Keeping your smartphone on the air has become an eternal struggle. Apart from carrying your charging cable in your back pocket, you need to think about whether or not you will have access to electricity where ever you might find yourself. Eskom even throws in the difficulty multiplier called Loadshedding.
Now imagine your aren’t going to be anywhere near a wall socket for a few days? What are your options? Lug around multiple power packs and extra batteries (sorry iPhone users, that isn’t an option)? Why not use something more sustainable like converting the energy your camp fire produces into electrical energy that charges your phone!
Sounds crazy right? Introducing the Stower, a take anywhere charging solution. This product has been top of any camper’s wishlist and may just intrigue many a suburbanite on those long Loadshedding evenings. Launched in 2012 by Andy Byrnes and Adam Kell, this contraption charges your phone, go pro, flashlight (whatever has a USB) through your campfire.
The product has also revolutionized the way that emerging market countries access power and charge their phones. Beyond the consumer energy products, Stower is currently partnered with Grupo EBIS in Guatemala to deliver low cost energy to families through a clean stove initiative.
Reporters form The Manual website had an interview with one of the Stower founders. Here is one of the questions he answered. Check out the rest on the site.
Q: “Tell us more about the mobile phone phenomenon in emerging markets.”
A: “Mobile phones are huge in emerging markets, so for this cook stove project, there are over half a million cook stoves being made for this market over the next five years. We are doing a larger program in Ethiopia in the next six months too.
Previously in some areas, there would be a kid in the village who would collect all the phones in a bag and walk to the nearest town to charge people‘s phones. There were places that basically had power strips where kids would be charged 20-40 cents per phone to charge. The kid would wait for several hours for all the phones to charge and then walk back to his village. That is a huge amount of time and money to charge phones. Most people don‘t realize it but it costs about 40 cents a year to charge your phone in America.”
Source: The Manual
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