iFan: Use the power of the wind to charge your iPhone

Lets face it smart phones are power guzzlers. You have to charge them daily to get any use out of them and when you use them to the max you’ll be lucky to get a half day’s worth on a full charge. That’s completely not on and no wonder there is a lucrative market for aftermarket suppliers to sell all sorts of battery packs for the iPhone and the various other smart phones in the market today.

But what happens when your battery pack runs out juice? There are battery packs with solar panels and there is this — the iFan.

Designed by Tjeerd Veenhoven, a 3D and interior and exterior designer from the Netherlands, the iFan is a prototype iPhone charger that uses the power of the wind to charge up the device.

his one is Tjeerd’s first working prototype using a modified computer fan encased in a soft rubber mould. The designer claims his device takes six hours to get a full charge from the wind — too long by any count.

But not to worry, Tjeerd says that he could probably shorten the time for the iFan to fully charge a an iPhone considerably by tweaking the fan blade design to make it more efficient.

If he can bring the charging time down to 2 hours and somehow include a battery pack into the design, we’re game, but for now the iFan is just a one off concept for all of us to ponder the possibilities of renewable energy sources powering our many gadgets and gizmos.

[source]