A few weeks ago the candidates in The Apprentice were tasked with designing a new piece of apparel.  Something trendy yet practical, and with some kind of wearable technology embedded were the instructions.

One of the teams decided to construct a jacket complete with solar panels on the shoulders that would allow wearers to charge their phone whilst it was in the pocket of the jacket.

Undoubtedly being able to charge your phone whilst on the move is a useful feature, especially given the life of a battery these days seems to get shorter and shorter.  The problem was that the jacket looked a bit like something a road worker might wear.

UK based Nifty might be offering a slightly better stab at such functionality.  Rather than having the solar panels so overtly visible as on the shoulder, the Nifty team decided to embed them into somewhere rather more discrete.

Their belt based technology conceals the latest in flexible battery technology that provides you with enough power to charge your phone at least once.  The belt contains a battery inside it, complete with a charging wire magnetically installed on the inside of the belt.

The venture is currently looking for funding via IndieGoGo, with the process due to complete in the next few weeks.  Arguably the most important aspect of the technology is that they look alright, and when funding is complete they hope to expand their range to offer some new styles.

Hydrobee and the bottom of the pyramid

Approaching things from the other end of the pyramid is Hydrobee, who have developed a device that powers all manner of things via a coke can sized device and a USB port.

I spoke with the founder of Hydrobee Burt Hamner in Lausanne at the Global Clean Tech Cluster Alliance where Hydrobee were nominated for the Later Stage Technology Awards in the Water Technology category.  Burt has 25 years of experience in transferring clean technology to developing countries via USAID.  He said a particular inspiration for developing Hydrobee was living next to so many people who had no power whatsoever.

The Sierra Club recently released a report suggesting that the market for these kind of devices is worth around $12 billion.  In addition to powering things like mobile phones, Hamner hopes that Hydrobee will also be used for things such as providing power for LED lighting.

With microfinance supporting the development of this market, he hopes that Hydrobee will be the right solution, at the right time.

They had a failed Kickstarter project last year, but have learned from the process and improved the product in time for a 2nd stab at crowdfunding Hydrobee.  This time they have Warren Evans, former Director of the Environment Department at The World Bank, on board, so they hope to make a better stab at things.

Check out their video below.

Both are quite neat products, although both coming at the issue from different perspectives.  They’ll certainly be ones to follow.