Charge your mobile phone using heat from your feet

Orange has launched the Orange Power Wellies, an innovative eco mobile phone charging prototype. The Orange Power Wellies, created in collaboration with renewable energy experts GotWind, use a unique ‘power generating sole’ that converts heat from your feet into an electrical current.
Although the system needs to be improved as right now twelve hours of walking will give you enough power to charge a mobile phone for just one hour.
Dave Pain, Managing Director at GotWind said, “GotWind are excited to be working with Orange for a fourth year to create an invaluable charging prototype for festival goers. Wellies are now the staple festival footwear, the Orange Power Wellies not only keep you dry but they also provide a crucial eco electricity source.”
“Orange remain loyal to the green ethos and are committed to researching exciting new energy sources that can be used on site to ensure people can stay in touch with their nearest and dearest. The Orange Power Wellies use clean and renewable energy to create valuable electricity ensuring festival goers can text and phone their mates for the duration of the weekend,” Andrew Pearcey, Head of Sponsorship at Orange UK said.
The Orange Power Wellies are the latest innovation in Orange’s bid to find alternative sustainable and eco friendly mobile phone charging technologies that can be used at the Glastonbury Festival.
Previous projects have included the Recharge Pod powered by wind and solar energy, Dance Charger which drew upon kinetic energy created by dancing and the Orange Power Pump which uses the energy created from a traditional foot pump and converted it into electricity.
The power collected in the ‘power generating sole’ is collected via a process known as the ‘Seebeck’ effect. Inside the power generating sole there are thermoelectric modules constructed of pairs of p-type and n-type semiconductor materials forming a thermocouple.
These thermocouples are connected electrically forming an array of multiple thermocouples (thermopile). They are then sandwiched between two thin ceramic wafers. When the heat from the foot is applied on the top side of the ceramic wafer and cold is applied on the opposite side, from the cold of the ground, electricity is generated. This electricity can then be used to charge the phone.