The iPhone charges up pretty quickly, but once you run out of power, there’s not much you can do except stow your phone until you find an outlet, or a batter pack and enough time to juice it up again. This case proposes that you use a crank to manually charge your precious smartphone.
The Gridcase Reactor is an iPhone 5 case that includes a crank to give your iPhone a little extra juice. It’s definitely something interesting, especially if you’re stuck somewhere without any outlets or external batteries. Hand cranks won’t generate huge amounts of power, but it will be enough to get that extra little something to save your work and apps before your phone powers down.
The kit will come with a two-piece case with a built-in micro-generator, a 400 mAh boost battery, and a 500 mA manual generator. The case was launched as a Crowd Supply crowdfunded project, and you can get yours for $99(USD) if you pledge by the beginning of May. The case is expected to launch in October, after which time, it’s expected to retail for $149.
[via TechCrunch]
The Sun & Cloud has a 3MP CMOS sensor and an LED flash in front, an LCD screen and button controls at the back and the solar panel up top. From the looks of it, it seems like the hand crank folds neatly into the camera’s case. The camera can also record video and uses micro SD and micro SDHC cards for storage. Finally, what’s a hipster camera without some filters? The Sun & Cloud’s 15 built-in filters has your bicycle-loving behind covered. Judging from the sample shots below, they range from My Recommended Daily Allowance of Sadness Black & White to The Past Was Brighter Than The Future Washed Out.
It’s basically a crankable backup battery that you can use to charge devices that connect to a charger via USB or microUSB. It might take a while before you can crank enough power to send a text and even longer before you can make a call, but hey, it’s better than nothing.
