"Power felt" will allow your clothes to get electricity from you and the environment to power your devices

Technology has evolved so much in recent years - smartphones have brought a huge computing power to our pockets but one thing that has remained relatively unchanged throughout those years are batteries. Our handsets now can hardly last a full day and we’re looking for the charger way too often.

But this might change drastically in the near future with the advent of a new technology, thermoelectric fabric. Developed by David Carroll, a nanotechnologist, and his research group at Wake Forest University, this is a type of flexible fabric that produces electricity from heat or movement. Carroll calls is “power felt.”

What makes this technology different is the fact that unlike most materials used in thermodynamics, the power felt is extremely flexible, it’s practically indistinguishable from regular fabric.

And it turn heat from everywhere into electricity that you can use to power up your devices. And by everywhere we mean literally everywhere - from your body, the sun, a camp fire.

Unlike other technologies, it simultaneously draws power from both vibrations and movement so your t-shirt flapping in the wind would also generate electricity.

But what about price? That’s the greatest part of it all. The “power felt” fabric is extremely affordable, practically free so it’d cost somewhere around a dollar to make a smartphone case of it. It’s planned to be worn and gives one milliwatt per square centimeter.

And while might not be a whole lot, it’s definitely a great supplement to conventional batteries, don’t you think?

source: Business Insider