Electromagnetic harvester charges your gadgets with free electricity in the air

You may or may not be aware that we’re surrounded by electromagnetic fields almost all the time as we’re generally near to a variety of electrical devices and machines. Sadly, almost all of this electromagnetic energy goes to waste. But what if there was a way of collecting it and using it?

Bremen-based designer Dennis Siegel asked himself that very question and came up with an a pocket-sized “electromagnetic harvester” which is able to tap into these fields and use them to charge a battery.

The plan is to slurp go-juice from sources such as a photocopiers, coffee makers and, perhaps a little overkill: electrical substations.

The harvester uses coils and high frequency diodes to capture the energy, while an LED indicates the strength of the signal.

The thing is, at the moment, it apparently takes about a day to charge a single AA battery, depending on the signal strength.

Yup, we’ve some way to before we’re all charging our mobiles by waving them at the nearest appliance but at least there’s plans to use that leaky ‘lectricity 🙂