thing that gets a lot of houses off the grid for good, running power from burning wood. Though this can already be done to some extent—the concept of a wood gasifier has been around for some time and basically offers power from wood—it's not quite this easy, and it's certainly an idea that would prove welcome. Still, the FlameStower is sound enough for its own limited purposes, and may well prove the start of something particularly interesting.