Electronics

Charge your phone using pedal power with the K-TOR Power Box

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Charge music players, phones and other portable devices with your legs
The K-TOR Power Box is a 120V, 20W charger
Charge music players, phones and other portable devices with your legs
The Power Box packs neatly
The Power Box includes a standard two-prong socket for use with any AC adapter
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K-TOR has added a new portable charging device to its lineup. The new Power Box puts your legs to work toward converting kinetic energy to electricity. Use it enough and you might just get your weekly workout. It is quite simply a pedal-powered generator equipped with a dual-pronged outlet so that you can plug in an AC adapter and charge your device directly from your leg power. The box works for devices rated 20W and below, including low-power netbooks, tablets, smartphones, video devices and portable game systems.

The Power Box is designed to be portable, so you can use it at home, at work, on the road and anywhere else that you find yourself. When not in use, it folds up into a cube that you can easily slide into your car or even a backpack. It weighs around 4 lbs. (1.8 kg) and packs down to 4.5 x 4.5 x 8.75 inches (11.4 x 11.4 x 22.2 cm).

While the exercise benefits of a small pedal device may seem negligible, a study done by the British Journal of Sports Medicine. last year indicates that a small pedal machine could counter the negative effects of remaining sedentary in an office environment. Participants in the study pedaled as much as the equivalent of 13.5 miles (21.7 km) per day and burned up to 500 calories.

Like the machine used in that study, the K-TOR device could be used from your desk chair. K-TOR president and founder Kenneth Torino also mentioned that an actual bicycle-mountable version, which would allow cyclists to harness their energy for gadget charging, is in the works.

The K-TOR Power Box will retail for around US$150. K-TOR also offers the smaller, hand-powered Pocket Socket if you want to target your biceps.

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7 comments
Slowburn
If you are going to make something like this it needs to be able to charge your cars battery since you can\'t push start an automatic.
VoiceofReason
Slowburn....this is for charging devices 20W and under. A typical car battery puts out around 500W. You\'ll be pedaling for awhile.
leon.kravets
@VoiceofReason How were they starting/crankong the car in 1920? Every car had a crank handle at the front. Wish we had this as well as battery for emergencies
VoiceofReason
@ Leon. That\'s true, but don\'t get ahead of yourself. Slowburn was taking about charging the actual battery, not turning the crank on an engine to start it. Two completely different circumstances.
Plus it\'s one thing to hand-crank an engine from the early 20th century versus trying to hand crank a modern high compression motor of today. I\'ve owned many older VW\'s and had an old 1300cc that you push it out of the driveway and drop the clutch, it would start. But that was about 6:1 compression not the 10-11:1 compression of today\'s motors.
I\'d love to see a return to the gunpowder cartridges of the day as a backup for starting.
Walt Stawicki
onder how it stabilizes or does it just float about the floor. methinks a handcrank would be more practical, ease of use ...loctions of use (backset of car?at beach?)...all the real world issues a user might encounter...or for feet,if u must, a treadle!!
p.s. my high compression vw had no problem. the honda del sol has even less
and a bike mpuntable version(S)already exisst! a little mkt resch please?
agulesin
This device goes between the bike\'s dynamo (driven by the back wheel) and your USB device: http://www.en.tout-terrain.de/accessories/electric-power-supply/
agulesin
Another for bikes, by nokia: http://www.gizmag.com/nokia-bicycle-charger-kit/15312/