Exercise-powered charger Customers Upset

Backers receiving their exercise-powered charger from it’s successful Kickstarter project are not happy with it’s results. Ampy Move, a wearable battery charger designed to provide power to personal devices from the wearers motion, such as running or jumping, has received almost universal negative feedback on it’s Kickstarter page.

2573 backers pledged $309,323 and an additional $875,000 was raised in venture capital investment. The device costs $100 with an additional $29 for the wearable armband.

So how is it supposed to work? Magnets inside the device are shaken during movement, generating a current that is stored in the battery. Three LED lights indicate how much energy is stored. One hour of working out can produce an hour of smartphone use, five hours on standby mode and 24 hours smartwatch power – or so they claim.

The device also includes a wall charger for when you aren’t up for a workout which users are claiming is the only way they can get any charge at all. Users have held the Ampy Move in their hand while jumping on a trampoline and could not get the device to power.

Company co-founder, Alex Smith, says the device is not for everyone, only those with an active lifestyle. In addition, he says a reason for the low charge rates on phones is because since the Ampy Move’s release phone screens have increased in size, requiring more power. According to Ampy, only a small minority of users are complaining.

Even if that may be, the supporters of the Move still admit that it doesn’t actually produce much energy the way it was intended. However, they say it is a good move in the right direction of sustainable power. “Everything has to start somewhere”, they argue.

To read the full article from BBC, click here